The Stories Photos Tell

Walking into my grandfather’s house was like walking through history. The front entry way was lined with old black and white photos from Scotland, World War II, and the little town of Ottawa where he served as Fire Chief. Each photo told a story, an emotional tale that transcends time. My grandfather would weave story upon story during those many moments that I spent studying these photos while other times sitting quietly along side me waiting patiently for my questions.

These moments hold a special place in my heart and why to this day I find photos to be so important to history, to storytelling, to learning, and to understanding.

That is why I continue to get excited about all the images readily available for use in the classroom from Flickr Commons to the Digital Vaults from the National Archives. Tonight, you can add decades of Time Magazine photos as Google and Time have partnered to bring a wealth of photos to all: “Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”

While I would never trade those moments with my grandfather, I wish I had the opportunity to flip through Google and Time’s Photos with him and listen to the stories that mean so much to who we are as people.

[Tags] google, time, flickrcommons, digitalstorytelling [/Tags]

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1. Telling Stories
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3. Google Continues to Build Repertoire
4. Google Earth and English Class? Get out of here!
5. Google Just Keeps Getting Better! What did you do on your Summer break?

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