Flickr is a photo and video sharing website that can be viewed publicly, publicly upon invitation or privately. This website allows users to upload, organize and share photos or videos ("items"). The items can be tagged and titled. A description box allows for additional information to be provided about each photo. Even invitees can submit comments and add to the collection.

My Flickr site has been set up with public access by invitation. An invitation has been sent to Dr. Kruse. For classmates interested in viewing my Flickr site, let me know. For a real classroom lesson, I would have the site set up with private access to be more restrictive. Within settings, I've elected to preview all proposed submissions prior to being added to the site. This censoring option allows me to accept or reject each photo submission, providing control over the photos/images that get on the site. This will prevent inappropriate photos/images being added and will allow me to examine the photos for assessing student learning and understanding before being posted. At the bottom of the blog you will see a page from my Flickr group.

My lesson uses Flickr in a collaborative and creative way for students to learn vocabulary. My Flicker group is called Vocabulary Victors. Within the group, there is a discussion topic labeled Vocab Unit 1. This topic lists 12 vocabulary words the students need to learn. I uploaded photos for two of the vocabulary words to visually illustrate the word's meaning. For example, I added a photo of a mountain to represent the word "Majestic". The photo has the title "Majestic", and within the description box is a sentence using the word. When you pull up the photo, you will see both the word and the sentence with it. The students will replicate this with the other vocabulary words.

The students are paired up and assigned two vocabulary words to find representative photos, upload them into our Flickr group, title them using the vocabulary word and a sentence with that word in the description (photo tag activity). Each pair is also given two other vocabulary words to write only a sentence for using the comment box (sentence contribution activity). This will result in one picture and multiple sentence for each vocabulary word to further assist students with understanding. There are intentionally two vocabulary words assigned within the photo tag activity and sentence contribution activity, so each partner in the pair has an opportunity to do one word in each activity within Flickr. Lastly, the student pairs will create a story using at least seven of the words, of which only of two words can be from the four assigned. However, extra credit will be offered to the pair if they incorporate all the vocabulary words appropriately in their stories. After the stories have been reviewed, feedback provided and incorporated, one party in the pair will read their story to the class.

This vocabulary lesson provides a level of understanding of the student's prior knowledge. I can examine the photo/image selected and the sentences the students wrote to assess whether they accurately or inaccurately depicted a word's meaning. For inaccurate photos/images and related sentences from the photo tag activity, I can reject the submission so it doesn’t appear on the site and work with the pair to improve their understanding of the word. They can then find and use a more representative illustration and/or sentence for the submission. For accurate submissions, it's more difficult to discern whether the students knew the word's meaning previously or learned it in this process. For the sentence contribution activity, I can review the sentences in the comment section for correct usage, delete those sentences that are in error and work with those students who are having difficulty. I will review the draft stories and offer feedback for the students to incorporate prior to finalizing their story. This ongoing assessment helps me understand the comprehension level of the students and make modifications along the way.

Visual representations can make the vocabulary’s meaning more concrete than using written definitions.  Examples can help make connections between words and their meaning, but a picture representing that example can make it more clearly understood. For instance, the word “Majestic” can be defined as large and impressively beautiful. To see an the beautiful Rocky Mountains can make those descriptive words more clear to the student. Bringing physical examples into the classroom may not be practical or feasible; therefore, the use of digital photos/images can provide a visual connection that may not be possible otherwise. This lesson structure also involves collaboration. The students interact and communicate with their pair partner to select the photos/images, write the sentences and create their stories. This vocabulary lesson, incorporating the use of Flickr, meets INTASC 8 and ISTE 1. The students use a variety of methods to learn the vocabulary. The students provide and benefit from visual representations to make connections to a word's meaning. Writing sentences and stories helps them further their contextual knowledge of the words, using the words to communicate ideas and be creative. Collaboration throughout the lesson provides active conversation to strengthen student learning. For the reasons just stated, this lesson also meets student standards 1, 2 and 3.

In terms of Bloom's Taxonomy, this lesson allows the students to demonstrate their knowledge, comprehension and application through the pictures/images they select and the sentences they write.  The students need to interpret and define each word's meaning in order to select a photo that visually represents the meaning. They apply meaning through the sentences they construct.  Student learning is taken to a higher level through the creation of a story that incorporates the vocabulary. The students have to analyze the words and their related meanings and start to brainstorm and outline potential story ideas, critically evaluate the words and respective meanings, decide on the words to use, and create their story. This takes them through analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

There may be implementation struggles with this lesson and with Flickr. The students may or may not have access to computers or other digital devices (i.e. iPad) that can be used to access Flickr or to the devices needed to take or obtain pictures/images for uploading into Flickr.  Those devices may not be available or reliable. The students will be provided with photos to choose from, so it may not be an issue unless they want to add their own photos. The Flickr website could go down. A Flickr account or a guest pass will be needed by students to participate. The school would need to approve the use of Flickr in the classroom.  School leaders and parents may not be familiar with Flickr and need to understand what it is and how it'll be used.  There may be concerns to address with regards to security and privacy issues.  Beyond the equipment, the site and approvals, there may be a struggles implementing this lesson if there is insufficient time for the pairs to work together on the collaborative project. I don't want to lose the benefits of collaboration if time constraints prevent the students from actively engaging with one another throughout the lesson. The students may struggle using Flickr. They may have difficulties uploading photos into our group, selecting photos to use, adding tag and description information, and navigating around the site. They may have difficulty trying to come up with photo ideas to use to illustrate their words.

