Thing 6: Flickr API--Montager

I had fun dreaming up tags ("keywords" in library land) to see what I'd get for montage images. A few of my tags were adjectives like deadly and devious (this from the website, deviousgelatin, that does Montager); my name, my husband's; units that classes are studying (ancient china, ancient rome). You name it, there's a tag and an image. 

I tried tags with and without the terms enclosed by quotes--doesn't seem to matter. I also clicked on specific thumbnail images (the "tiles," or mosaics, of the montage) to get the context of the tag. Seeing an image's other tags and its maker, and comments about it, provided some background on the image.

Of course, a really fun thing is to run the mouse across the tiles of the montage, right to left, so that each thumbnail enlarges in turn, then diminishes as the mouse moves on to the next thumbnail. I discovered this the first time I was on Montager. Its default tag is faces. I run my mouse across the tiles, enlarging each as I go. Faces jump into view. It is an animation. All kinds of human and dog faces. Most are photographs, some are drawn. 

Another feature of Montager is that the montage created by all the tiles is in the configuration and colors of the top left image. It's like a Chuck Close portrait!

How could I use this for kids?

Thing 5: Flickr photo

Belize read-aloud, originally uploaded by l2hamville.

Blogging this photo is a real victory. I have struggled through a number of steps in the Flickr assignments (Things 5, 6, and 7) for a variety of technical reasons, but at last have been successful.

I am in love with this photo--the colors, the composition, and the story behind it. My colleagues who visited this village in Belize had an amazing experience getting to know the residents and teaching the kids. They were there for about 2 weeks last summer. Notice the impromptu "classroom--" the chairs are actually school desks/ I like the 3 girls sharing 2 chairs. They are best buddies. Also notice the rapt attention, as they listen to the story being read. How could a librarian not love this picture?

Another "backstory:" In seeking permission to use the image, I had to make several inquiries among colleagues to discover who the photographer was. Photo by R. Hammer.

Mario building a stone wall

This is a project that was started 3 years ago and has been on hold since. We are finally getting back to it. The goal is to build a retaining wall for our garage, which was built into the hill. Like the other stone walls we've built on our property, it is a dry wall, built entirely by hand.

Thing 5: Flickr and more gremlins.

After a long hiatus to get taxes done and dealing with the dreaded financial aid forms for another year of college for 2 kids (and one transfering, making the process more painful and protracted than ever), I am back to SLL2.0 and picking up where I left off, which was looking around Flickr.

Thing 5
More gremlins. After I created an account in Flickr, I tried to download a public Flickr photo (via the button that says Blog it, directly above the photo) to put on my blog, and got an error message. This after, for at least the 3rd time, Google tells me it doesn’t recognize my password (a tangential problem that I will ignore, if I can continue to get onto my blog without going via Google); this, after carefully reviewing the steps I needed to take (having never done it) to download a flickr photo, using blog help and flickr help, and reading all about public versus private, restricted photos. So I do some troubleshooting to find out why I’m getting this error message, and lo and behold, others have had the same thing happen. And there seems to be no fix. Great. Just my luck.

So, instead, here's a photo, called Woman Reading and my commentary, lame as it is.

So many interesting images! I am quickly in image-overload mode when I am in Flickr. But this one, my somewhat arbitrary choice, is a good one for a bibliophile like myself. To echo one viewer's comment, there’s so much to look at in the photo. I like to imagine that the fleeting, sketchy figure is a character she's reading about.

I had fun utilizing tags, searching Flickr for other photos like it. My search strings were "woman reading" and "woman reading window;" a ready demonstration of how powerful the tags are.