Google Picasa

Google Picasa 3 is a digital photo sorting and organizing program that is easy to use and easy to down-load to a computer. Picasa is very user friendly and easy to navigate. Once the program is on the computer, it will automatically copy the digital images from the computer's hard drive to the program, creating a replica of the folder with the images inside the folder. Once all of the folders of images are copied to the computer, then you are able to click on a photo. If there is a face in the photo, the program will ask, "Who is in these photos?" You are able to add the name of the person in the photo. The program will scan all of the albums, looking for faces that are similar to the one in the photo you have tagged. The the program searches for images that the program believes is the same person.

The Google Picasa 3 has many great features that are easy to use. The program has other tags that the user can use to tag images. People is a facial recognition tag that identifies people in a photo and links the person's name to all images that contain that person. There is a tag that is linked to Google Maps. An image can be linked to any geographical location. There is also a section where the user can create his or her own tags. Picasa also has a photo editing component that works fairly well. It is not as sophisticated as Adobe, but it works well for an amateur or for someone just starting out editing his images. Picasa 3 will also create albums that can be uploaded to the Internet and shared. There are many possibilities for the program.

I didn't find much that was frustrating other than it would scan and bring into the program images that were not something I wanted in the program. However, they were easy to delete.

Google Picasa 3 would allow even a novice to use the program with ease. I think it would be very student-friendly. The program allows the user to create albums that can be shared thought the Internet. Photo collages also could be created with the program and images could be printed. Picasa 3 could be easily adapted in a digital photo class. Students would be able to take images they have taken and edit them in the program. I can see many other uses in the classroom.

The program could be used by the student to create a collaborative photo essay. Each student could be given a part of the photo essay, and then each student could share his or her images and put them together to form one single product such as a collage or a digital album.

A managerial part that the teacher will need to consider is how to combine the images together when there may be limited computers or computer use. The students would have to use the same computer to do most of the work as I have not figured out if they are able to upload to the same location and if they are able to upload to the same album. The students may have to create the album together on the same computer and then share it through the Internet.