Google Photos & Flickr

I do love my photography, especially that of urban scenes or events.

Recently, I was dismayed at the decision by Flickr to charge users for an app that allows for their photo directory on a computer to synchronise and upload photos to their accounts. This took the stress off me in terms of organising photos for uploading as the app scanned the selected folders and only uploaded recently taken photos.

It makes cloud back up of my photos alot more difficult now.

But Google Photos have stepped up to the plate. They have now replaced Picasa as a photo hosting site for Google. You can upload up to 15GB of photos in any size, or unlimited uploads of photos of up to 16 Megapixels. Any higher than 16 megapixels and the image will be resized. While the backup works, it does mean for me a loss of photo size as some photos are 20 megapixels.

Compare that with Flickr which offers a generous 1TB of storage space for each account. Still that is very good. 

I am in the process of backing up 110 000 images from my computer taken over 14 years. This is about 100GB in size. I like the simplicity of the free backup app which gives security, but compressing the images will let me down, especially with photo editing. Also they don't upload by folder, they leave it to you to organise the images into albums. 

But in the classroom, the simplicity of Google Photos will help and the fact its tied to your Google account will make its use easier. But what about if a person finishes school or leaves? What happens then to the images

Module 3 (Web 2.0) - Google Docs

I had never known of the existence of Google Docs before starting this module and wow I was impressed what you can do with it.

I find that it comes most handy in classroom settings for collaborative learning tasks where students have to work in groups. Traditionally, each group member has needed their own computer with an offline version of Microsoft Office or word processing program. If ideas had to be shared emails with attachments had to be sent to each other. Changes could not be made in real time. You had to wait for team members to reply back to your emails with changes.

Now it can be done in real time. The file is uploaded on Google Drive onto the web and modifications can be made by team members using the apps. This allows for learning to occur at all times of the day. If there is an assessment task, group members dont have to meet at once unless to discuss who is doing what and progress. Content can be added or edited at any time. This works around the schedules of each team member. It also allows for accountability because team members can see who is doing what and when. Learning time becomes more productive, however there is that question of what to do should the internet go down and all the work can be accessed only in cyberspace?