Looking For Some Advice!

Today I am looking for some advice in the google sites and flickr creative commons realms.

Google Sites

This summer I would like to build a resource for my students. I have opted to use google sites since it is free and relatively easy to use, however, I seem to have hit a little wall. I would really like to maintain an on-line book resource "center" for parents and students to use to pick out popular books. I wanted to use shelfari because that is what I am currently using for this blog. When I went to add my shelfari widget, I discovered that adding widgets to a google site is not an easy task. Does anyone out there know how I can go about doing this? I am also open using to other resources with similar capabilities. Shelfari is perfect for me since it gives an image of the book and I work with younger students who respond best to pictures.

Flickr

I would also like my students to write reports about animals, continents, etc., and be able to use real pictures to fully develop their reports. When I looked at the creative commons on flickr, I found great pictures that would be awesome for my students. I understand I can add them to my favorites, but is there any way that I can mass upload them somewhere else? I do not want my students to have access to flickr because it is hard to limit their search options and I do not know what they will stumble across. I also do not feel comfortable sharing my own username and password with them for this purpose. I considered downloading the pictures and then having them pick photos from a pre-existing file, but this seems so work intensive on my part. I feel like there has to be an easier way to go about it! I am open to any suggestions for alternate tools to use in this arena, too! Picture sharing is definitely not my strength, and I want it to be a positive experience for my students!