This article caught my attention because I absolutely LOVE the Picasa photo program from Google, and was curious as to what ways the author had found to incorporate this program into the classroom. Picasa is sort of like Picnik, but you download it to your computer (for free) and it finds all of the pictures on your hard drive and organizes them into folders. The editing tools are amazing: you can sharpen and soften images, crop photos, create slideshows, add effects, and do countless other things to enhance your pictures.
Price pointed out the capability of the program to create a webpage with your photos, which is something I hadn't realized was possible. I normally upload my albums so that my family and friends can view them through Picasa online, but this article says that it is possible to create a separate webpage with these pictures. I think given what we have learned this week about editing photos and videos and embedding files in web pages, we can easily imagine the potential this feature would have for our language classrooms. Students could create pages that could be viewed and critiqued by their peers, or could collaborate to create a class page together. Price concludes her article with "Warning: if you are at all creative you will find yourself absolutely addicted to this great free program, the sort of ‘tech toy’ that can cause people to stay at their computer for hours, usually with big grins on their faces." I totally agree.
One side note - newer Blu-Ray players have a Picasa application that lets you view any photo albums you have stored on Picasa on your television, which I have used to show larger groups of people my photos. This could come in really handy in a classroom as well, especially if you don't always have access to a projector and need to use the (old-fashioned) television! :)
Very nice! I like your enthusiasm for the product, but more so, it is great to see your ability to find uses for an application that go beyond the original intent of the manufacturer. Clearly the Blue-Ray capabilities is an effort to harness the potential of Picasa albums to show off particular photos in a communal setting. Your suggestion to use this capability in a classroom that may not have a projector system is a good one. Also the shift to the students is a good one. Getting them to construct albums and to manipulate photos in interesting and hopefully culturally significant ways is a great way to use this technology!
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