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Many online locations could be profitably utilized as a significant element in a constructivist learning environment. Our job, as educators, is to think about the affordances in any given artifact. Take another look at the questions listed above that pertain to affordances, and learning environments. Take a look at one (or more) of these sites, and think about the construct of affordances.

What does Flickr enable?

Flickr enables visual snapshots into the world of others. Users can represent their understanding of an idea by tagging it appropriately. Users can search any vocabulary word to view variations of that object/place/person. For artists, photographers, graphic designers etc., Flickr is a place where they can share their thoughts by displaying their creations.

Viewers can engage in discussion or provide feedback about the images. Being married to a painter, I know Flickr can serve as a place of inspiration for creative work. Some Flickr users are motivated to create and upload one picture/painting etc. per day or week because they know that it’ll be seen instantly by their contacts and others. Users can add or invite certain images to groups they create thereby building bigger concepts with individual ideas.

What is educationally significant about how Flickr is designed?

Flickr has privacy settings which benefit teachers who plan to share student work or pictures of students. Flickr warns you that you are leaving their site when clicking on a link. This keeps students away from unwanted content. Flickr’s site is easy to navigate.

Think about how you could use this to support learners. How would you structure a project-based learning activity that would include this site as a major resource?

Students could follow a webquest about pioneers. One section could ask students to search pictures on Flickr and upload them to groups categorized by work, entertainment, food, etc. Students would have to add a comment to describe what is happening in the picture. I would ask them to comment on each other’s photos, perhaps including a modern alternative to what they saw depicted in the picture.

What kind of problem manipulation space could be created that includes this site?

Other problem manipulation sites could be Moodle or a blog. I could ask students to use pictures from Flickr to create a story using digital story telling tools like on CogDogRoo.