I teach Spanish and over the last 7 years I have always displayed pictures, either from the web or ones I have taken, in order to reinforce vocabulary being taught. This is sometimes a challenge because I either haven't taken a picture of the vocab word listed or the pictures I find using Google Images aren't very good. With Flickr, one could spend all day and pick and choose the best photos of whatever he or she is looking for. I think Flickr mashup would be fun to make interesting photos for one's blog or Facebook. No matter what picture you choose Flickr and some of the accompanying applications allow the user to put his or her creativity into use. I could see this as being very useful in art classes or for projects needing a collage-type setup. This photo of a matador by Chema Concellon reminds me of a trip to Guanajuato, Mexico. Still, man faces beasts in different forms, computers for example, just another "olé" to add to his belt.
It is well known that a picture is worth a thousand words. This phrase is especially true when you are learning a new language. Most of the time, a picture tells a story just as well as (or even better than) a large amount of descriptive text, and non linguistic representations helps us to remember later on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in the convenience of using Flickr to find the pictures that best fit the meaning of the words we are looking for. On top of that, we have the Creative Commons option, which allows us to avoid using copyrighted material.