A Picnik with with a little help from an API

Athole recently blogged about the online picture editor Picnik. I had noticed that flickr now incorporates editing with picnik and it is fitted into the up and coming version of pivot PivotX.net the blog software we use at Sandaig.

So I was quite interested in trying it out in school. Unfortunately we cannot use flickr in school and when I tried to upload files at school it did not work. I think this is to do with the protocols allowed in school being http only which stops the flash uploaders from working. We have had problems using other flash based tools.

somewhat despondently I mooched about the picnik site when I spotted the API which of course is the clever stuff that lets flickr and pivot connect to and work with picnik. A quick look convinced me that this would make it possible to work around the flash uploader quite easily. I signed up for an API key and basically copied and pasted an example to make a very simple form.

This form allows my class (or anyone else) to upload a photo to picnik bypassing picnik’s own uploader or to load a image on the web in picnik.

We had a chance to try it out this afternoon, I asked the children to use picnik to add titles and speech bubbles to some of the photos taken on burns day, and they did.

Picnik preformed very well with just a couple of children having problems with the flash interface sticking.
The uploading and editing of the photos was surprisingly quick and the interface was easy for the children to use. The only problems they had was selecting text placed over a shape and I missed the ability to move objects forward and backwards (maybe that is in there somewhere?).

Picnic looks as if it is going to be a useful addition to our ict toolkit, we don’t really have a image editor that can handle layers on the school pcs and i can see how this might be very useful. I am also thinking about how I could use the API for a photo gallery in school.

images images photo photo picnik picnik classroom classroom burns burns