Taking and using pictures changed significantly with the advent of digital cameras. They make it much easier to use pictures on your computer since they are already in a digital format. Today we are even taking pictures with a phone. A couple years ago sharing pictures meant either emailing a favorite picture of Junior to the grandparents, or maybe uploading pictures to a personal website if you could figure out how to do that. Sharing pictures has now made that Web 2.0 leap. If emailing a picture to a friend is Web 1.0, what is photo sharing 2.0 style? Again this involves interconnectedness. With several sites available on the Internet you are able to share photos with just your class, or the whole world. Your class may share that unique photo of the chrysalis opening into a butterfly. If you add a tag/label you enable students in other parts of the world to find it view it. Your class could also do a search of photos related to the emergence of butterflies.

Another potential of these photo-sharing platforms is the ability to comment on photos. You or your class can post pictures and invite comments/discussion about them. You may limit who may participate for security reasons, or you may open it to anyone. An RSS feed may also be used to monitor for new comments.

Photo sharing services like Flickr and Zoomr will let you not only store your pictures but search for other pictures based on tags, just like you search for websites in del.icio.us. This is particuluarly helpful when looking for that one picture to make that PowerPoint more impressive and you don't want to go through volumes of Google Images.

Did you know that you could make still pictures interactive? Check this picture out...
Now check it out...when I put my mouse over the picture it shows where the hotspots are where people have annotated notes.

Click here for the original so you can see all of the things you can do with flickr. There are some great links to resources there as well as comments for you to read.

• Students could create a photo field trip of a selected state or country using online pictures.
• The teacher could post a picture, on a blog for instance, and use it as a story starter.
• Pose a weekly problem to solve with pictures added to the problem.
• Students could create a collage with photos and comments.
• Students can add photos to group presentations. (and the list goes on...)