Flickr and Dumpr and Smilebox

Photo attribution: photon_de (from Flickr)

• What motivated you to explore the appliction(s) you used?

I tried to create a few different things online, but had some serious issues opening Kerploof and some of the other sites. I’ve tried off of a few devices and different wireless connections, so I’m wondering if it’s a community-based issue (as we often have some limitations on speed/bandwith), and whether that would affect these sites? I settled on using Dumpr as I really like visual representations of learning and enjoy getting my students to use existing content to demonstrate their learning in a variety of areas. I like how it requires students to think outside the box and use a diversity of skills. Unfortunately, my second attempt at this site failed and there were issues with the security certificate, again on multiple sites, so I settled on using Smilebox. I decided on this site because I could see its immediate applications for both social media sites and education

• What have you attempted to achieve in your project?

I’m a big fan of “Top Tens” in general, and I like how they help kids negotiate big topics, (i.e. the top ten things you should know about Ancient Greece, or the top ten study tips). Top tens are a great way to demonstrate your understanding of the “bigger issues” on a topic. This particular top ten is about Thanksgiving, and helps to demonstrate how you could easily use this site in your classroom to encourage students to create attractive coverpages, or lists to demonstrate their knowledge.

• What are the particular affordances (for knowledge mobilization, learning, etc) of the form of production you’ve selected in relation to previous forms of production we’ve considered in this course?

This type of reworking requires a variety of internet and representational skills so asking students to complete this exercise would necessarily demonstrate their abilities in technology. Additionally, this would allow some students the opportunity to share their knowledge in a completely different format, while still allowing for oral or text-based explanations of the work. Another affordance would be that this kind of site would necessitate the discussion around licensing on the internet, as you are altering images for use in your own work. This would provide an example for beginning to teach students about how to ethically use images online, and also about how they choose to share their own work. I see that the work produced on this site also mirrors ancient works where print and images were used together to establish meaning.

• What are the potential drawbacks?

Any program which has prescribed designs that you use I find to be limiting. Trying to fit into a predetermined design can both be useful and detrimental. Also, this particular technology is really only useful within a small type of educational situations.