Throwback Thursday 9.25.14

Welcome to...

What is Throwback Thursday? How does it work, you might ask? Simply look through your PURR-fect Previous Posts, perhaps a particular favorite of yours, and re-post it! Then add the TBT badge to your post and include your link below! Purr-fectly easy and simple! Your post doesn't have to be from LOOOONNNGGG ago; it can be from last month or even earlier this week. And if you don't have a post to share, perhaps an old photo or two from WAY BACK will do! Even a favorite pin is PURR-fect! Just join in the Throwback fun!

This post first appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 on July 27, 2013. 

I've never really considered myself much of a photographer, and I've never done much with a camera other than point and shoot. Oh, I play around with the settings now and then, changing up the type of shot that's produced. Sometimes I even turn off the flash or use night vision and when I edit photos I might crop or resize them. However, that's the extent of my "expertise."

I didn't even take any photos this week other than of my favorite subject, Miss DaisyMae. No Saturday Snapshots is complete without a picture of her.

I do enjoy taking photos, but what I really like about snapshots is having fun adding speech bubbles to them or making slideshows/videos with them or even turning them into collages. I've found neat little pieces of freeware or web apps over the years that allow me to have a bit of fun. I've shared a few on Saturday Snapshots already: Phrase.It and Image Chef. This week I'm sharing a couple of images that I created to showcase a whole bunch of my snapshots. The first is of my favorite subject (see above), the second of my family, and the third of me.

The first two collages were created using Shape Collage, a small freeware program that you download to your computer (both Windows and Mac are available as well as iPhone and iPad). Additionally, there is a pro version that you can purchase that has loads of bells and whistles and tons of options. It takes but a minute to install Shape Collage and begin using it; no tutorial is necessary. It works like a typical word processing program, inserting pictures, selecting a few options (shape of collage, background color, borders of photos), then creating (in lieu of saving).

Much to my delight, when I went to Shape Collage this morning while writing this blog post, I discovered that the company has now added a web app. Called Get Loupe, it allows users to connect with social media accounts, accessing photos and publishing collages with the click of the mouse. With Get Loupe there are more shape options to choose from when creating your collage than with Shape Collage but it's just as easy to use. 

I've not been able to use Shape Collage with my students since it's a program that needs to be directly installed on a computer... that's a story for another time. However, now that I've found Get Loupe I can't wait to have my sixers (and eighth graders this year) make their own collages. I can think of so many possibilities for using this in class. How 'bout you?

More than a year later I still turn to Shape Collage and Get Loupe for creating collages, but now I also use Smartphone apps like Photo Collage and Pics Art. I seldom use my digital camera anymore, opting for the built in camera on my phone. These digital editing apps are great for quickly whipping together a collage of photos in no time flat, then allowing you to share them on Facebook, Instagram, and via email.

Here's a quick (like three minute) collage of some new items I recently added to my TpT Store. I took a screen shot of the product cover and saved it to my Gallery. Next I added all of the screenshots to Photo Collage with a simple touch of my finger. Finally I selected the frame and tapped Save. Voila! There was my collage. I chose to email it to my home account and from there uploaded it to Blogger. Like I mentioned, all of three minutes.

I use picture collages a lot on my blog, but I also use them in my classroom. One really good way a photo collage comes in handy in a classroom is in Science class. I collect a lot of photos from the internet to help support key Science concepts. By combining several into a collage, I have only one file to contend with rather than several. It is so much easier for me to keep track of teaching photos this way.

That was my TPT offering for this week. It's now your time to share. What do you have in store for us this week?