Sunday, December 28, 2014

Ten Ways to Use Pic Collage in the Classroom

One of my favorite apps to use as of late has been Pic Collage! My own kids use it at home, though not for educational purposes. I have found many fun ways to use it in the classroom. I love it because the students have choice in how they want to create their pic collage and they can show off their creativity. It is super easy for them to save their finished product to their camera roll and then export it from their. They have uploaded their creations to Schoology, Google Drive, Keynote, Explain Everything, etc. You can send your pic to Twitter or send it via email.  There are just a variety of ways to use your pics!

The one thing to caution you about is that there is a social media aspect to the app. I didn't know this right away. When I found this out, I had my students set their accounts to private to avoid any issues.

Below are some of he ways that I have used Pic Collage in the classroom...


10.  Students created pic collages about their Genius Hour topics and embedded them within their presentations. They would add the image to a keynote or website to showcase their topic. These were a great way for the students to show off their creativity and what they learned about their topic. 

9. A new twist on the old "genre poster." When studying genres, each student was given a genre to research with a partner. They added photos of different texts that matched their genre and added some text that explained their genre to create a genre poster. We then uploaded each genre poster to Schoology so that everyone could access them.  


8. During our read aloud of "Rump-The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin" the students created a settings poster. They added photos of the different settings from the story and labeled them with the text feature on Pic Collage. The students came up with beautiful setting posters for our read aloud. 


7. At the end of the month, students can create a pic collage of the books that they read that month. They could do this at the end of a grading period or even at the end of the year. They could then be saved to their camera roll and then uploaded to their Google Drive portfolio. 



6. Sequencing events in a story! Students can sequence the events in a story by adding pics to show the most important events from a story. They can then add transition words to show how the plot progressed over time. Students could then write a summary about the text that matches their Pic Collage. 

5. #piccollage Another way that we have used Pic Collage is to simply use it as a way to post on Twitter. I recently introduced #5BookFriday in my classroom after reading about it on a blog.  On Fridays, I introduce 5 books to my students and get some excitement going around the 5 titles. I then take a picture of the books or the students with the books and create a Pic Collage to post on Twitter or in my weekly newsletter. 




4. Poetry! Students created poems about our African Dwarf Frog...Squirt... that lived a short life. They wrote odes to Squirt and some students chose to create their poem on Pic Collage. Here is a little sample...they were cute!




3. One of the choices for word study is for students to take their word study words, type them into Pic Collage, and then add pictures that illustrate the words. Students love all of the choices that go along with Pic Collage and they do not even realize that they are studying their word study words because they are having so much fun creating their collages. 


2. Another way to use Pic Collage is to have students find examples of figurative language in their books and create a collage about onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. They can then share out their examples with other students in the class and students can check to see if they identified the figurative language correctly. They can save it to their camera roll and then email me the pic that I can easily assess. 


1. Nonfiction Text Feature Posters! Students can find examples of nonfiction text features in books, take a picture of it on their iPad, and create a nonfiction text feature pic collage. They can add text to identify each feature. A great twist on our nonfiction text feature book! 


The possibilities are endless and FUN! 

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