Shiny New Tools: Flickr and More!

This week I played with lots of online tools for the classroom. One of the sites I explored was Flickr. I'd been on Flickr before, but it was just a way to transport a picture I needed to move. I uploaded pictures this week as well, but I played with some features that were new to me. One was tagging - makes sense, but I hadn't known it was on Flickr. One feature that I really liked was the annotation tool. You can add a note for any part of the photo. Even though I just added one note on each picture, I could see the Flickr pictures ending up as diagrams. Another feature I liked was mapping; it would be fun to go to certain locations and looking at all the photos taken there.

Check out my updated account:
My Flickr Account

I had time to play around with lots of other tools this week. Some were tools I'd already used, and found new uses for. I loved thinking of more ways to use Survey Monkey; it could be used for everything from a school satisfaction survey for parents to a reading habits survey for elementary school kids. I'd also used Google Drive at a school I used to teach at, but now I see so many ways for students to use it as a portal, such as collaborating with other students from home or building a portfolio.

Out of the other sites I looked at,  my favorite was Glogster. Glogster is a great replacement for the poster board, scissors, and glue sticks I've used with my students to show their knowledge on everything from dolphins to Rosa Parks. What's amazing about Glogster is that you can make multimedia posters. Imagine embedding video or audio into those cut-and-paste posters! I definitely want to use this tool as soon as possible. Big Huge Labs also looks great - I especially like the features where kids can make trading cards and magazine covers.

I also really liked video presentation websites like Voki, Animoto, and Jing. It looks so easy to use these tools, and the outcome looks smooth and slick. I look forward to using these sites to create my own presentations for students, and to also use them with students.

I wasn't particularly excited by Dumpr (a photo effects site), BubblUs (mind mapping), Zamzar (a file conversion site), or Doodle (scheduling). They all have their place, but didn't strike me as tools I'd want to use right away.

And last but not least, there's Stumble Upon. Although I can only think of limited uses for the classroom, oh. my. gosh. do I like it for my own use. I love that it brings your articles about your interests, and that they are all mixed together for you to, well, stumble upon. It's installed on my iPad already and I can tell I'll be using it!