Combining Language and Pictures with Pic Lits
Tech: I never cease to be amazed at the power of a single picture. I am not only referring to aesthetics or ability to evoke strong emotion, but also to its simple, yet effective use in education. In ESOL, we frequently refer to the need to integrate visuals for ELLs. Really, the ways we can do this are unlimited. Pic Lits is one such way that tech is delivering to ed.
Here's an example that I made within a few minutes using the "freestyle" mode.
I created the following using the "drag-n-drop" method. I can imagine using this second approach with a whole class in vocabulary development. As a follow-up activity students could then take the words and use them in sentences. I like that in this mode if you click on the arrow, it offers various word forms.
Met Ed (applications): Free writing, vocabulary building, parts of speech, dictionary and thesaurus skills, poetry, etc. These are all possible applications for Pic Lits. The site has other suggested uses as well. It also seems possible to extend this concept by having the teacher or students take pictures related to a unit or a particular lesson. Words could be added to the pictures in any language and even combined in a multimedia project such as animoto.
Areas to consider: Not all pictures or suggested words may be appropriate for young children or culturally sensitive; however, there are ways of avoiding these pictures. Once published, the results are made public on the site and other users can comment and rate them.
I will soon begin teaching a beginning level of ESOL to adults and hope to use this program.
Happy learning!
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