Week 2: Things 5-7

Welcome to week 2 of 25 Things @ Huddersfield!

5th Thing — Discover Flickr

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 1990s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and it was one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site. To date, over 3 billion images have been uploaded to the Flickr site!

For this Thing, you’ll take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the cool things that people are using Flickr for.

Resources for Week 2

• Flickr-learn more
• Flickr: Popular tags and Interesting / Last 7 days
• Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups)

Using Flickr

Take a good look around Flickr and look for an interesting image that you want to blog about.

It might be a picture of somewhere you’ve gone on holiday or maybe a photograph taken near where you live. Be sure to include either a link to the image or, if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr’s blogging tool to add the image in your post.

When looking at images on Flickr, check to see if the image has a list of tags — these are keywords or labels which help you find images. For example, here are all the images that have been tagged with the word huddersfield.

(Old and New Huddersfield by nualabugeye)

Optional extra

Another option you have for including images in your post is to use the WordPress photo upload tool.

So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you’re interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then why not check out this story on the Wired website.

6th Thing — Upload a photograph to Flickr

Flickr currently has over 3 billion images, so I’m sure they won’t mind if you add a few more!

Create a Free account in Flickr (you will be able to use your Yahoo account, created in Week 1) and use a digital camera or mobile phone to capture a few pictures of something interesting. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “hud25things” and mark it public.

Next, create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, you have two options for doing this: through Flickr’s blogging tool or using the WordPress photo upload feature.

If you don’t have access to a digital camera, then browse through some of the pictures from The Commons, download one of them, and then upload the picture to Flickr. The Commons is a collection of copyright free images from museum and library image archives.

Photo Etiquette

A quick word about photo posting etiquette! When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially children) is it advisable to get the person’s permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren’t taken by you (unless you have the photographer’s consent or the image is in the Public Domain) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog. For further information about UK photography rights, see this blog post which includes a guide written by Linda Macpherson (lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University).

Copyright

Traditional copyright is very restrictive and limits what you can do with someone else’s creation. A number of alternative licensing models have appeared in recent years which allow you to share your photographs more freely.

Read about the Creative Commons (CC) license on their website and on Wikipedia. Use the Advanced Search tool on Flickr to locate a photograph that has been released under a CC license. Think about what benefits a photographer might get from using the CC license.

7th Thing — Mashups

(Mash and Gravy by chotda)

One of the benefits you might have thought of is that using a CC license allows other people to play around with the image and perhaps combine it with other stuff — this is sometimes referred to as a “mashup”.

Like many Web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups that use Flickr images. Here are just a sampling of a few…

• Mappr – allows you to take Flickr images and paste them on a map
• Flickr Color Pickr – lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific colour
• Montagr – create a photo mosaic from photos found on Flickr
• Multicolr Search Lab – find images which match multiple colours
• retrievr – find an image by drawing it!

Discover more mashups, web applications, and Flickr tools.

Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there. Then create a blog post about one that intrigues you.

PS: The “Hudderfield” image was created by Spell with Flickr.

Week 1: Things 1-4

Welcome to week 1 of 25 Things @ Huddersfield!

1st Thing — Read this blog

Watch this short video clip Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us. It illustrates the rapid development of web based communication and information tools and the way they encourage collaboration.

Over the course of the next few months, this blog will highlight a selection of these technologies with exercises to help you become familiar with blogging, RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis, podcasting, online applications, and video and image hosting sites – in total, 25 things.

Each week we will introduce a new set of things, with exercises for you to complete.

You will be allowed one hour of work time each week – discuss with your line manager how best to use this, whether in short bursts or in one go. We hope that you will also spend some of your own time learning about the different things, either at home or at work. If you need help with any activity please contact one of the team (25things@hud.ac.uk) or work with your colleagues.

2nd Thing – Survey

Before you start, we would like you to complete this short survey.

3rd Thing – Set up your blog

You should work at your own pace tracking your progress through a blog where you will be expected to record your thoughts and experiences and add any ideas you may have on how to use these different Web 2.0 tools for yourself or at work. This is your time to experiment, have fun, and learn at the same time.

You can choose to use a screen name if you prefer to keep yourself anonymous. This name will be posted on your blog, but your “real identity” will not be listed. All participants will be linked to the 25 Things @ Huddersfield blog but you will be anonymous if that’s what you choose.

Why blog?

People blog because they want to share with others. They may share their opinions, rants on particular topics, or news from a holiday. They may even have a professional blog where they share views on their work, or they may have a blog all about their pet. When you’re blogging, you can adopt any persona you like. Some people have written from a cat’s perspective.

(keyboard kat by The Flooz)

This programme is based upon blog entries and during its course you’ll need to write on your own blog about each thing you complete. That will let the team track your progress. Will you want to continue blogging after you’ve finished? You may change your ideas on this throughout the course – let us know what you think.

Setting up your blog

Now that you’ve done some exploring around this blog and understand how the programme will work, it’s time to set up your own personal blog. We would also like you to write your very first post where you can introduce yourself, or your persona, or explain what the blog is for.

Remember, your blog is where you will be recording your thoughts and experiences for the 25 Things programme. If you are not sure how much to write, we would suggest at least 100 words each week, but don’t be shy – write as much as you like!

For this exercise ‘Set up your blog’ we are using WordPress, a free online blog hosting service that is extremely easy to use – we use it already in CLS for Grapevine.

Step 1: Go to the WordPress website.

Step 2: Fill in the form – remember, you can use a made up name if you want. Make sure you tick the box about legal flotsam. “Gimme a blog” should be highlighted, so click “Next” and follow the instructions. Make sure you make a note of your username and password and blog address.

Optional extra (A bit on the side…)

When you get your email confirming your blog, you will be able to choose a different theme if you want to personalise your blog’s appearance – just look for the link about themes and search for one you like.

Registering your Blog

Cut and paste the url (address) of the blog YOU have created (this can be found in the address bar on the page from which you are viewing your blog), into an email and send it to us at 25things@hud.ac.uk.

Once you have registered your Blog it will be listed here on the 25 Things @ Huddersfield Blog. The participants’ blog is a good place to gain inspiration and support each other via the comments section in the individual blogs.

Important: Bookmark your blog!

Save your blog to your bookmarks or favourites folder so you can return to it quickly later. You’ll need to add an entry to it for each 25 Things task you complete.

4th Thing – Set up 2 new accounts

To take part in this programme you will need a Yahoo account and a Google Mail account. Some of you may already have these, in which case use them. Otherwise follow these instructions to set up your new accounts…

Yahoo
Click here to go to the Yahoo login page. Click on the “Sign up for Yahoo” link and fill in the form. Make a note of your username and password.

Google Mail
Now create a Google email address which you can use as for any other email, but also when you want to use other Google services such as Google docs. To create an account click here.

So, how was it for you?

For the first post on your own blog, tell us what this first week has been like.

(Retro Keyboard by smileham)

Welcome

We’ll be launching the 25 Things @ Huddersfield on Monday 3rd November — please call back soon!