Love it.  CoolFlick, that is.  It combines the search power of Flickr with the stunning 3D experience of Cooliris.  To experience Cooliris yourself, I would recommend checking out the Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Year in Pictures.  Now imagine that, linked to the millions of photos uploaded from around the world onto Flickr.

It’s fascinating how social media is facilitating the exchange of visual images… I can’t help but wonder if users are prompted to engage in perspective taking and critical thinking as they share images with an audience (known and unknown, local and distal).

But back to CoolFlick.  One of the drawbacks, as ReadWriteWeb points out, there’s no advanced search – and thus, no way to discern if photos are licensed under Creative Commons.  Ever conscious of copyright issues, I typically find photos for my blog or PowerPoints at stock.xchng or use my own photography.

The photo used in this post, for instance, was taken in Oaxaca, Mexico, last June.  My son Cole and I spent two weeks there at a wonderful language school… and we were inadvertently there on the two year anniversary of protests that turned violent.  I tried to see it through his 8 year old eyes: striking teachers camped for weeks in the Zocalo, banners with the images of Lenin and Marx, and ever-present graffiti.  The images may only stay up for a day or two, before fresh white paint covered them up.

In Oaxaca, the graffiti provided a way for me to (try to) explain complex issues to my son.  Banksy-style images functioned as political expression and public art.  Is it any wonder that in times of political upheaval (even now, here in the States, with our new president) people turn to visual means to express themselves?  Tools like CoolFlick are a way to share their work – and to reach across time, space, and difference.

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