Google Picasa evaluated by Karey Klemm
Google has an online digital photo application similar to Flickr. It is called Google Picasa. It is a free downloadable program that allows the user to organize and edit their digital photos. As soon as the program is downloaded it automatically uploads all the photos from the user’s computer. The program neatly organizes the photos into albums by date. Once the photos are uploaded the user can share their photos online with anyone for free. There are a few functions that Picasa offers that I really liked. It works in conjunction with Google maps. The user can place their digital photos on a Google map to show where it was taken at. It also has a function to tag people in photos and name who the person is. The other function that I really like is that you can use Picasa offline or online. I like the photo sharing function because it is free way to share photos online with anyone. Other sites like this require a fee to use and share photos. Another function that I found very useful was that you can easily upload photos to your blog or create a movie with your photos and upload it to YouTube.
Google Picasa would be a useful tool in the classroom. Students would need to know how to download photos from a digital camera onto a computer. Students could take pictures on their personal camera and download them to their home computer. Students could then share those online and then at school upload them to the classroom’s Google Picasa page. Students can turn their photos into a movie or collage to create a presentation. All projects that are made on Picasa can easily be shared with anyone by creating a Picasa Web album. This program is very user friendly. I think teachers would need to provide students with a tutorial about all of the different functions of Picasa. Students would easily pick up on how to navigate through the program to create projects with their digital photos.
Google Picasa could be used across the curriculum as a way for students to showcase their learning. It could be used in Science to show the process of an experiment that was done in class. Students could take photos of their work as they complete the experiment and then use Picasa to visually present the results. This program offers a poster making application. This could be used in math for students to visually show data and graphing results. This information could be uploaded to the classroom’s blog and the students could write about what they learned in math about graphing. I think that this program would be really useful for students to create presentations for social studies assignments. Picasa offers Geotag opportunities. Students can add pictures to a map. This could be a powerful when students are learning about communities and map skills.
This application is great way to have students collaborate to create a presentation. I can see Picasa being used at the end of a unit as a culminating project. The teacher could assign students different pieces of the unit to take pictures of to show the learning that occurred in the classroom. At the end the students could bring their photos together to make a collage to display what they have learned.
In order for Picasa to be used in the classroom, the teacher would have to guide the students in creating a list of norms and etiquette for using the program. The students would have to understand the purpose of using the digital camera and the implications that come along with publishing photos on the web. The teacher would also have to have permission from parents to ensure that parents approved of their child’s work or possibly their pictures being displayed on the class blog.
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