Pic Collage - More than just making posters!

It is usually the first app that schools download when they have purchased iPads in the classroom and usually the most used app if schools only use iPads to a limited degree. I visit many schools that are full of posters made on Pic Collage, visually great but have no real impact on learning. As an app to enhance learning it is still one of the best, only if teachers use some of its lesser known features.

Firstly, using Pic Collage to create posters, eye catching topic covers, persuasive leaflets etc is an engaging activity for children but shouldn't become a regular lesson. Instead look at other ways in which Pic Collage can be used as a tool in Literacy and across the curriculum.

Take for example the frame layout option, where you can add frames arranged in different ways almost resembling a comic strip. This could lead to a variety of different tasks in which children can use the app. Children could create a set of instructions using the camera and then labelling each picture to describe what it shows. Children could also use the frame layout to sequence a story, take pictures of story and re-arrange them in order of which they happened in a particular story. Take this example from a Year 1 class who used Pic Collage to sequence the story of the Gingerbread man:

Children could also use this frame layout to help plan a narrative or plan a recount, using visual pictures that they could have created on Pic Collage.

Another underused tool that Pic Collage provides is the ability to clip photos (double click the picture and select clip photo,) cut around people and objects so that they can be added to other backgrounds and places. This can be an incredibly powerful tool to help teachers develop drama in the classroom as children can create freezeframe pictures of themselves as characters but then add in the background or location to give it more authenticity. These pictures can then be used to create a comic strip or make a plan for a narrative. Take these examples a class of Year 5 children created when making screenshots from their class novel 'Kensuke's Kingdom.'

This can be edited in Pic Collage to create images like these:

Children were able to creatively make screenshots from the book based on their understanding of the setting as well as the characters feelings, facial expressions and body language. Creating pictures like this can also inspire creative writing, children physically being able to see themselves in a particular location or setting. It maybe that they create a picture from history and add themselves to it and write about what it would have been like to be there. They can also clip their face and add it on top of another character to see what they would look like dressed as a tudor or soldier or victorian.

These are just a couple of suggestions of how to take a simple collage app and utilise it to help enhance learning in literacy other other subjects across the curriculum, if you can use Pic Collage to create a poster you can also use it to create these other useful pictures all of which can be saved to the camera roll and used within other apps.