Teach42

Plenty of people have discussed whether Flickr is appropriate for education. There’s no quesiton it’s sexy, and if you have modest needs it’s free. However, it is essentially unmoderated and it’s possible for adventurous students to find images that are clearly not ed-safe.

Instead of dictating policy for his students, he brought them into the conversation. He explored the site with them and then let them discuss the pros and cons of using it in the classroom.

Some highlights:

“This site had more relevant pictures than just a Google Image search. It was much easier to find pictures that would better suit a project. The time that it took to search through the pictures was reduced. The disadvantage of this site is that some of the pictures are Spaceballs or copyrighted making them unuseable for this project.”

“I honestly don’t think that the inappropriate images really matter that much. I mean were all practically adults, and if we can’t handle a few naughty pics, then we shouldn’t be using it. All you have to do is scroll down and you’re good. So despite the inappropriate pics, I think using flicker is still a good resource.” (note, these are high school students)

“Personally, I would rather not come across any inappropriate images if I could control the internet and all that is in it. But when I think about my search for pictures on Google while working on my last digital story this past month, I think I definitely came across a greater number of inappropriate pictures. Maybe not by a lot, but it’s all a matter of what you’re searching for and how people in the internet have stretched that word. It’s hard to avoid so we have to be responsible in dealing with the things we see.”

“The way I see it, it also has a lot to do with WHAT you search for. It’s not like you’re just going to come across an image that you don’t wanna see by searching for blue skies or turtles… So what’s my advice? Be smart with what you search for and for the most part you won;t see anything that you don’t want to.”

I have my own opinions, but I think opening up the conversatoin to the students is a fantastic idea. It helps them to think critically about something that’s going to be a commonplace experience for them on the internet. I don’t care how many filters we use, students are going to encounter material that adults deem inappropriate. It’s our job to teach them how to deal with that. And unfortunately, blocking sites doesn’t quite teach them what the need to know.

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