#JJAProject – A Photo A Day in June, July, August

A summer memory from 2013

Summer is coming, and I believe it’s a perfect time to join a photo a day group.

Four years ago Sheri Edwards invited me to join in the 2011 inaugural summer of the #JJAProject–for June, July, August Project. It was started especially for busy teachers who might want to do a picture a day, but can’t commit during the school year. It sounded perfect, and I wholeheartedly jumped in that summer.

Mostly, it was a wonderful way to get to know members of my PLN. When people share their lives through photographs and stories, how can we not get to know them? It was a lovely experience, and I still appreciate the friendships that have developed.

In addition, a photo a day is a great way to archive memories. For instance, I just looked back at at this post from 2011, and I had warm memories of that summer when we painted Maria’s room RED and I went to an NEH Landmarks of American History summer workshop about Abraham Lincoln.

In 2013, I tried it again, and it was another great summer of photos, relationship building, and memory collecting.

I seem to be on a two-year track with #JJAProject, for now I’m ready to do it again this summer.

Would you like to join?

It’s easy! Here’s how you can participate:

  1. Take a picture a day starting June 1.
  2. Choose how you want to share it. Post it on Flickr in the #JJAProject group or share it on Instagram. Create a photo-a-day blog and write about it or simply attach it to a tweet on Twitter.
  3. Tag it and share it with the hashtag #JJAProject.
  4. One more important step is to leave comments on the photos of other participants, deepening friendships and connections with members in your PLN!

Photo a Day for the Summer

You are invited to join educators and others who will take a photo a day for the summer.

Check out the #JJAProject group on Flickr. I like Flickr because conversations ensue and relationships are built. Likewise, in case I get behind in viewing and commenting, I can find all the pictures in one place. Flickr is now free, with a one terabyte limit.  However, if you have another favorite way to share photos, like Instagram or TwitPic, that’s fine too. Just tweet out your pic to tell us about it using the hashtag #JJAProject so we can find it.

Two summers ago, Sheri Edwards told me about this June/July/August Project, and I gave it a try. I even wrote about it back then.

BEST PART: My experience in this group two years ago helped me to learn what a PLN was, as I began to develop online friendships with other educators. 

Today’s picture:
2013-06-01 New Computer

Aerial America Photo Contest

Two weeks ago I received the comment below on this Flickr photograph of a milkweed bug.

I am always pleased when someone notices my photos and asks me to add them to a group, or in this case, submit them to a contest. Of course, I take everything with a grain of salt at first, and then I go out and vet the sources. I have often found them to be genuine and legitimate, as is the case this time!

The Aerial America Photo Contest is in conjunction with Smithsonian Channel’s beautiful Aerial America series. They wanted to also add photos showing what makes America beautiful “from the ground.” I love the photos that are being submitted to the Aerial America Photo Contest Group.

Have you taken pictures in any of the fifty states of the United States? If so, you might want to submit some to this contest.

Here’s how. You still have time to join in! The contest runs until September 30, 2011, and one person can submit ten photos, two each in five categories. Here are the categories directly from Aerial America’s Group page.

  1. Landscapes – Images capturing the beauty of the local landscapes, from sprawling hillsides to city skylines.
  2. The Locals – Images capturing the culture and the flair of the local people within a state.
  3. Architecture – From iconic landmarks to century- old barns, some of America’s crowning achievements are found in the architecture we’ve constructed.
  4. Food – There are few things more telling of a region than its signature dish!
  5. Nature & Animals – Images of everything from native wildlife to beloved pets, from backyard gardens to our country’s great forests.

So far I have uploaded one in the Nature & Animals category and one in The Locals category. Can you tell which is which?

Geo-Tagging
There is one tricky step in uploading the photos to this contest. They must be geo-tagged.

According to the directions:
“*Note: Entries that are not geotagged will not be considered. It is important that your image be geotagged in order to qualify as an entry in this contest.”

If geotagging is new to you, as it was to me, read on for the very simple directions.

Use these three tags on the photo you wish to geotag:

  1. geo:lat=[insert latitude here]
  2. geo:lon=[insert longitude here]
  3. geotagged

To get the coordinates for the formula, use the map on your photo and place the picture in the exact location.

