How to Create Your Own Photos on the Fly Challenge
Learning Taking Place

The first Photos on the Fly Challenge is complete. Congratulations to our two winners! There were students, parents, teachers, and grandparents included in the entries. I had a great time promoting the event using my social and professional learning networks.
Recently, while scanning through my Professional Learning Network (Twitter), I ran across a request to be a part of a cell phone challenge called Photos on the Fly by Liz Kolb. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to participate, but decided to mentally flag her entry so that I could go back and read further into it. When I remembered, the challenge had already started. I missed out on the opportunity. Soon after, Liz posted the results of the challenge along with directions to replicate the activity. I was so intrigued by the endless possibilities that I decided to create my own. Many of you were part of this challenge. Like what Liz did, I am posting the directions on how to replicate this for your own use. Amazingly enough, all of the web resources are free.
This will work on most cell phones as long as they have a camera and MMS texting capabilities. Standard text messaging applies.

Step 1: Creating your text message distribution list
Visit http://textmarks.com and sign up for a free account…yes free!
Select a Keyword of your choice. I chose Curwiki
Create a message with information about the challenge
Select “automatically subscribe people who text in the keyword”

Step 2: Publish the Keyword
Get the word about your challenge. I created a blog post about the challenge that included how to text in the keyword. You can give it out to your students, post it to your professional learning network (Twitter) or your social network (Facebook, MySpace) etc…

Step 3: Decide on your topic for Picture on the Fly
Remember to include a description along with an address where to send the mobile pictures to. Each message must be under 111 characters in length. Best practice would be to send more than one message following each other. Those participating will receive two short messages as opposed to one long message.

Step 4: Create a Flickr or Picasa Account
Get the Flickr or Picasa mobile address or upload by email. Participants will be able to upload via MMS or email (Similar since both are in the form of an email address)

Step 5: Login to Textmarks
Select Manage
Select Edit
Click on Send Alerts
Put in your information about the challenge (make sure to include your Flicr or Picassa mobile address).
Click on Send
Now all of your subscribers to the challenge will get the text message

Step 6: Set up a Slideshow
You can set up a slideshow on your blog from your Flickr or Picasa account. It can then be viewed as the images come in.
In Flickr, select slideshow
In slideshow mode, select Share in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Click on the Copy to Clipboard link to the embed HTML
Paste into your blog’s HTML editor.
Test your images and make sure to refresh the blog as new images come in.

Step 7: Create a Google Form Survey
You will want to create a way for people to vote on the entries. Using Google Forms is a perfect way to record and keep track of this information.
Create a Google account if you don’t already have one.
Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5CfuRTy1V4

This challenge provides many learning opportunities. It could be a weekly or daily challenge to your students as a homework assignment. Imagine having your students finding pictures that describe a character in a story accompanied by a short description. What a great way for students to contribute, collaborate, and communicate using their technology.
Good Luck and have FUN!