Week 3, Thing 6: Mashups

In my previous post, I raved about the geo-tagging possibles of flickr.  As I stated before, this is a great tool for teachers and students who are trying to connect pictures to places and concepts of importance.  Today I looked at some of the production mashups like the motivational posters, the trading cards, and the desktop maker.

I could really see the value of using the poster maker with students.  This would be a motivating way for middle school students to practice summarizing.  Because the poster can only support three lines of text, students would get great practice with efficient word choice and summarizing.  With my posters, I started with a motivational phrase. I liked it, but I soon realized that I could name the location in the title, and then give a brief description below.  I liked this better! Not only could I show this to students but also have them practice making similar products.  Also, this could be used for book or library promotion. Imagine a book talk with posters to leave with students as a reminder the next time they visit the library.  The product is clean and simple, but could really add some punch to the promotional materials we are already creating. I also like the feature that you don't have to have uploaded pictures to flickr to use the tool.  You can easily upload pictures from your computer or elsewhere on the web.  This is a great tool with lots of possible applications.