As my group created a final presentation on Flipped Learning, and my contribution to the group was heavily written on the website, I decided to create a photoset of images on Flickr with very few words included. This collection of pictures was gathered from the internet under the creative commons license. Although I have used Flickr several times now in the course, I had not created a set of multiple images before, and I wanted to see what I could do with a collection with regards to education.
I attempted to express what flipped learning is like with only these four pictures. I organized the images in this order so that the complete set resembled the flipped learning process outlined by Ramsey Mussallam and presented in the ‘Introduction’ section of our Flipped Learning website. I chose the first image to show students engaging in an inquiry task designed to build curiosity, the second to then show the teacher creating their lecture video, the third to present a student watching the lecture video, and the final image to show students collaboratively working on a creative learning task at school.
This particular form of production allows for teachers to share with students a created set of interconnected images on the internet, a set that is not accompanied with lots of words. Teachers can use this tool to promote discussion, as students can try to figure out the story that the images collectively tell, the similarities/differences between the images in a group, etc. With a few words to guide the students, teachers can use tools like this one to have students engage in some meaningful discussions in class. Teachers can also encourage students to create their own photoset for various purposes by gathering photos that they have taken themselves or those that they have gathered on the internet. Ofcourse, these sets could also be used to complement written or spoken words when embedded in a website or video.
In terms of drawbacks, teachers and students must be mindful of copyright issues when selecting images from the internet. Although there are several images that a teacher could use to create a more meaningful or effective photoset, he/she must avoid using pictures that are protected by the owner. Furthermore, a collection such as mine may appear to be rather random, and can easily be misinterpreted without explanation or sufficient cues. It is important for the creator of the set to be aware of what the intended message and ensure that the pictures can adequately convey the message.
