Mashup Heaven

"All it needs is a little salt . . . pepper, mustard, catchup, sauce, flavour." ~Trapper (M*A*S*H)

The photo mashup sites are like the salt, pepper, mustard, ketchup, and sauce that can be added to a photo to take it to the next level. A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and these mashup sites let you express the message you are trying to convey in a way pure words cannot!!! There are a ton out there, but here are my favorite four:

1) ImageChef - Provides you with hundreds of templates which you can modify for your own purposes. Some of the categories they include are signs, work, sports, music, characters, license plates, holidays, buttons, etc. Best of all, this site is soooo easy to use, especially when you don't have any of your own pictures off of which to work.

Example: This took me about 15 seconds to create!

Classroom Ideas: Jazz up your PowerPoints, wikis, and blogs.

2) Flickr Toys - You need a flickr account to be able to use this one. There are so many awesome toys here: create your own movie poster, magazine cover, ID badge, CD cover, jig-saw puzzle, trading cards, and much more.

Example: Here's my pathetic attempt at a magazine cover highlighting some spy novels. I apologize for the size of the picture here.

Classroom Ideas: historical figure trading cards, magazine cover about a book, poster about vocabulary words, movie poster about a country/nation, etc...

3. Bubblr - Create mini comic strips using pictures from flickr. This is site is so easy to use (and fun)! (no account necessary)

Example:

If you want to see a larger version click here:

Web 2.0 by Warrior Run

Classroom Ideas: storytelling, a fun way to summarize a current event, practice with grammatical concepts (adverbs, adjectives, prepositional phrases), poetry, etc.

4. Bookr - Create short books using photos from flickr (no account necessary).
Example:

Classroom Ideas: practicing synonyms and antonyms, poetry, figurative language, retell an historical event using few words and powerful pictures, vocabulary, book reports, etc...

Some other good image creator sites are:

add letters, fodey, picnik, spell with flickr

condiment photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/wordridden/2669139338/