By Ann Kozma
Do you ever use the free sticker packs in the Pic Collage Kids app? I use them all the time! I absolutely love the speech bubbles and arrows in the Pic Collage Kids sticker pack. Recently, I was working with some students in one of our Dual Language Academy classrooms and did a demo lesson on how to use the Book Creator App. I knew the students would love authoring their own books and sharing their Spanish language skills with their family and friends. As I was preparing for my demo lesson, I considered some possibilities for app-smashing and immediately thought of Pic Collage Kids! One of my favorite features in Pic Collage Kids is the free sticker packs. I knew that if we used Pic Collage Kids to create our own custom graphics we could bring those pictures into the Book Creator app, and that all of our writers would end up with their own custom-designed books showcasing and celebrating their developing Spanish language skills.
To start, I showed the students how easy it was to set up new PicCollage page. I like to create in the FREESTYLE version, so we chose that and then selected the BACKGROUND tool to choose our background. Next, we used the STICKERS and chose the Baby Animals sticker pack. Together, we designed a book cover and added some text boxes with our title. After creating our graphics, we saved each of the Pic Collages to the camera roll.
- Step 1 – launch a new Pic Collage project and select the Freestyle template
- Step 2 – select the Background tool
- Step 3 – choose a Background color or design.
- Step 4 – select the Sticker tool
- Step 5 – use the Baby Animals sticker pack and select the sticker(s) you wish to use.
- Step 6 – create custom graphics and use the Doodle tool (optional) to make your own illustrations.
- Step 7 – save your Pic Collage projects to the Camera Roll.
To create the book, we made seven different Pic Collage pages, using the Baby Animals sticker pack and the Doodle Tool. We saved the seven projects to the Camera Roll. Then, in the Book Creator app, we launched the “New Book” option. In Book Creator, you always start by creating a Cover. To do this, we simply added our Pic Collage picture from the camera roll and chose to add a recording of the students reading the title and authors. Next, we added more pages and followed the same steps by adding a picture from the camera roll and putting one picture on each page using the different Pic Collage projects. This is what our pages look like. Please note, the sound/play symbol in each picture indicates the audio that was embedded in the Book Creator app.
If you are new to Book Creator, you need to know that there is a free and a paid version of the app and as of Summer 2017, it is also available on Chrome. You can check out their Getting Started Guide (part of the app download) or visit their website for other information. I created this simple graphic in Pic Collage showing you the easy step by step directions for how to use the Book Creator app.
We ended up making two versions of the animal book. One version is in Spanish and the other version is in English. Please read Mi Libro de Animales and My Animal Book by Kai to see our finished products!
The possibilities are endless when creating with Pic Collage! The free sticker packs provide a wide range of topics, holidays, events, and characters for any writing project. Challenge your students to use their imagination and let them app smash with Pic Collage and Book Creator. You will be amazed at what they come up with!
Ann Kozma is an Innovation and Instructional Support TOSA in Fullerton, CA. She is passionate about education technology and enjoys helping others learn how to integrate tech to transform teaching and learning. Ann is an Apple Distinguished Educator, PicCollage Ambassador, SeeSaw Ambassador, Flipgrid Ambassador and Leading Edge Certified as a Professional Learning Leader. She is a #CUERockstar Lead Learner and believes that we are all #bettertogether. She has 14+ years teaching experience and has spent the past 8 years teaching in and supporting a 1:1 iPad initiative. Ann occasionally blogs at techtravelteach.com and shares #FSDtechtips on Instagram. Connect with her on Twitter, Insta, or catch her #SnapchatEDU stories.
Cool! I luvc writing by the way!
What a fantastic way to introduce technology into your classroom! Your students did a great job!