Flickr is a steep learning curve for me but I am determined to master it. I've decided to do a little each week until it becomes second nature. The first hurdle was creating a user name and uploading a few pictures. Once I'd got my head around this I decided to group varius pictures into 'sets'. Then I thought I'd send my happy snaps to the INF506 group which was not what I was meant ot do but I was so excited by my small success that it blurred my reading of the course objectives.
Once I discovered that I'd put photos where they weren't supposed to be then I had to remove them. I found the FAQs and 'help' sections of this platform very user friendly and easy to follow and invaluable in discovering how to delete pictures. However my understanding of where the tiny drop boxes and copyright boxes were took some time to master. In many ways the design of Flickr is quite busy but not overwhelmingly so. The links to other pages are still a bit confusing for me but I feel I am slowly getting the hang of this platform.
Once I discovered (from advice given from fellow students) how to do a screen shot, I took several snaps of the steps I went through to delete my pictures. My intention being to upload them straight away but Flickr didn't want to upload them as I'd saved them onto a word document.
I have since discovered Zamzar, a site which changes files from one format to another. I used this to convert my screen shot into a jpeg file. Then I found Flickr was happy to upload the page, and I subsequently added it to the INF506 group.
The other thing I've been doing on Flickr concerns trying to get my head around creative commons and the different licenses on offer. I found a photo I wanted to use for my Island Stories blog but it didn't have a creative commons license. So, trying to be a good digital citizen, I contacted the photographer, which is very easy to do. Just click on their name and a profile pops up. Highlight the profile and a drop box appears beside it. Scroll down the list of options and select 'send Flickr Mail'. Then when the text box appears, type your message asking for permission to use the photo.
I got a response in two days, saying 'sure thing, but please link it back to my photostream.' I wasn't sure how to do this but it ended up being surprisingly simple. With the photo you have permission to use, move the cursor just above the picture to the small menu on the left hand side. Select the 'share' button and find your desired platform. In my case it was blogger. Then a new box appears where you can add some text. Once you post it, the whole thing appears quickly on your blog, just like magic!
I have started to think about what kind of licenses I want my works to have. For the time being I have settled on Attribution-NonCommercial-No deriv's License which seems to be a pretty popular option.
There is still much to learn and I have very few friends on this site. Perhaps that is the next step: trying to connect more with others. But for the moment I am just trying to immerse myself in the land of creative commons so I can guide young learners to this fabulous pool of photographs.
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