Adventures in Teaching and Learning

I have asked my good friends on Twitter what Web 2.0 photo tools they recommend, in preparation for a CPD session I’m giving in a week or two on the use of ICT in RE teaching. Here are their (and my) recommendations:

Flickr – I think the number one choice of most. Worth paying for. Which reminds me, I need to pay for the next year. Anyway, I think it’s well worth it. It’s about the only web tool I don’t even hesitate to think about paying for. It’s about £12 a year. I use it constantly, and have about 5000 photos stored there at the moment. I think. (Supported by tweets such as @creativetallis, @davefoord)

Compfight – Strange name, great way to browse Creative Commons Flickr photos.

Flickrstorm – Another way to browse Creative Commons Flickr photos (thanks to @mtechman).

Photo Sharing Web Tools – A whole list of good Web 2.0 tools for photos. (@mtechman)

Gazopa – A way to search for similar looking photos (and, I think, videos). (@mtechman)

Cool Iris – “The fastest way to browse photos and videos”. (@victoriaellis has been going on about this for ages!)

Big Huge Labs tools – A variety of fun things to do with your photos (@victoriaellis)

ImageChef – Customise photos and clip art (thanks to @dominic_mcg).

Tag Galaxy – Visual way of honing in on just the photo you are looking for by gradually being more specific in the tags used (thanks to @dawnhallybone)

It’s amazing how many more photo and image opportunities, tools, applications etc there are now compared with two years ago. There are still many of the sites that I thought were fantastic when I first found them, but I think as I have become busier, and the amount of time I have to spend online has decreased, I have become more particular with which sites I use. It is good to have a reason to find out what I might be missing out on in the wider world of Web 2.0, and it makes a huge difference that I now have Twitter to help get more precise and focused recommendations. It’s also good to see that Flickr continues to be popular!

If I have missed out your favourite photo tool here, please leave a comment and I will update this at some point!

I’ve particularly enjoyed using Comic Life and Photo Booth this evening … but am concerned that I can’t get any sound on crazy talk. All my plans for a talking Jeremy Bentham are going astray!

It’s been fun getting the Mac and getting to fiddle around with a variety of applications. I suppose soon I’ll need to sit down and work out exactly what I want to do as my research. I have three groups in particular that I’m thinking of. For my AS class, I think I will try to create some iMovies for revision purposes. Could be embarrassing though! Ethics is not my strongest area of subject knowledge. Secondly, my Year 7 class has major issues with behaviour … anything that might help to grab their attention away from each other and onto the subject would be great. Finally, my Year 10s … I want to support their exam technique, perhaps using the Digiboards. (Is that what they’re called?)

My other issue is that I can’t connnect to the internet at the moment! I hope I can fix that sooner rather than later … very frustrating to have to swap between two computers all the time eg when using Flickr. Hope I’m not frustrated for too long.