Hello, friends! Today I want to share one of my passions with you – non-traditional assessments – in the mode of an authentic way of assessing students using technology-based pic collages.
Why Pic Collages?
Creating Picture Collages in Word Work became one of our favorite ways to show what we know about our grammar skills. There are many apps you can use to create picture collages, but I like using A Beautiful Mess because students can make a collage of photos and then, write on the collage all within one app. If you’re using a laptop to create collages, you might look into PicMonkey which has fabulous versatility.
Now, through our School’s PTO and grants from Donor’s Choose, I have quite a few classroom devices – 2 laptops, 6 iPads, and 3 iPod touches. When using technology to assess, I place 2-3 devices at Word Work. As you can see below, I’ve added A Beautiful Mess to our iPad dashboard, so students have easy-assess to it and help make it an independent activity.
Our Pic Collage Procedures
When making a collage, students know our establish procedures –
Choose a partner and look at our grammar skill for the week.
Sit with your partner and choose 4 objects/people to take pictures of.
Take pictures quickly and quietly. Do not disturb those working.
After you have taken your photos, add them to A Beautiful Mess.
Identify the objects you have photographed.
Save your collage onto the iPad.
Share your collage using AirDrop or add it to our Google Classroom. Once I receive the collage, I tweet it out and share it on our website.
Below are some collages students have made this year. You’ll notice they are definitely 1st graders and love taking silly pictures and adding fun fonts.
Reviewing Grammar Skills
Launching our Pic Collages, we used content we were very familiar with, so technology was able to be out goal. As we become more proficient in using these tools, the content will become more meaningful and less surface level. In these collages, students are representing different nouns around the classroom – people, things, places, and ideas.
These friends took the collage one-step further and added a person, place, and thing to their collage. Also, note my silly face. When you start this project, be prepared to be photographed… A LOT!
This is an adjective collage two friends made. Don’t you love the spelling of ‘colorful’?
A Way to Assess
My friends love creating these collages and they are an easy way for me to assess student learning. When I see the emailed collages, it’s easy to see when students have accidentally added a verb to their noun collage, or put a singular noun in their collage of plural nouns. When I see these mistakes, I can intervene, meeting with the specific students to address misconceptions.
After I receive the collages from students, students love to show their collage to the entire class and challenging them to figure out the ‘Title’ of their collage. Friends then decide what the topic of the collage is and explain their thinking.
Other Ideas for Collages in the Classroom
So, are you convinced that collages are a FUN and easy way to assess student learning? Here are some ways to put this resource into action
Reading: phonics skills, vowel teams in the real world
Parts of Speech: nouns, verb, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns
Math: identifying numbers in groups of objects, sum-themed collages (i.e. Sums of 8: 4 backpacks & 4 cubbies, 7 yellow cubes & 1 white cubes, 6 chairs and then 2 stools), fractions in real life
Social Skills (especially at the beginning of the year): sharing, partner reading, manners, kindness, 7 Habits
So friends, what do you think? Do you think your friends would enjoy make collages? How could you use them in your classroom? I’d love to hear your ideas!
This is totally cute!! I love this idea and could immediately think of some uses for it in science- food chains, animals, etc! Thanks for sharing this idea!!
Absolutely, Tammy! There are so many possibilities. Love your science ideas. 🙂
Catherine, I just discovered your blog and am so impressed! Thank you for sharing this. What a fun way for our scholars to demonstrate their understanding of a concept!
Thanks so much, Nancy! It is a fun and different way to assess rather than just using a paper and pencil test. 🙂
I love, love, love coming to your blog. You always have such fun and interesting ideas for your students. This would be an excellent way to engage my special needs students. Thanks for the wonderful idea!
This is such a great idea! We have a lot of kids who move from other countries during the year. This would be great for them to learn English! Ahhh I'm so stoked about this! Thank you for sharing! Courtney Ramona Recommends
Love the idea of using collages for assessment! We have a district-wide character building program and our school will have a new anti-bullying campaign and activities this coming year. I think I'll try using the collages with my students in these areas. I've never used A Beautiful Mess, but plan on trying it. Thank you for continuing to share your use of technology. You have such great ideas!
Absolutely, Mona! The first 9 weeks of school, we introduce the 7 Habits of Happy Kids, and I'm thinking each week we are going to make a collage showing each habit! 🙂
I love this idea! What a fun way to assess the knowledge of grammar skills, etc..! Thanks for sharing!
Love this idea! What point in the year do you introduce this to first graders? I would think second semester Deb Not very fancy in 1st
I have iPads and would like to incorporate this. Our iPods are all on a district account. If, for instance, I put my email address in, it messes everything up. I wondered how your ipads are set up, if you had this problem, and if so how did you work around it. Also, I tried to take my second gradeclass on Twitter last year. I tried to find other second grade classes to follow; I mostly found first and kindergarten and upper grades. I did follow done that seemed to be posting things my class would be interested in. I followed them and one or two followed us back. However none commented on our posts or on our responses to their posts. This made our Twitter experience less rich than it might have been. Do you have any suggestions?
I am going to give this a try. I am teaching 7 habits for the first time this year and I think collages will be a fun twist!
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14 Responses
This is totally cute!! I love this idea and could immediately think of some uses for it in science- food chains, animals, etc! Thanks for sharing this idea!!
Absolutely, Tammy! There are so many possibilities. Love your science ideas. 🙂
Catherine, I just discovered your blog and am so impressed! Thank you for sharing this. What a fun way for our scholars to demonstrate their understanding of a concept!
Thanks so much, Nancy! It is a fun and different way to assess rather than just using a paper and pencil test. 🙂
I love, love, love coming to your blog. You always have such fun and interesting ideas for your students. This would be an excellent way to engage my special needs students. Thanks for the wonderful idea!
Angela
The Organized Plan Book
Thank you so much, Angela! You've made my day. 🙂
I LOVE this idea! What a great way to incorporate so many skills and technology! Thank you for sharing!
Becky
CookingUpSuccess
This is such a great idea! We have a lot of kids who move from other countries during the year. This would be great for them to learn English! Ahhh I'm so stoked about this! Thank you for sharing!
Courtney
Ramona Recommends
Love the idea of using collages for assessment! We have a district-wide character building program and our school will have a new anti-bullying campaign and activities this coming year. I think I'll try using the collages with my students in these areas. I've never used A Beautiful Mess, but plan on trying it. Thank you for continuing to share your use of technology. You have such great ideas!
Absolutely, Mona! The first 9 weeks of school, we introduce the 7 Habits of Happy Kids, and I'm thinking each week we are going to make a collage showing each habit! 🙂
I love this idea! What a fun way to assess the knowledge of grammar skills, etc..! Thanks for sharing!
Love this idea! What point in the year do you introduce this to first graders? I would think second semester
Deb
Not very fancy in 1st
I have iPads and would like to incorporate this. Our iPods are all on a district account. If, for instance, I put my email address in, it messes everything up. I wondered how your ipads are set up, if you had this problem, and if so how did you work around it. Also, I tried to take my second gradeclass on Twitter last year. I tried to find other second grade classes to follow; I mostly found first and kindergarten and upper grades. I did follow done that seemed to be posting things my class would be interested in. I followed them and one or two followed us back. However none commented on our posts or on our responses to their posts. This made our Twitter experience less rich than it might have been. Do you have any suggestions?
I am going to give this a try. I am teaching 7 habits for the first time this year and I think collages will be a fun twist!