18th August 2006

Flickr users are artists

posted in creativity, digitalstorytelling, web 2.0 |

According to dictionary.com, an “artist” is:

“One, such as a painter, sculptor, or writer, who is able by virtue of imagination and talent or skill to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts” and “A person whose work shows exceptional creative ability or skill.”

Some people consider everyone using the free photo-sharing service Flickr to be artists, apparently. According to an article in Red Herring yesterday:

According to recent comScore and Hitwise reports, Yahoo Photos, which debuted in 2000, ranks first and second, respectively, among the top-used photo-sharing services that include Flickr, which Yahoo acquired last year. But Yahoo spokesperson Kim McIntyre said Yahoo Photos doesn’t compete with Flickr.

“People who use Yahoo Photos are using it to share and make photo gifts with a set group of family and friends,” she said. “People who use Flickr use it as the eyes of the world, and to express themselves artistically. There’s a very, very small segment of people who use both services.”

The idea that using Flickr is not a “mainstream” activity is not earth-shattering, but I think in the educational sphere we want more people knowing about and using Flickr. The Creative Commons search feature of Flickr is particularly valuable, since it not only provides excellent sources for legally reusable images (which can be used in student multimedia projects and reports) but also helps students as well as teachers learn more about Creative Commons licensing and its important uses in education.

It is not a surprise that consumers are interested in sharing their photos with more limited, narrowly defined groups of people. Educators and students, however, should be interested in ways to safely publish their work for a much broader audience. When the audience “includes the world,” not just the classroom teacher, student motivation to write, create, and share ideas can be exponentially greater. This is the power of blogging, and a large part of the instructional power of the read/write web in the classroom.

I agree with Dan Pink, right brained people WILL play a dominant role in shaping our culture, economy, and informational content in the years and decades to come. We should want all our students to be artists! Everyone has a voice, and everyone deserves the opportunity to discover that voice and share it safely and appropriately with others. If this is part of our mission statement as educators, read/write web tools like Flickr can be powerful tools in our pedagogical toolboxes. :-)

Unfortunately, many school districts are blocking access to Flickr and other read/write web tools. I am going to set up a skypecast (open to anyone around the world) for next week in the evening (U.S. time) to discuss these issues. I’ll post a link here when it is setup. Students and teachers not only need access to Flickr and creative resources like this at home, they/we need access to them at school also!

On this day..

This entry was posted on Friday, August 18th, 2006 at 10:25 am and is filed under creativity, digitalstorytelling, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. 1 On August 18th, 2006, David Stone said:

    Wes,
    You said, “When the audience “includes the world,” not just the classroom teacher, student motivation to write, create, and share ideas can be exponentially greater.”
    I could not agree with you more on this topic. I try to convey this to our teachers daily. That is the only reason we use Clustr Maps; to show students they can have a global audience of their “performance”. When I share with students about publishing their work to a global audience…a light comes on, and you can see a shift in student’s perspective on how they approach an assignment. They want it to be interesting, precise, and thorough. And we are just getting started with Web 2.0.