When I searched the web for lesson plans using Flickr, I got a bit frustrated. I did find some lessons that looked promising, but I also found a lot of pages that just had Flickr embedded somewhere on the page. I am going to have to find a way to search smarter. During my search, though, I found a few blogs discussing the use of Flickr in the classroom. One of the concerns was the fact that anyone can use Flickr. There are no safeguards in place that protect the children who are trying to use it. I believe this is why my school district has blocked the Flickr website. At the same time, most of the discussion centered around students who were old enough to type in the search function by themselves. I did find some interesting links to Flat Stanley type lessons, but the links would not work. I think a Flat Stanley type lesson or geography based lesson would be wonderful if you could control the kinds of images that the students were able to see.
I decided to post about an idea that I would like to develop for a lesson to use in my classroom instead of one that had already been posted to the Internet. One of the lessons that we do in math concerns symmetry. My idea is to take pictures in Flickr that have been tagged with the word symmetry and decide if they are truly symmetrical. We could discuss how we know something is symmetrical, etc. In order for this to truly work, I would have to find a way of getting the pictures to my class. Since Flickr is blocked by the district, I would have to work around that problem either by bringing in hard copies of the pictures or digital copies.
Someone posted a great idea for geography and several for math. I like your idea of using a different avenue if you can't use Flickr. Maybe even a Wiki of some kind where the students could look at the pics and post in a controlled environment.
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