Compfight, Flickr and the Creative Commons

This past weekend, I've been using Compfight to gather rich Flickr images in preparation for a few unique community learning events. This week, my mind and home communications technology will be humming as I participate in:

1] a recorded technology workshop for artists and musicians;
2] a remote guest speaking engagement with an ICT in-service class; and
3] a meetup with scattered Ontario educators (& other global attendees).

While evenings this week will see me teaching & learning from the comfort of my home; it occurs to me that some of the content may be of interest to weblog readers. For starters, consider how wonderfully, Compfight, Flickr, and the Creative Commons play together:



If you know of other tools that are effective at leveraging the Creative Commons, I'd be grateful for any leads...

14 Tools to Teach about Creative Commons

One of the most powerful, misunderstood and under-utilized tools for teaching 21st century skills, is the Creative Commons. Besides providing access to hundreds of thousands of media works that can be used to augment the creative process, the Creative Commons offers a legitimate way for students to license their own creative works, be they audio, video, text or hybrid products.

2 Creative Commons Toolkits
Creative Commons International Licenses
Creative Commons Content Directory

2 Great Places to Host and License Your Creative Work
Flickr: a place to host and license photo collections
Blip.tv: a place to host and license video productions

2 Video Explanations of The Creative Commons





2 Creative Commons Audio Sources
CC Mixter: audio remix and share resource
Sound Transit: a Global sounds cooperative

2 of My Favourite Open Source Projects
Open Thinking Wiki: Alec Couros'Digital Resources Collection
M.I.T. Open Courseware : free lecture notes, exams and videos from M.I.T.

2 Slideshow Explanations for Education

Creative Commons in our Schools

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: cc copyright)

Open Educational Resources

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: iil08 downes)

2 Creative Commons Social Networks
The Creative Commons Fan Club on Facebook
YouTube Commons Creative

2 Late Additions
A Multimedia Explanation of Creative Commons
Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Creative Commons: What every Educator needs to know

View more documents from Rodd Lucier.

Teaching the Machine: Part I

While educators are aware that they have great responsiblity to teach content and skills to learners of all ages, we are mostly unaware that we are providing reflections of ourselves to 'the machine' each time we use the World Wide Web'.

I first happened upon the phrase "Teaching the Machine" in Michael Wesch's Video: Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us. Just past the half way mark of the video, an article that I'd read many months earlier, is referenced. The Web version of "We are the Web", first published in Wired Magazine in August 2005, remains timely in helping us understanding our role in 'wiring' the neural networks of the World Wide Web:

"...And who will write the software that makes this contraption useful and productive? We will. In fact, we’re already doing it, each of us, every day. When we post and then tag pictures on the community photo album Flickr, we are teaching the Machine to give names to images. The thickening links between caption and picture form a neural net that can learn."

It was earlier this afternoon that I experienced how quickly the machine can learn. In uploading a batch of outdoor auto show photos I'd taken two years ago, I taught the machine by adding appropriate filenames and tags to each of the images. Although time has yet to provide me the liberty to provide more descriptive detail, by zooming in and clicking on a global map, I was also able to plot the location where I'd taken these photographs.

What I didn't realize, is that I also taught the machine by providing metadata that was included in the image files themselves. Flickr now knows the camera I used, and the dates/times the photos were taken. The once amazing ideas shared almost a year ago in the Photosynth Talk at TED, suddenly seem all the more real and personal to me:



Teaching the machine about images, is only part of the role we all play in teaching the machine. In the next few days, I'll be trying a focused thought experiment to consider what we teach it when:

1] we link to ideas;
2] we define words and ideas in Wikipedia;
3] we refine searches in 'Google'; and by following the 'right' link, provide feedback to the machine;
4] we play, then win or lose at games like chess or Texas Hold 'em;
5] we make online purchases;
6] we send and receive text messages, tweets, and email to members of our networks...

When the morning arrives, I'll begin expanding on these ideas via the Teacher 2.0 Podcast.