Picasa -Between a Rock and a Hard Place

A rock and a hard place seems to be where we are suppose to be. On the one hand we should be tech cadres, and then our other hand, how should we say it, the hand is just cut off.

Picasa is a case in point. Last year many of us were forced to create alternate email accounts to use Picasa for school related business. Over the summer these alternate accounts and district ones were merged. I was excited when it looked like Picasa would be able to be used for school related business through the Blogger platform.

You have Blogger and Picasa as part of your district account, but Picasa is not functional without the dedicated photo program by the same name. Picasa can be installed via a work order, but it currently is not accessible to all teachers in MMSD.  I would suggest putting in a work order for at least one computer in the LMC having Picasa. An issue that may occur is the assumption of 1 email, 1 account, 1 computer by Google. If it is installed on the hard drive, will it include all users of that computer irregardless of email. In that scenario you would not only have your photos but all those who used Picasa on that computer. I would not want to be the one to write the how to on this.

So, the question is what do you want Picasa for. Google is moving away from it as a stand a lone program  and more as an integrated component of Google Plus. As a Google Plus user the photo integration is wonderful. The editing and photo toys of Google Plus would more than solve the Pisasa problem. But I don't suspect the district is there yet.

In the mean time, Picasa only became available because of its integration into blogger. If its simply a case of fully edited photos being shared in some manner, Blogger could be the solution. In Blogger you can upload photos into a post and they will automatically become a photo album. Be aware that your interaction with Picasa will only through Blogger. It is best to look at it as using Blogger to share photos with families and co-workers.