Updating a post from a couple of weeks ago, the Commons section of flickr welcomes yet another big collection from a major museum.
The Smithsonian Institution has posted more than 800 photographs this week, all with no copyright restrictions and all open for comments and tagging.
flickr is making a great case for being an indispensable classroom tool.
But it is still blocked by my district, and I don’t see that changing soon.
I understand your situation, Kimberly. We have schools that try to block all kinds of sites that strike me as odd choices (Google Images? del.icio.us?). When I talk to the principal at those sties I ask them if they plan to do the same for all the alternatives and start listing them. It doesn’t take long for them to realize what a large and moving target they’re dealing with. Of course, some of them would just as soon unplug their classrooms altogether anyway.
Does your district also block Photobucket, Picasa, SmugMug, and the dozens of other photo sharing sites? Maybe the fact that many large educational institutions are using flickr as a means of distributing their materials could be a selling point for the district to unblock it.