Thing #11

Wow!! I had not spent anytime on Flickr before this assignment. You could spend an entire day on it and not get bored. I love the map feature. As I have stated before, I teach geography. I love that you can see pictures from a specific place on the map. I really like that the pictures were taken by people who have been there, so you get a much bigger variety of pictures than you usually see. The same pictures of an historic site or area tend to be printed over and over.

The theme I chose was Auschwitz. Not the most uplifting theme but one that never fails to capture the studen'ts interest. The pictures on Flickr were fantastic. I have not had the chance to visit Auschwitz yet, but the images on Flickr make you feel as if you have been there. I saw aspects of the concentration camp that I had not seen before.

Flickr can enhance the social studies classroom. I think that having a large number if images helps the students better understand the concepts taught in a geography class. They can see the different standards of living around the world, festivals and celebrations from around the world as well as historical sites. I am looking forward to bringing so many pictures into my lessons.

Mappr is a great tool for the social studies classroom. Again, it will help students understand the physical and cultural geography of a place. These are things that are often difficult for students to understand. They think that all people live like they do. Having a variety of images from around the world will help them have a better understanding of other people and cultures. And in a world that is getting smaller everyday, it is extremely important that people know and understand different cultures.