Flickr
COMMENTS
So when you ask admin or IT, what do they tell you to use as an alternative? I always feel that when someone tells you not to do something a certain way, the least they can do is provide an alternative...
Luke: you are absolutely right, many districts block photo resources such as Flickr and Google images. As a result, we miss out on many teachable moments. However, there are times when we need to be careful-I certainly would not use Flickr K-6 and perhaps K-8. As far as the PR goes, I asked a group of juniors and seniors in our schools if we should continue to use Flickr, and they overwhelmingly said yes, even though the saw some things they shouldn't. That's part of the Web. They know it, and deal with it, yet we as educators live in a culture of fear. How many schools have proactively invited parents into the schools to show resources like Flickr, or the Web environment in general? How much parent education has taken place? I agree with you 100% about being careful, and I guess we can add salesman to the many roles we now already have.
There is one difficulty I can see with attempting to use flickr as classroom resource. Many school districts that make use of web filters have flickr and other photo sharing sites blocked as a matter of routine. We will need to do a major PR job convincing them that the potential benefits outweigh the risks in allowing students and teachers access to these sharing resources on the web.