Create-your-own 4 Pics 1 Word (Voacb Review) Game with Pic Collage

...This activity is just a clever ruse to learn new vocabulary words.  

This year we’ve got the iPads on lock down aka they’re hooked to The Configurator aka WE choose the apps--so we’ve put on a limited number of educational games for the students to play. Whenever a kid gets downtime I see them playing the game ‘4 Pics 1 Word’.  They love it!  I’d go as far as saying that, for our students, playing ‘4 Pics 1 Word’ borders on obsession.

Imagine my excitement when one of our math teachers told us about an activity that she had created - 4 Pics 1 Word Vocab Review Game.  Brilliant!  She showed me the examples that she had created (see below) and her kids loved reviewing their vocabulary this way.  They worked collaboratively, as a class, to guess the words that went with the pictures that she projected on the whiteboard.

I thought about taking this game and turning it into a creation activity for students.  Having students find their own pics, to describe the new words that they’ve learned, increases the critical thinking that they’re doing about them.  This is going to help them increase their understanding of, and remember their meanings, better.  I knew this activity would fit well with Pic Collage, which is a fabulous app that our students love using in class.   I asked a few of our iPad Geniuses if they were interested in creating some of these Pic Collage-s, to review some of the vocabulary that they had recently learned in class, and they were psyched to do it! (See their examples below.)

If you’d like to increase the critical thinking even more, have students explain why they chose the pictures that they did. For example, for the Life Science vocab word ‘Nucleus’ below, “The nucleus is the boss of the cell so I chose a picture of Michael Scott, the boss on ‘The Office’” and “The nucleus is the control center and so I chose a picture of the control center in iOS7.”  Or, have students explain why they guessed the answers that they did.  Have them explain what they think the pictures are representing.  

(Balance)

(Slope)

(Y-intercept)

(Collaborate)

(Nucleus)

Haiku Deck Awesomeness

Haiku Deck sent an email late last week telling me about how first, I was on the leading edge of awesome simply by using their app--thank you!--and second, that it’s possible to be thatmuchmoreawesome by utilizing their new notes feature. (Side note - if you’re NOT using Haiku Deck in your class let me put a plug in right now.  It’s a fantastic presentation app that functions like a PowerPoint on your iPad.  Right now PP or it’s more leading-edge cousin, Google Presentation, isn’t available on our devices and Haiku Deck is a great substitution.  The graphics are stunning--and plentiful--and it’s easy to share.  Students simply send me a link to their creation when they’re finished.)

Up until this point, the amount of words that you can include on each slide is limited.  This can be both positive and negative.  Similar to Twitter, limiting the characters forces the students to be concise and to the point.  Unfortunately, if you wanted further explanation about the slide they often did not have the room.  I saw an English class use Haiku Deck for a vocabulary assignment.  It was such a fabulous idea!  Students chose pictures, that to them, represented the new vocabulary word.  Think how these students would be thatmuchmoreawesome if they were allowed to explain the reasoning behind each photo and embed it into the presentation!

Utilizing the notes feature is simple.  

1.  Have the student email themselves the link to the presentation after they’ve added all of the pictures and titled the slides.

2.  Open the link, from their email, in Safari & sign in to their Haiku Deck account.





3.  Add additional notes to the slide(s).

 

Pinterest Possibilities with Vocabulary

Provide an authentic and engaging project for your students while tapping into their critical thinking skills!

By having students create their own Pinterest board (think of it as a visual bookmarking site) to show their knowledge of new vocabulary words, they employ critical thinking skills while collaborating with others.

Here's a Pinterest board that I created for an upcoming vocabulary unit in English 7.  Here’s another one I created for a Spanish I class.  I signed up for a work account using my school email.  I also used the Pinterest App on my iPad--it's seamless!* Quick disclaimer- I currently teach in a 1:1 environment with iPads so their use is incorporated into many of my lessons.

Create - After creating a board you can pin pictures directly from a Google image search or repin from Pinterest itself.  (Pinterest does not store the entire image file but it does 'pin' the URL that your picture comes from.)  

Communication - You have the ability to comment (500 characters max) on each picture so you could include an explanation for each.  Another cool thing - if you put a link in your comment section it will automatically hyperlink it when you save it.  I left one in (check the chess pieces in my Ron Weesley board- more on that board later) so that you can see what it looks like.

Collaborate - Students can repin images from other students and add them to their board; so students could work together in a group creating pictures for the whole vocab unit.  Four kids could work together, creating only 5 pins on their own, through sharing they could have a board of 20 words.  Students can also comment on one another's pins.

Critical thinking - There are a few ways that kids could use it w/ vocab:

• A picture that illustrates the vocab word

• A picture with the synonyms or antonyms listed & they have to guess the vocab word
• Pictures with English word descriptions for a particular word/phrase (ex: el vaso de jugo de naranja) - specifically for world language vocab
• Pictures that represent the word - then I explained why I chose it in the comment section
• Pictures that were antonyms to the word - I explained why I chose this picture as well

* Well...ALMOST seamless.  At this point, on an iPad, you can't create a public link (in Google Drive or in Skitch) so that your own picture (that you took with your camera) has a URL.  So I had to upload the Skitch photos from my laptop, not my iPad.  Also, on an iPad, if you want to pin an image you find in a Google search you need to go through Safari & not use the app.   Repinning pictures while in the app works great, however.  The app is really easy to use!