Sharing Sites for Class

[warren_wilson]

<p>I hate it when technology makes me feel like an idiot. But here it is.</p>

<p>I am teaching an online high school course in digital photography and imaging: great fun, and what a wonderful medium in which to teach high school photography, compared to a classroom.</p>

<p>What I would like to do, however, is create a shared space where we can all contribute and critique — broken out by assignment. For instance, there's one assignment on Manual Exposure, another on fill flash etc. </p>

<p>I have been beating my head against the monitor working with flickr and Picassa, which seem designed for an individual to show his or her own album: not structured around shared albums. Facebook seems a possiblity, but I am shy about doing this with high school students, considering privacy issues.</p>

<p>Any suggestions?</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Have one of your IT-minded students (or someone in your IT department) put up a dedicated LAMP-based site using Drupal. You'll have complete control over galleries, user accounts, commenting, etc. Some assembly required, but worth the effort.</p>

[joshuasigar]

<p>I don't use flickr much, but from what I know, you may want to use the "group" and "tagging" feature. Create a group for your class, and for each assignment, create an album (if there's such a feature), or specify what tag to use.</p>

[User_5888660]

<p>You might try shutterfly. I went on a raft trip this past spring and the tour company had set up a photo sharing page on shutterfly for the group. Only group members could post images of the trip on the site. Access to posting was controlled by e-mail addresses. The company gave shutterfly my address (with my permission), I signed in using my e-mail and a password to add photos. Only e-mail addresses supplied by the company could post new photographs. The site and group can be viewed by anyone, but only group members can post. </p>

[phule]

<p>With flickr, creating a group that is invite-only (so as to keep out non-class members) is pretty quick and painless. Students would create a flickr account, join the group, and post photos to it. Individual groups have their own discussion section.</p>

<p>Students with free flickr accounts would be limited to 200 uploads to their individual account before needing to buy a Pro account for $25/year. </p>

 

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Flickr would be good as the students may also get into some of the other groups there thus broadening their horizons a little.</p>

[warren_wilson]

<p>Thanks for the leads on this, folks.</p>

<p>I'll have to follow up on them. Much appreciated.</p>

<p>Warren</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Wouldn't it work right here on photo.net? Folders can be (semi) hidden if desired.</p>

[warren_wilson]

<p>Thanks, Michael. I'll look into that possiblity right away — the added benefit of introducing them to an excellent set of discussions alone is worth the attempt.</p>

<p>thanks,</p>