Art & Technology meet Literacy

About a month ago, I got an email with the opportunity to try out a new app. With all the craziness, I haven't had a lot of time to play with it but I have to tell you about it!

When I first opened up the app, I had my reservations. It is like an open-ended version of a Mr. Potato head. Kids put together the pieces to create a face. Okay... so it is creative and fun but where is the educational part of this.

Then a light bulb went off in my head! My students could create avatars for their favorite books, pictures to go with their writings, and faces to go with biographies I read. Since you can add in your own graphics or take/upload photos, the app truly is limited only by your imagination!

One of the best features is the ability to email it to someone. Now my students can email the pictures and using paint can crop them to create photos they can use for their blog posts, on schoology or edomodo, and to add it to reports! The options are truly endless.

My son's class created monsters at the beginning of the school year to represent themselves. These monsters have become their markers/avatars for so many things. This would be a great way to incorporate this idea into a technology activity. There is even a way to print these making the ways one could use these avatars even more effective!

Included in the app is now a social site called Face World where you can share your creations with other users. You can even save and use for later. So much fun!! Now if only I could get my son off of the app and back to completing the 4 days of school work he missed while he was home sick. 

Stop in tomorrow when I share a blog post from the makers of Faces iMake. This amazing company is looking to make more great apps for teachers. This was just the first created for art teachers but ummm... I high-jacked it for other purposes. =)