Once the location is saved, look in the lower right hand corner for the coordinates. You may not have noticed them before…

Highlight and copy only the coordinates and insert them into the correct geotags. For instance, the sample photo’s tags will look like this:

  • geo:lat=[39.801760977038]
  • geo:lon=[-89.654810428619]
  • geotagged

That’s about it. Note: The longitude and latitude tags will not show up on the list of tags, but will be in what is called Machine tags.

Finally, you can join the group and add your geotagged contest entries into the group.

Now, in the process of writing this blog post, I just added a third entry, this one submitted to the Architecture category.

I learned to geotag from a Flickr pro with a good sense of humor, Civilized Explorer.
Complete rules for the contest.

Thanks, eltpics!

Updated 26 January 2019

Wow, who would have thought that I would go back to 2011–to one of my first blog posts–and update it today, almost 8 years later?

Yesterday’s ‘assignment’ for the #Blogging28 Challenge was to update an old post, something I had not really tried previously. I looked at a few posts and couldn’t think which to do, so I skipped that day’s work.

Today, when going to leave a comment on Tiziana’s blog (today’s task), her post reminded me about the summer of 2011 when I met people like Sandy Millin, Chiew Pang, and Fiona Mauchline. I went back to this post.

If you read in the comments, you can see the quick answers I received to my questions. Chiew was right; it was easy to join in the #eltpics helpful and welcoming group.

I joined the #eltpics community for a few years, even when I wasn’t an ELT teacher, contributing and benefiting from the amazing pictures shared by others from around the world. Then I changed positions, got too busy, and lost touch. Now, I find myself in a position where I have learned so much more about English language teaching. I’m teaching 50 grade 5 students and one adult learner. I’m also studying for a TESOL certificate. I find I need people and their amazing expertise. Reading Tiziana’s post and reconnecting with this one brought up two new questions for me:

  1. Will the ELTPics account on Flickr be safely archived for future use? The way I think I understand it is the pictures that are shared with Creative Commons licenses–which these are–will not be deleted. I hope that’s true. There are 27,560 photos neatly categorized in albums good for teaching English learners.

  2. As I said, currently I am in a position in my life where I need to  join the #ELT community and make connections. I’m asking the same question I asked in the post below, can anyone help me get started? Whose blogs should I follow? Which hashtags are the best to use on Twitter? Thank you so much for your help!

 Previous Post starts here:
krebssmaller

All these images were taken by @mk_elt and shared on #eltpics.

The more I learn about being part of the 21st century digital world we live in, the more I firmly believe it is about creating, contributing, connecting, collaborating and curating. It is so fun to learn something new and to join with others who are doing and sharing these things, as well.

This morning I learned about a resource that dedicated ELT educators are contributing to the world! Thanks to others who were willing to join the conversation, those of us involved in the June, July and August Project (Twitter hashtag #JJAProject) learned about eltpics today. I had never heard of the eltpics Flickr Photostream for teachers until I saw these tweets come by this morning:

eltpics tweets

Thank you to Sandy and Chiew for telling us about the wonderful photos available for educational use from eltpics.

I created the image at the top of this post with photos in a set called “Things Shaped Like Letters” by eltpics shared on Flickr with a Creative Commons BY-NC-2.0 License. I used Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker to put them all together to spell my name with these lovely organic images. Can you read it?

I’d like to learn how to contribute my own educational photos to the eltpics.

Can anyone help me get started?

June, July, August Project – Photo a Day

I am having so much fun taking a photo a day. When I wake up in the morning, I’m full of wonder about what the day has in store for my camera and me. I have never done anything like this before, so it’s great fun! Another perk in this project: I am learning to use Flickr. What a great program! The slower pace of summer is allowing me to learn all the ins and outs, so I can be a better curator of my photos.

Thanks to a discussion between Paula (@plnaugle), Mary (@scitechyedu) and Barbara (@BarbaraDay), I was able to join other teachers in a mini version of the 365Project. In this shorter challenge, we are taking a picture a day for June, July and August, Twitter hashtag #JJAProject. Read more about it at Welcome to the #JJAProject. It’s not too late to join in the fun. Grab your camera and start today!

Special thanks to Sheri (@grammasheri) for inviting me to participate! And now, before further hyperlink abuse, I will leave you with a few of my first photos! Thanks for viewing!
06-01-11

06-02-11

06-03-11