PicLits

 [|Pic Lits] - Inspired Picture Writing
Pic Lits is a website that allows students to write captions, sentences, and paragraphs about a particular image in the Pic Lits gallery. Pic Lits was inspired by Terry Friedlander (founder), who loved travel, photography, and magnetic poetry.

Communication:
Pic Lits uses pre-selected photos. Photographs are one medium through which one expresses him or herself. Pic Lits also allows students to then write a caption about the photo using a set of pre-selected words that relate to the photograph. Students are then able to focus their thinking in a particular way. To create a Pic Lit with the pre-selected words, students simply drag and drop the words.

However, rather than being limited to these pre-selected words, students can also "free-style" and type their own interpretations of each photograph. Giving students a choice allows for more authentic assessment. It also gives students some structure, so they are not totally overwhelmed by the task. Some students may be very comfortable writing their own interpretation of the picture; other students may need more support and would choose to use the pre-selected list.



Construction:
Construction refers to the ability to create something and make it a tangible "thing" with which students can interact. Construction also refers to the permanence of an object. With this technology tool, students are able to create a product which they can embed into their blog, Facebook it to their friends, Tweet it out to their Twitter followers, or they can email the picture to themselves or to family. Once they have the emailed file, students could print the pictures they wrote captions for as well.

Inquiry
Inquiry is one of the most important impulses all children go through. Inquiry is the process of finding things out. With this tool, students can express their inquisitiveness in several ways. First, students will spend some time looking through some of the different pictures to get some inspiration. Each picture will spark connections with students. Another way this impulse might be implemented with this tool is after an inquiry-based project, where students have read a novel or a passage and then are using Pic Lits to explore on a different and deeper level a scene from the book, a character's feelings, or the major theme or conflict of the novel.

Strengths:
-share to your friends in a blog, twitter, facebook or email -prompts you to capitalize words and gives different options of words (plurals, past tense, gerund) -gives a list of words to use, or you can "freestyle" and type words, but it gives you suggestions of words that might be helpful -wide variety of pictures to choose from -very easy to use; just drag and drop

Weaknesses:
-each Pic Lit has to be at least 10 letters -you must create an account with a valid email address to save or share a Pic Lit -you can't save the Pic Lit as a PDF or JPG file -you can only save your Pic Lit to the Pic Lit gallery. To get it on your computer, you have to email it to yourself and then download it.