Photo Collage Apps for mLearning

I'm participating in a micro MOOC right now called Instructional Design for Mobile Learning (#idml13 on Twitter).  One of the first "Try it Yourself" activities suggested in the course was to use a photo collage making app on your mobile device to make a collage about yourself or your mLearning experiences.  I've made a lot of use of creative graphics manipulation in both my teaching and learning experiences over the past several years... but I've never used one of these apps before.  So, I decided to give it a try.  I used the free Photo Collage app for Android, and it was very straightforward and easy to use (so self-explanatory and straightforward that I'm not going to even bother reviewing how the app works!).  Here are the two collages that I created (in less than 5 minutes):


My first photo collage: snapshots of my family, where we live now, and our homeland (good ol' St. John's, NL)



 

My second photo collage: snapshots of where my professional life has taken me including: my home city, St. John's; where we live now, Doha; my Simpsons avatar; and my forays into the world of mLearning

The old saying goes that "a picture is worth a thousand words," and these apps are so easy to use, that I can already see numerous potential applications as mLearning tools.  In fact, I'm already thinking ahead to next term at CNA-Q, and getting my students to do the same exercise (use their phones to create a photo collage about themselves) as an icebreaker activity in the first week of class!  It should certainly set a different tone for the courses, and get students enthusiastic about the approaches I might take throughout the coming term.  I can see practical applications in terms of course assignments, too.  These photo collages sort of remind me of presenting research posters at academic conventions.  I can see using mobile devices to get students to find images online (or, better yet, take their own pictures in their own learning contexts) related to their topics of study, then use a photo collage app to create a collage about that topic.  Students could exchange the photo collages via a wiki, a discussion forum, a course LMS... the possibilities are endless for that.  Students could then be given the opportunity to explain / discuss their collages either in a blended face-to-face classroom, or in an online forum... again, sort of like presenting a poster at a conference.  To me, using such tools as these photo collage apps seems like a great way to get students thinking more deeply about a topic (required in order to select just the right images to convey their message), and to get them actively creating relative content.  This fits in quite nicely with the CSAM (Collaborative, Situated, Active Mobile) learning strategies approach that I'll be presenting a poster on in Abu Dhabi later this week (and illustrated by the graphic I created below):

Anyhow, these are just a few random thoughts about using photo collage apps that I've been mulling over after doing the first #idml13 "Try it Yourself" activity.  I'm sure that I'll be posting on this topic again once I've had a chance to try it out in a live classroom.  Perhaps I'll even consider putting forth an application for funding to CNA-Q's SEED committee, and do a little formal research into students' responses to using these apps (and associated pedagogical strategies)...

(WAIT! Did I really just suggest that? I've just finished up the busiest two terms of my career on account of two major projects I took on (above my regular teaching load), and I've still got the preparations for #mLearn2013 and my forthcoming dissertation work ahead of me over the next couple of terms! Either I'm going crazy, or my academic curiosity towards simple, effective mLearning strategies is getting the better of me!)