A picture is worth 1,000 words: Google's Picasa

Google’s Picasa
Picasa is photo editing program. People are able to organize their digital pictures in different folders, crop and edit them, as well as add effects. Picasa also offers a way for people to share their pictures, if the user has a Google Account, with the public.
Google Picasa gets used quite regularly in my house, as it is the primary program we use to collect and edit digital photos for our family website, digital scrap books, and our hard copy photo albums. While this free resource is limited to some extent in terms of the different effects that can be applied to pictures, my wife and I have been very happy with what we are capable of creating with the program. We enter the project knowing that you get what you pay for, so if there is something missing, or there are limitations to what we can make, we aren’t disappointed. Our favorite application is the ability to change color pictures to black and white, while leaving a small portion of the picture in color. For example, we have several pictures of our son holding a group of flowers in a field. While he and most of the other objects are black and white, the flowers that he is holding are in color. It is a very cool effect.
The vast majority of my experience with Picasa has been private, recreational use, but I could easily see how this could be utilized in the classroom setting. For students to be able to use this program effectively there is a necessary framework of knowledge that needs to be in place. Students need to have basic computer knowledge, but they also need to be able to manipulate, save, and access multimedia files, especially pictures. One of the benefits of the program is its accessibility; students that simply play around for a little while can figure out how to create something really great. Time must be spent exploring the different functions, or the user will be disappointed in what they can do.
Students are able to share hard copies of their products by simply printing any edited pictures. The program can also be used in conjunction with other websites and programs to create digital photo albums, websites, etc., so that their pictures can be shared with as few or as many people as they choose.
I think that this application could be used in conjunction with other programs and sites in a variety of different subject areas including history, science, art, and of course, English. I am going to help my students utilize this program when they are creating a final project for our Parts of Speech unit. Students will be given digital cameras and set out to capture photos of the eight parts of speech in action. After the student have gathered their pictures, they can use Picasa to edit, crop, and add effects to the pictures to better display the particular part of speech that is illustrated.
Because these pictures can be shared by anyone that has a Google account, students could be encouraged to look at other student projects, and comment on them. They can get immediate feedback from both their peers and from me, through using this program.
Teachers need to make sure that a student’s background technological knowledge is in place before assigning this project, or one like it. Students need to have Google accounts, there needs to be computer/internet access, and there also needs to be universal access to digital cameras, as people may be limited in the resources that they have at home.