Picasa for Teachers

Teachers are looking toward Google Apps for their email and file storage in the classroom. Many teachers are already incorporating it into lessons whether their school has officially adopted it or not. Because it's free, has great educational tools included, tons of support and resources online, and a huge and growing community of users, teachers see the benefit to their classrooms, and students.

One of tools included with a student Google Apps account is Picasa, a great photo management application. With Picasa, teachers can organize all of the photos on their computer into one nicely layed-out interface and then edit, customize, and share photos with friends, family, colleagues, or students.

Teachers can easily keep track of all the classroom pictures that are taken and share them on a class website/blog, put together movies that highlight student work, or share pictures through email with a few simple clicks.

With a Google Apps account, teachers have access to Blogger, Google+, YouTube, and more. After taking pictures, creating great looking movies and slideshows, they can be shared with all three. 

Teachers can easily turn a simple picture activity into a multimedia project. Have students drag and drop their pictures into Picasa, organize them into a step-by-step tutorial slideshow, incorporate music, then share it on the class Blogger blog. Volcanoes into a stop motion movie to present to the class. Take an old poem and add images to make a photo story. Solve a difficult equation with some manipulatives and stop-motion photography. Spin a current using positive images for difficult subject matter.

No matter what the subject, project, or group, Picasa can make pictures tell stories and aid learning.

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