Siftr is an online platform and accompanying smartphone ‘app’ that allows groups of people to collect photographs ‘in the field’ and have those photos geo-located on a map. Developed by Field Day Lab at the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research at the University of Wisconsin Madison, Siftr is a freely available data collection and visualization platform that allows users to upload, caption and geo-tag images and field observations. Uploaded information can be viewed and accessed as icons on a map or in a photo gallery.
Why Use Siftr?
- Siftr fills a specific need that few other tools replicate. Students can use their mobile phones to gather images ‘in the field’, to have those images plotted on a map, and to leave comments on each other’s photos.
- Siftr not only acts as a repository of images collected by students, but also provides a geographic visualization of the collection.
How to Add Siftr to Your Course
Siftr is both a website and an accompanying smartphone ‘app’ for iOS and Android. A direct link to a Siftr map can be added to a course site in Blackboard or Canvas.
Additional Resources:
Field Day Courses: Introduction to Siftr – Field Day Lab
A Quickstart Guide to Siftr, McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning
