Shared Photo Streams

A second grade teacher at Icard Elementary approached me about a project idea for reviewing Life Cycles. She wanted to recreate a project she'd done previously, so I started brainstorming how best to get the project completed. 

I needed a way to get images for the various stages of the life cycles for several animals/insects. I wanted to have the images prepared ahead of time so that the collage creation was seamless. I found the images on Pixabay and Discovery Education and created individual Photo Streams in iPhoto on my MacBook. This could be done with an iPad or iPhone using the Photos app. Just click on "Shared" to open your streams, and click the "+" to add a new stream. You give the photo stream a name, and then add the accounts to share. I created a photo stream for the following critters; praying mantis, sockeye salmon, ladybugs, stink bugs, Appalachian Snaketail, frog, and butterfly. I shared the streams with two Apple ID's, the ID associated with the teacher's set of six iPads, as well as the school set of iPads. 

When the students began working with the PicCollage app they would add photos by choosing the photo stream and select all the photos to add to the collage. They were able to arrange, add text, and customize the collage from there. The kids were engaged, the teachers were excited for the ease of success. I liked the ease of using the photo streams, but wonder if the students should have been taught how to find the images on their own...