Flickr. Right on! My friends have all been at me to share photos, but I have been reluctant to get on board. I took this assignment as an opportunity to finally download the photos from our annual trip to the cottage in Canada...last August. I used to run out to develop photos as soon as the film was used up, but for some reason the digital photos stay on the camera for months and then the computer for months. We rarely print anything out to put in scrap books or albums. I also took a look at Picasa and SmugMug and I think I like the look and features of SmugMug best. I'm more interested in photo hosting sites and creating online albums with private access for families or friends or groups. This appears to be possible in Flickr, but there seems to be more flexibility for creating “scrapbooky” type albums in some of the other programs.
My interest in blogs and wikis and photo sharing has much to do with a brother, sister-in-law and nephew in Park City Utah and my own little one on the way. It is definitely easy to keep in touch these days with email and digital cameras, but often I receive HUGE files (you know the kind - all you can see is an eyeball and you have to scroll up, down, back and forth to see the photo so eventually you give up and just download the whole thing whether or not you originally intended to simply because you want to see it. But I digress...). I am the most tech savvy person in my immediate family, but I know everyone with internet access would go to a website daily to see the latest photos of the family. I need to make it as easy as possible for them to view our photos as well as add their own. The time is now. I will start with flickr and see where the road leads...
I did create a flickr account and upload a "motivational poster" created through bighugelabs (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/). These mash-up applications have great potential in the classroom as well as in our personal lives. I especially love the idea of trading cards and magazine covers. I'm thinking there must be some kind of connection to be made with the trading cards and book clubs or book reviews or something to that effect. Even trading card bookmarks with favorite faculty members a la the READ posters... My mind races with the possibilities.
