Using iphoto in the classroom

I really enjoyed making my book using iphoto, but it would have been really frustrating if I hadn't had someone to ask my frequent questions. I think it is simple enough to use with third and fourth graders, but I would expose them to it quite a bit before I turned them loose to use it on their own. If I had a projecter in my classroom, I would create books as a class three or four times, making sure I told my students how I was doing things and where I was finding the tools as I did it. I might then let them try it on their own, but I would probably try to do it a few at a time so that I could help them as they have questions.

Bubbleshare, Photobucket, and Flickr

Bubbleshare seemed the most user friendly to me, although it didn't have the option of searching for and using individual images. It would be my site of choice for creating albums or presentations with your own pictures. Flickr looked pretty good. I really liked the feature that allows you to search for images and video based on geographical location. I think that with supervision, it could be very useful for learning about other parts of the world. Photobucket was my least favorite of the three sites we looked at. It seemed to be the least user friendly and had some questionable images come up even when searching seemingly innocent things. It does have a lot of images and video, however, that I might use by downloading them on my own and then using them as a class in a more controlled manner.
I could see myself using bubbleshare personally to create family albums and to keep connected with friends and family that aren't close by.