Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner

Supporting Universal Access and Universal Design for Learning

February 10, 2008
by Paul Hamilton
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PhotoSoup (online resource)

Orli, at GO2WEB20 has shared another resource with good classroom potential for constructively engaging learners.

photosoup.jpg

PHOTOSOUP uses Flickr photos and their tags to generate timed word search puzzles. Just type in a term, and the puzzle is created almost instantly. The puzzle grid is 14 x 14, and 17 pictures are used for each puzzle. You have 90 seconds to find as many of the tags as you can. If you wish, you can turn on “hints”. This puts the tag under each photo so you know what word you are looking for in the puzzle. When I typed in terms like “cat” or “house”, I found the level of challenge to be reasonable. As with most things, it got easier with practice.

This online activity is great not only for re-enforcing vocabulary development, it is also a great vehicle for helping learners with the concept of tagging when generating online content.

Puzzles generated with PHOTOSOUP can easily be embedded on other websites. I had no difficulty embedding a puzzle on a pbwiki page. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to figure out how to embed it here in edublogs. The screenshot below shows a puzzle that resulted when I entered the term “house”.

photosoup-ss01.jpg