17 Things to Chew On: Things 8 & 9: Photo Sharing, Customizing Blogs

We're halfway through the program! Give yourself a pat on the back and a big high-five for making it this far. You'll now have over two weeks before Things 10 and 11 are posted, so hopefully you can catch up and catch your breath (I know I will- I've been trying to keep at least one step ahead)! I've already been hearing some great things that people have been doing with some of these tools- keep it up and spread the Word! One of the goals for this program is to extend the skills and knowledge of our faculty and staff, so those of us in the program can pass along some of these Web 2.0 tools to our colleagues.

Thing 8: Photo Sharing

You may already have an account with an online photo sharing site, or perhaps you've had friends or family send you a link to their online albums (I subject my nearest and dearest to monthly Shutterfly.com updates). Photo sharing sites have progressed beyond being warehouses for photos, however: many let you edit, crop, organize, share, add comments, tag, create photo groups, and even apply cool effects to individual photos. We're going to be exploring Flickr, which is one of the most innovative photo sites around. You'll be creating a Flickr account, uploading some photos to it, tagging those photos, and then posting a slideshow to your blog (Customizing Blogs is Thing 9). "She's crazy!", you might be saying. But I'm not, trust me. You can do it! I chose this Photo Sharing Thing to occur right before the break so you'll have time to take some pictures you'd like to share with us (and borrow a camera, if necessary). If you don't have access to a digital camera, you can talk to the AV department here and request to borrow one over the break.

Your goal for Thing 8 is to create a Flickr account and upload at least THREE photos, one of which should be a picture of you doing something related to teaching/technology/reading/chewing- something specific to this program, basically. The other 2+ photos can be of anything, but ideally would be taken specifically to share with the group. You should then TAG the photos with keywords and tag at least ONE of the photos with the keyword "17 Things" (to use a two-word tag you have to put the phrase in quotes). Make these photos PUBLIC (you have to check a box making them public), so that we can search for them on Flickr. You should then write a blog post about your experience with Flickr and make sure to include your Flickr name so we can find your pictures.

Here are some resources to get you started:

Flickr Tour
Flickr FAQs
"Classroom" groups on Flickr (school-related photo groups that have been created by teachers)
The App Garden (these are cool apps that Flickr users have created- there's one called FlickrPoet where you paste in the text of a poem, and Flickr pictures are matched to the text- so your poem becomes a poem in photos)
BigHugeLabs (lets you do fun things with your photos like make them into movie posters, photo booth pictures, add comic book captions, etc.)

To complete Thing 8:

Create a Flickr account
Take and upload at least 3 pictures, one of which should have something to do with the 17 Things program
Tag your pictures, and make sure at least one picture is tagged "17 Things"
Make your photos public
Write a blog post about your experience
Post your Flickr account name
Search for and check out other participants' photos on Flickr! My Flickr name is "mrsduelllibrary", and you can see my first few pictures in the "Slideshow" feature on the sidebar of my blog.

Just for fun (optional): Create something fun using one of the Flickr third party applications or mashups and include the results in your photo stream or post into your Thing 8 blog post.

Thing 9: Customizing Blogs

One of my favorite things to do with my blogs is to add little gadgets and widgets to my sidebar, which gives your blog a more personalized feel. Your task for Thing 9 is to customize your blog by adding at least THREE gadgets or widgets to your sidebar. These can be found in the "Layout" tab at the top of your blog editing screen. Just click "Add a Gadget" in the sidebar, and choose a few things from the list of choices. One of the gadgets you choose should be a SLIDESHOW, which will then let you link to your Flickr photostream, displaying a running slideshow of the photos you uploaded in Thing 8. So cool. Other gadgets you can choose to add include a poll, a video, some HTML/JavaScript, a list of your favorite links, or even just some text.

To complete Thing 9: