Thing 8

  http://bighugelabs.com/jigsaw.php

I used the jigsaw application on the big huge labs (flickr) to create this masterpiece of me and my husband on our wedding day. This application was very user friendly, and you can share the image or you can buy the actual puzzle. As a teacher, the students could explore this application and create their own puzzle which is fun and a safe application to use. 

 

http://bighugelabs.com/mosaic.php

I used another application on big huge labs that allows you to create a mosaic with selected pictures. You can link the mashup tool to your flicker, facebook account, or you can upload pictures right off of your computer. I had fun making this as well. For a classroom setting the children can use this application in science to create examples of different species and save it to the classroom computer. The photos can be from any photos provided by flickr so this could also help with geometry in math (find different picture examples for shapes). The children are learning, it is fun for them, and they can save their work. I have not had a chance to explore all of the different applications, however I read about the photo application that establishes geographical locations for pictures. That would be helpful in a social studies classroom. 

 You can also combine the applications, for example if you save the puzzles as images on your computer, then you can make a mosaic of picture puzzles! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did exploring these tools.