There are limitations to Flickr. Flickr allows group members to upload pictures/images for the group to use and that group can use a set (a way to bundle pictures/images); however, I am unable to pull a submitted photo from a group member into a set. I mention this because using a set can be more organized and efficient way for managing multiple pictures/images for a vocabulary unit within a class.  A set allows one to filter out photos that are superfluous. Flickr, however, does not allow one to pull submitted pictures into a set; therefore, a full set cannot be created for a single vocabulary unit. To get around this with the free account, one can create a new group with each vocabulary list, which is an inefficient way to aggregate certain photos for a vocabulary unit. Otherwise, a new discussion topic can be used to hold a new list, but the pictures would be mixed in with the first list. Although there are no limits on the number of photos that can be uploaded into Flickr, the free account users are only allowed to see the most recent 200 photos and only 300MB can be uploaded a month. The size limits for photos are up to 15MB and for videos it's two videos a month equal to 150MB each, and Flickr will compress and resize your photos to defined pixel levels for the free accounts. Comments can be made by all parties in a group and they get posted real time, so although I have the ability to delete a comment, it does not need pre-approved like a photo submission. Deletions would occur after-the-fact. The lesson itself has limits. One, not all vocabulary words can be portrayed pictorially so using this same lesson structure may not be feasible with all the vocabulary words.  Two, a photo can create a visual link to that word and help with understanding, but the photo selected may not be the best representation or the only representation for that word. A word may have multiple meanings that one picture cannot convey. Three, although students will add additional sentences to a vocabulary word, the resulting sentences may not provide all of the word's meanings because I've imposed a sentence limit.

There are trade-offs and bias with this lesson. The lesson requires collaboration versus individual work. If one of the partners in the pair does all or most of the work, it may not be as evident as having the students individually work on the lesson. My assessment of the individual partners may be invalid because of the difficulty in discerning the level of understanding for each of the partners. A student may not contribute because they do not want to "share" the grade, or one of the students may want to do it all and take over the project. A bias with this lesson is that it only allows photos and sentences to represent a word's meaning, and no written definitions are permitted.

The article I read in conjunction with this project is called Effective Academic Vocabulary Instruction in the Urban Middle School by Joan G. Kelley, Nonie K. Lesaux, Michael J. Kieffer and S. Elisabeth Faller. This article came from The Reading Teacher, 64(1), pp. 5-14. It can be located online within Cowles Library using the following link:
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.cowles-proxy.drake.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0f276eec-24d9-40db-8738-1236af023f1c%40sessionmgr110&vid=5&hid=102

The article discussed an 18-week vocabulary program study with 6th graders. The study was to determine if the program could be used in mainstream classrooms to improve reading comprehension. There were three guiding principles for vocabulary that were identified and incorporated in this instruction:

use a small number of words with a focus on deep understanding
choose high utility words
use word-learning strategies, including contextual cues and word formation skills

These principles made a lot of sense to me. I agree that too many words at once can make learning them at a deep enough level difficult and that sufficient time is needed to learn them.  Additionally, the kids should be exposed to and use the words in different ways/contexts.  The authors promote this by having teachers and students use the words in conversation within the classroom, through peer conversations, writing assignments and visual aids.  I agree it is important to choose words that will benefit the child academically because of the regular use or need to understand them to function within a school environment. However, the authors later go on to say that academic vocabulary should be enouraged over converational language.  I concur that academic vocabulary is important; however, I also believe conversational language is important for everyday living and we need to prepare our students using both. The two can and should be incorporated into vocabulary units and not one over the other, rather with a balance between the two. The last principle deals with word-learning strategies, and in particular the authors note that morphological skills are important. I support the need to teach students word formation because I believe that base word meanings will help students figure out related words. It gives the students some additional knowledge to help them grapple with new words.  The authors promote base word understanding and then going on to teach students about suffixes and prefixes, explaining how the base word's meaning changes when added. Yes! This too I would employ in the classroom because I see the value in suffix and prefix understanding when figuring out the meaning of new words.

The authors disagree with encouraging the use of a dictionary. They state "research has told us that dictionary definitions are inaccessible to most students." (Marzano, 2004; Scott & Nagy, 1997) and dictionaries have abbreviated definitions which does not meet the need of struggling students who need a lot of examples and explanation. Instead, they recommend having the students listen to and practice using the words in various contexts and grapple with the meaning. I believe hearing and using the words and grappling with the meaning is a good way to facilitate learning vocabulary, but I do think the dictionary has a place in the learning process. To this day, I use it to look up words I don't know or am unsure about their meaning. I think children should be made aware of dictionaries and practice using them as a resource, but the focus in the classroom should be on the learning strategies.  In the lesson described above, I would have initial classroom conversations using the vocabulary words before starting the Fickr portion of the lesson. It would be done to indirectly introduce the words so they have something to start their grappling.

The authors were strong proponents of students writing the words and felt that students do not practice writing enough. They went on to recommend establishing writing routines by incorporting writing in weekly lessons. I believe writing is an invaluable tool for learning.  It makes you organize your thoughts and pull the information together in a coherent way for others to understand. In the process, you are understanding. I'm a firm believer that writing, reading, and doing are key components in the learning process.  Individually they are good but in combination they are great.

Those students who were part of the treatment group in the study had significantly better results than the control group on a multiple choice test. Additionally, student and teacher commentary supported the benefit of this instruction. One student noted that he/she was more comfortable with the word use and understanding after the instruction and was now using them. I think a program incorporating the principles the authors cited makes sense and can be used with all students.