Ideas for Using the AASL Best Websites: PICLITS

Today’s blog entry on using the AASL Best Websites in your school focuses on PICLITS.com (http://piclits.com). The Best Websites for Teaching and Learning Committee categorized this graphically dynamic site as Digital Storytelling. This year’s winning site focuses on text and graphics as inspiration for writing. The idea for PICLITS was sparked by word magnets that people typically have on their refrigerator doors. Developer Terry Friedlander transformed the idea of these simple word tiles into carefully selected word banks paired with stunning photography that is sure to inspire the writer in students young and old! Students and teachers can click to select a photo from the scrolling marquee of incredible pics. Users have the choice of simply dragging and dropping the words of choice from the bank beneath the selected photo or going freestyle to author original work using the writer’s own words, supported by word prompts to prevent the dreaded writer’s block. For easy reference, the word banks are broken down by parts of speech (noun, verb, adverb, and pronoun).

PICLITS provides a wonderful opportunity for school librarians to collaborate with teachers in a variety of subject areas. This is a great site to use in English Language Arts classes to prompt creative writing of all sorts. Speech Specialists can use PicLits with students to practice writing, word formation, pronunciation, and reading aloud. Special Education teachers can use the site for exercises with the words and pictures including word recognition, spelling, and more. The visual nature of PICLITS combined with an awesome array of photos and word banks provides inspiration for all types of writing, such as haiku, poetry, short stories, lyrics, or essays. Transfer the photos and writing of individual students into one presentation to form a collaborative project.  Create exciting multimedia presentations by combining PICLITS with other AASL Best Websites such as Animoto. Use PICLITS with an interactive whiteboard for hands-on collaboration with students of all ages. This is a great site for students with a wide range of learning styles and abilities to play with and explore while developing knowledge and skills.

The PICLITS site provides the option for users to create their own account (requires email address) and save their work in their own My PICLITS Folder. Users can blog, embed, share and email the PICLITS they create as well.  Viewing the site’s Gallery provides the opportunity to read and be inspired by the work of others.

PICLITS is always growing and evolving. The site’s creator is passionate about developing PICLITS’ potential not only for individual users, but for educators in general, and library media specialists in particular. Give PICLITS a try! It is a fun, engaging, exploratory site filled with language and pictures that your students are sure to enjoy.

— Heather Moorefield-Lang (Committee Chair) and Donna Baratta (Committee Member); 2011