Glogster Edu is a really fun collage tool that allows you to include linked videos, audio and text.  The annual license fee that accompanis the online version and the new app, may turn some educators away. You will have to weigh the benefits.  Thinglink is an alternative with many of the same features except that you select one image as the background and layer additional images and videos on top as information labels. Like Glogster, Thinglink has a FREE individual user version and a premium version that allows teachers to create multiple student accounts. Read about the considerable educator discount here.  Thinglink how-to video from Richard Byrne 

Pic Collage is ap(p)-tly named (no pun intended). This FREE ios and android app creates collages with your images. You can also add text and video and create an informative poster. Save your work to the photo library or send by email. There are some social features of the app, that you will either want to turn off in settings, or you can try their new "kid" version of the app. To turn off the social features and image search, see the sidebar of my handout. 

Respecting and citing the work of others is an important aspect of digital citizenship. However, it seems to still be largely overlooked in our classrooms. It is important for our students to understand copyright, fair use and creative commons. One VERY simple way to cover this is by having students practice finding and citing creative commons images for their projects. 

These are not apps but websites meant for finding and citing copyright-friendly images. Both sites use flickr creative-commons licensed images and "stamp" them with a flickr attribution. I recommend adding a shortcut to either site on your student devices. Images can be used to support student projects.

"With screencasting, it's as if I climb right into my students' brains and get a glimpse of what and how they are thinking about a concept." AD

Original image from Mitchell Norris 

What Can We Learn? 

Take a look at this screencast from a 2nd grader explaining equivalent fractions. What can we learn from the students' pause, erase and redo portion of the screencast?

• Educreations example of 2nd grader explaining equivalent fractions 

I learned of app challenges from Craig Badura's iPad Task Challenges. I tried them out with some of the teachers I work with, and they were a big success. I've created several more and posted them to the right. If you use them, I ask that you please send me a tweet @digichica or contact me by email. See Craig's post to learn more about his idea. I've used my app challenges a little bit differently than Mr. Badura in that I usually bring two challenges of the same "learning genre" and give teachers a choice. Yesterday we were digging into the genre of visual storytelling. I offered teachers the option to create with Haiku Deck or Storehouse. Everyone likes to have the option to choose their learning (something we need to constantly remember in our classrooms). 

The Storehouse app is a visual storytelling tool that can incorporate text, still images and video. Because Storehouse can also import images from your Dropbox or Instagram accounts, this is a great app for teens in middle and high school. I like to think of this app as Storykit for big kids. See my post here on Storykit. The image-driven layout makes any story come to life with ease. Students will have to create an account or use a shared classroom account. 

Completed stories are published to the Storehouse site with a unique URL that updates anytime you edit the story. Students can email you the link to their final story.