Saturday, March 2, 2013

Thing # 8

I had a tad bit harder of a time with this blog post then I did some of the others.  Obviously, with history and public policy, all of the galleries and tags (including the National Archives) on Flickr allow the teacher many options for incorporating photos into a history lectures.  The mash-ups was a bit more challenging.  I think the mosaic maker might be nice for an individual or group to use who wanted to do a visual presentation on a particular historic topic (like the history of children in the workforce or Civil Rights).  The Mappr also seemed like there were some good potential applications.  On my thing #6, Historypin, was a cite that used something similar to this to track the location on google maps of where different photos of the March on Washington may have taken place.  Mappi seemed a little more complicated to figure out though, and would probably require a significant investment of time to learn and teach if it were to be used in the classroom.  I ultimately decided to join "Big Huge Labs" and make a jigsaw puzzle of a U.S. map.  I think it's very important to connect geography to the study of history, and students are notoriously bad at map skills.  This would be a fun way for them to get some extra practice.



You ask about our personal feelings concerning sharing photos online.  This is a bit of an issue for me, but I will try to keep my response a brief as possible.  I am extremely grateful to have access to the historical images that allow visualization to take place in what would otherwise seem like a very static lesson; however, I hate the idea of no longer having control over my personal image.  I have never been a huge fan of having my picture made, but knowing that many of those old photos may no longer be collecting dust in someones basement, but actually showing up on facebook accounts, online scrapbooks, or flickr, drives me crazy.  My mother-in-law, just the other day, showed me a picture someone had posted on facebook of my husband when he was a kid at summer camp.  There were several other kids in the photo, and the owner of the picture did not get permission from any of them before posting it online.  This goes on all the time, and maybe it's the control freak in me, but I hate the fact that I have such little control over protecting the privacy of both recent and old photographs of myself and my family.  I decline to be in pictures all the time, to the frustration of my family and friends, but how to maintain a "private" life and identity in such a public world is a legal, moral, personal, philosophical, and intellectual issues I am struggling with.  This is just one more area of our life we will each have to figure out how we are going to handle as Web 2.0 becomes more of a reality in all of our lives.

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