BP8_Photobabble

Web 2.0 never ceases to amaze me—I’ve just found photobabble, a talking photograph site! At first I laughed and quickly passed it by, noting that it seemed to be consumed with baby photos where the parents thought it would be funny to give their child the voice they think he or she might have, if they could only speak. But then I began to think about ways in which this site might be useful in my digital photography classroom.  My concern is that I never want to fully replace the class time critique we currently have with all of these web 2.0 tools that can be utilized in a more online discussion.  I love the fact that, in class, students respond to each other face to face and discuss in person what is working well or what may need improvement. I truly feel that this is the most valuable aspect of the class. However, I was looking at photobabble and imagining that students could record some very pertinent information in their babble, such as the image’s location and exposure settings. This would give other students the information that helps to better understand the lighting and would save the deeper discussions on composition, inspiration, etc for class time to generate a richer discussion and related topics. 

One of the biggest reasons I chose this tool is for just plain fun and a way to increase the social interaction among classmates. How great it will be to see how creative students will be as they decide what their images will say.  Will they disguise their voices and try to be funny or be more concerned with mentioning the non-visual aspects of the scene they photographed—talk about using MI theory to bring out their natural personalities!  Here's a link to the site to find out more information.

www.photobabble.com