Pixlr

Last week our group was assigned to prepare a presentation on the website Pixlr.com, (specifically the express option). We decided to start out just playing around with the site, getting used to it and figuring out how it works. Through this, we learned many of Pixlr's pros and cons.  I've included my own list below.  I think that collages and the addition of text are the best aspects of this site for use in the classroom. Possible options could be: a collage of all students in the class with their names, stages of metamorphosis , different clouds with titles, planets with names, etc. A collage could be used to show pictures of a field trip or class project. Pixlr could also be used by the teacher to add text or upload pictures to her class website to give parents a look into the school day.


Pros
- fun and creative
- many options for editing/playing with pictures

Cons
- not much direction or explanation
- very easy to lose work
- difficult to undo something unless it was the last action performed

A few times I tried to click the back arrow to go back to previous work. This completely erases everything- not just your editing but the entire picture too.

The third con is my biggest issue with this website. I made a collage of the planets for my artifact. I put each planet in a box and pressed apply. Later I realized I put two of the planets in the wrong order, but there was no way to go back and correct the mistake, so I had to start over with a new collage. Then I added text and put it over each planet.  I decided later to adjust the size of one of the words, but there was no way to go back and adjust it, again to fix the problem I had to start completely over and make a new collage- adding all the pictures again and rewritting the text.  There may be some way to solve this but I could not find one. While we were able to come up with ways to use this site in the classroom, this challenge of 'undoing' work may pose a problem for students.  Kids make mistakes and need to learn how to correct them, but if they have to start over every time, they may become frustrated or confused (I did).