Phrase.it

Bring Images to Life with Phrase.it

Phrase.it is a fun and incredibly simple, web-based program that allows users to upload images, (or use one of their stock photos), and then augment them with speech bubbles.  The program allows the user to move the thought and speech bubbles around, changing their size, shape and even text type.  It then saves the newly created image and allows you to download it for free.  If you are concerned about privacy, the program even ensures that the image is not searchable by search engine, if you like. 

Here are a couple of examples of images that I created using a few of my class photos:

Christmas Carolling at our local IGA 2013

Kights and princesses dress-up day

One caution is to not make the captions too small. It's tricky to add speech bubbles in to an image that has many people in there, without blocking subjects out. You are best to choose images that have a few people in them, and keep the speech bubbles nice and large, so they are easily readable. 

Phrase.it could have all sorts of different uses in the classroom.  Not only does it have educational benefits, but it is also a lot of fun!  Here are a few of the ideas I thought of in how Phrase.it could be used in a Middle School classroom:

• teach appropriate social skills to struggling students and students with special needs by having them write speech bubbles.
• have students tell a story by taking pictures and then adding the speech bubbles.
• Use in the school's website to add some flair
• Share images created by students in a class blog or newsletter to home
• Have students show their learning about a topic by augmenting an image chosen by themselves or by you.
• Use to teach additional languages