Playing with Picnik

 Today I have been looking at the group 2 learning tools.  It takes time, not so much the physical downloading of photos but I am easily distracted looking through the photos on flickr - there are some awesome photos out there, I feel like I want to hit the road and travel again.  This is infact the amazing thing about images and the web, from the classroom students can be taken on tour around the globe: photos / artfacts / maps teaching is from the classroom onto the real world platform.  I am initially confused about copyright issues and found it best to select creative commons in my search.

I played with Picnik and can see this is a fun tool that would amuse students and also learn about photography and terminology.  Images create new interesting teaching opportunities and the teacher needs to develop within her students skills of visual literacy, to look beyond the picture and discover the story of what it represents generating opportunity to develop higher thinking skills.

 

Using children's images need the permission of their parents and they should never be identified online.  Websites can be used to upload children's artwork, stories and images and given a protected password so that viewing is limited. 

Photos used with permission 

Picnik: http://www.picnik.com/app#/home/welcome
Visual Literacy:  http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/675