Pic Collage (free), is one of my favorite apps to use on my iPad. It creates great looking Scrapbook pages of multiple images in no time.
Today, as I was planning with our first grade Hebrew teacher, how to upgrade a traditionally taught vocabulary project (creating a dictionary of their weekly vocabulary words in Hebrew), we saw the opportunity to use PicCollage with students in the classroom.
(My apologies in advance for the example below is in Spanish and not in Hebrew)
Reminder: The idea of a visual dictionary should/is not be confined to the World Language classroom. Think math terms, science vocabulary, library term glossary, Language Arts vocabulary lists, etc.
The ideas was for the students to take photos, email photos from home or find photos online to represent their weekly Hebrew vocabulary words. Once the images are on the iPad, tap on the blank canvas and choose “Photos From Library” to import photos into PicCollage.
Double tapping on the image, will bring the Photo editing menu, choose “Clip Photo” to clip the object out of the background.
Just use your finger to draw around the outer edges of your object.
Tapping again on the canvas, students can choose a background or search for a background that will contrast the images, the text and their colors.
Tapping again on a blank area of the canvas, students can now enter text and choose text options, such as font, color, outline and alignment of the text.
Once the text is placed on the canvas, simply drag and drop the text into its location. Pinching horizontally with two fingers will adjust the size of the text entered. Using two fingers will rotate the image in any direction you choose.
After students have created their page/poster of the given vocabulary words, they will save the new image to the iPad’s Photo Album. We are planning to add a New Album, named for example “Elad’s Dictionary”. Each week “Elad” will be saving his vocabulary image and moving it into his dictionary folder.
We are also contemplating creating an ebook with all the individual pages created throughout the year. Possibilities are Little Story Maker or TinyTap, both capable to add voice recordings to specific areas of the page, making it possible for students to record the pronunciation of the vocabulary words.
We are looking for tips to even dig deeper with this “Visual Dictionary”. Do you have any ideas? Tips? Experiences in doing something similar with your students? Please share…
You can take a screen shot of your page of vocabulary words made on pic collage. Next, use the stories about me app and import the screenshots from your camera roll. In stories about me app you can add the audio. You now have a talking dictionary in the form of a story book. The app has easy share to Dropbox! I read this, then thought about the stories about me app and tried it. I will definitely use this in my elementary Spanish classes!
You can save the image from PicCollage directly in your Photoalbum…that will eliminate the editing of the image in case you grabbed the wifi, clock and battery settings during the screenshot.
Thank you for the tip with Stories About Me app.
Thanks! I’m just playing around with the apps and ideas… So many things to learn. That will be much easier!
Love this app. Would love to have a set of iPads at my school. Dream it in!
Have the idea of using this app to create “math procedure” collages. Students capture their steps with different photos, and then make a final presentation display. Not an every day activity, but one of the options from their standards-based project list where they complete a project for each standard (29 total).
Dan
LOVE the new updates on the app! Another similar one: ScrapPad. It has different free versions.
This even worked well with more abstract vocabulary such as ambivalent and aversion. Students took photos in the classroom to demonstrate their understanding and created a class vocab page. Thanks for the great idea.