Last spring, as a Tech Integrationist,  I worked with a Pre-K class to create digital self-portraits on iPads.  We used a free drawing app called Sketches to make the portraits, then Adobe Voice to assemble a whole-class slide show display of their art.  The slide show revealed a photo of each artist alongside the digitally drawn self-portrait with a short introduction voiced by each artist — they stated their name and something they love.  Though that may sound simple enough, for some English language learners it was a both a listening and speaking challenge.  However, with support and guided practice, all students could contribute to the project in very personalized ways.  Once complete, the printed portraits and QR code linking to the Adobe Voice video were exhibited at a local coffee shop museum — The Smallest Museum.

Sketches is a fairly simple app, however, most students benefited from adult support either in a small group or one-to-one.  The free version has plenty of tools for easily creating individualized portraits — a watercolor brush, felt pen, pencil and more.  It also has an easy-to-use patterned-shape-making tool for adding texture and interest.  The color set offers a good selection for Pre-K students but can also be customized by adding colors.

Final drawings can be easily saved to the camera roll or shared in many ways, including a direct upload to Seesaw.  For this project, students air-dropped their saved portraits to my iPad where I organized them in albums to ease the workflow when creating the Adobe Voice slide show.  I then uploaded the images to a Google Drive folder where I could access them from my laptop for color printing.