Represent with Visuals
Community Review for PicCollage Grid & Photo Editor
My Take
I think this tool is a great option for providing independent practice for not only mathematical concepts but also the study of vocabulary, and the area of ELA. It is easy to use, functional, and has great choices for images, fonts, backgrounds and stickers.
Sometimes, creating and then being able to share the completed projects can be a challenge but this program has options for sharing on several social media sites, emailing, sharing a direct link and saving it to your image gallery.
How I Use It
I used this app with 1st grade students to practice number sense. Students used images to create different ways to represent the number 7. They followed the visual representations with numeric representations. For example:
six pictures of a duck and one picture of a horse. 6+1=7
As the students began to add more and more representations, both visual and numerical, they began to develop a sense of spatial awareness. How large or small to make the visuals and the numerals, became a point of interest and concern for the students. It's always good to see other pieces of the curriculum naturally and authentically blend into an activity.
A challenge for some students was "spelling" for image searches. They were also easily distracted by the number of images available to them in a single search. I found that while working with my second and third groups, it was better to make a generic list of topics for them to search for.