PhotoPeach

[|PhotoPeach] John Gienau

Web 2.0 tools, today, are being used in all of education; showing prominent results. This is because Web 2.0 tools can be utilized in a curriculum to meet the needs of the diverse student body which is very demanding. Web 2.0 tools can work for the following reasons:
 * Creating
 * Collaborating
 * Online sharing and editing
 * Accessibility to students and teachers

A web 2.0 tool predominantly focuses on revolutionary new ways of creating, collaborating, editing and sharing user-generated content online. It is easy to utilize in the classroom too! Better yet, there's no need to download, and teachers and students can master many of these tools almost instantaneously; making technology easier or more accessible to all. A great example of the aforementioned is PhotoPeach.

PhotoPeach is very easy to use. Simply set up a free account and start to upload any pictures that have been already downloaded to the computer. Thereafter, the students can choose a song or background musical theme and a slide show with the pictures is automatically created. Students can also download pictures that have been taken or found on the internet (Copyright not violated). How can PhotoPeach be integrated into an English Language Arts curriculum? People may think to themselves about how a photo slide show can assist with anything in the classroom. Students through PhotoPeach can look at pictures with text and read them; multimedia learning. Also, students can work in groups or individually to design a story together and be able to write about it based on the photo slide show on PhotoPeach. Teachers have a wide array of options to utilize in the classroom setting with this Web 2.0 tool. These techniques are mainly appropriate for Elementary School students, English Language Learners at any age, or any student who struggles with any form of literacy. The teacher can use his/her creativity to integrate it into the classroom; it will engage the learners much more than on any other average day in the classroom. PhotoPeach can also be used for the older students in any content (mathematics, science, history, or any elective). For example, teachers can make a photo slide with pictures from classes such as science, mathematics, history or even an elective and have students explain the theory using specific vocabulary words for the content. This will enhance vocabulary in the content area as well.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides multiple means of representation for the students (one of the UDL principles). The pictures would help the students with their perception of the language. For example, pictures will enable every student to define a picture, create a story, or write a story based on the pictures presented in PhotoPeach. If students opt to debate or have a discussion on the story there will be a plethora of expressions about every aspect of the pictures or a story’s plot if a story is written. When the students observe the pictures they will be able to comprehend the definition of the word’s meaning. Please refer to the link of a PhotoPeach presentation I designed for the students in my high school physics class: []