Flickr Exploration - So Far....

I have only begun to explore Flickr, but here are a few of my discoveries:

1. Uploading photos to Flickr is quick and easy.
2. Flickr is linked to Picnik (a photo editing program) with easy instructions and many editing features including the standard crop, rotate, sharpen, and resize plus effects, frams, stickers, text, seasonal (vampire teeth for Halloween). Most features are available with the free membership, some are limited to "premium" membership. Uploading photos to Picnik takes some time (although that may just be my old laptop).  I can imagine how these tools could be used to create images with text for student projects - or to add to a presentation using Powerpoint, Sliderocket or Prezi.
3. You can choose different privacy levels for your photos.  Most of mine are set to "private" as they are photos from classroom events. You can also choose to share photos with specified "friends".  I haven't tried this yet.
4. You can create sets of photos and then make slide shows based on the set. Flickr will provide url's for linking to or embedding the slide shows. I tried this to add photos of a field trip to my class wiki, but the slide show could not be embedded unless I made it public and the point was to keep the student photos on the wiki which is only available to families within our class. This feature could be really useful for creating student projects and then embedding them on a class wiki or blog.
5. You can explore Flickr's Creative Commons using search terms of your choice to find photos the owners are willing to share.  There are different levels of restrictions within Creative Commons from attribution only, to restrictions on commercial use or changing the images (derivatives). This group is very useful for finding images to add to your blog :)
6. There is another group on Flickr called "The Commmons" (not to be confused with "Creative Commons"). A large number of museums, galleries, archives and libraries from around the world participate in "The Commons" posting photos that have "no known copyright" (photos are too old to have copyright, the institution owns the copyright, or there is not enough provenance to determine copyright) and asking the public to add information or tags. A great resource for social studies projects!
7. You can search for photos (and video!) on specific topics on Flickr.  A Grade 3/4 class at our school is studying the solar system, so I used that search in my explorations.  I found Creative Commons photos (and on the side bar a link to a NASA group) and videos of the solar system. I will share this with the 3/4 class next library session.

Flickr is a vast resource I am only beginning to explore.  How have you used Flickr?  What can you imagine?