Shadow Puppet APP: Great for Student Story Telling Projects (Early Grades AND Higher)

Here's an easy, great way for students tell stories and to have a permanent, re-playable performance of their telling it. Students  use a digital  resource to present pictures sequentially, having put them in an order they devise to tell the story. They also record their own narration that accompanies each of the slides. Students can use either pictures they create on their own by drawing or photography OR pictures they appropriate from the Internet.

I've done projects like this over the years using PowerPoint, which works fine. Students insert a picture into each slide and PowerPoint allows them to record their voice, narrating the 'action' (story segment) on that slide separately to accompany the image. They can also keyboard in the text of their narration if they choose, as well. All of this works great, but there's a bit of a steep learning curve for both teacher and students and it can be a bit labor intensive.

Now, however, with Shadow Puppet APP this has become easier and I think much more do-able for  younger children. Take a look at a blog post from colleague, Cathy Knutson  who explains in detail how she uses this approach with 2nd Graders at Oak Hills Elementary Media Center (I love to see these things successfully done with young students!) http://ohekidstech.blogspot.com/2015/03/2nd-graders-narrate-wordless-books-with.html

See the video and article below for some more info on Shadow Puppet, too.



"Shadow Puppet Is A New Storytelling App For Sharing Narrated Slideshows Of Your Photos"

"Storytelling today means crowding around someone’s phone as they describe their photos. Shadow Puppet bring that show & tell experience online by letting you share a voice-over with an animated slideshow of your pics. Built with Greylock money by Carl Sjogreen, the Googler who sold travel startup Nextstop to Facebook, Shadow Puppet let you talk people through everything from vacations to app demos.

The free iOS app combines the ease of taking great photos with the movement, audio and storytelling strengths of video. Most of us can’t film, act or direct very well, so our Vines and Instagram videos come out crappy. But anyone can make a compelling Shadow Puppet — even kids.
That’s because it’s a natural behavior, something we actually do a lot already. “Shadow Puppet really started with this simple observation: Every time we’d go out to a park or restaurant with friends, someone would get out their phone and start telling a story based on the photos on their phone,” Sjogreen explains. “It’s quite a powerful way to communicate an idea, but there was no way to replicate that experience when you weren’t with someone in person...”



"... You’re The Puppeteer
Here’s how Shadow Puppet Works:

1. Pick a set of photos from any album on your device.
2. Drag-and-drop to reorder them, and crop them so they look right.
3. Record your audio voice-over providing the story behind the photos.
4. Tap and zoom to highlight points of interest as you go through pics.
5. Text, email, tweet, or Facebook your Shadow Puppet narrated slide show’s permalink.
6. Friends and followers can watch your Shadow Puppet even if they don’t have the app.

The creation experience is quick, simple, intuitive and even kind of fun, as you can see in this demo. The little yellow flashes that appear when you tap as you record do a great job of letting you digitally point to things in your photos, and making them viewable through a web player will help the app grow. When you’re talking, you feel like a voice actor. You just need to remember to be vibrant like you’re on stage even though no one can see you..."

Read the full article at its source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/shadow-puppet-app/

Kinectic Conundrum: Fantastic Tech-supported Art Project for Kids that Provides a Perfect Model of STEAM Instruction

STEAM Instruction = Science -Technology - Engineering - Arts - Mathematics Instruction
 
See this article for definition and explanation of STEAM>>>  http://www.edutopia.org/blog/pivot-point-stem-steam-arts-integration-susan-riley

Anatomy of a Project: "Kinetic Conundrum"

Art, history, engineering, language arts, and technology, both old and new, come together for eighth grade students in this rich project learning expedition at King Middle School in Portland, Maine.

From edutopia

 

Supporting Kids in Developing Their Creativity and Learning Creative Skills - Using Open Source Resources

Just came across this article... Looks like this group,  Youth Digital,  makes an important niche segment of Visual Art Learning available at a very accessible cost. Some great ideas  here - a fascinating read...

Image by : opensource.com

 

"Open source tools help kids discover digital creativity

Youth Digital just moved into their new offices, tucked away in a nondescript office park in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It's a big step up from their humble beginnings, when company founder and director Justin Richards hauled a laptop to his students' houses, tutoring them on web and graphic design. Their first office was barely more than a closet, and now they have an expansive space complete with conference rooms, recording studio space, and their own 3D printer.

Teaching kids about graphic design and programming without using open source software would be prohibitively expensive. As I learned during my visit to the studio's new office, cost isn't the only reason why Richards and his team use open source tools. The freedom of creating custom application packages for their students and the opportunity to improve the software that they use means that everyone learns with the same easy-to-use technology. It doesn't matter whether they're sitting in a classroom in Chapel Hill or tuning in to Youth Digital's online courses halfway around the world.
I talked with Richards about the curriculum's open source approach, his company's humble beginnings, and how they hope to help kids all over the world learn skills that will provide better, richer opportunities as they become adults.

Let's start at the beginning. What got you into technology and design?

Toy Story, pretty much. When I was a kid, Toy Story came out. When I saw that, it was so awesome. My dad was a computer programmer and I loved art and computers, and to see the potential to tell a story through 3D models was insane. I wanted to learn how to do it, and there was nowhere to learn it. All I could find were videos on YouTube about Flash animation. So I tried that, learned a little ActionScript, and did not like that. It wasn't Pixar, obviously.
So I looked at game design and couldn't find a lot of stuff. Then I went into web design and found this big book on CSS and HTML. I scoured YouTube and forums and spent hours of frustration making a website. I built it from start to finish, and that was such a great learning experience....

...

What called you to become a teacher?

I never necessarily wanted to be a teacher, actually, but I love teaching web design. In St. Louis, we were given these massive, poorly written binders, and I was supposed to teach thirty 8 year-olds web design with them. So we put those away, and instead, I wrote a website really quick, and changed the curriculum so that by the end of the first day, the kids had their homepage, and by the last day of the class, they published it. Every one of our courses since then has been built around that idea: do something tangible on the first day, and on the last day, publish it. Just to give that sense of a real world project.

What sort of tools do the kids use in your courses?

We want something that will give the kids that authentic, professional skillset, but also something that doesn't cost them a thousand dollars or is too intense for them. We've gravitated toward open source tools that mirror professional standards. We use Gimp, Inkscape, Eclipse, and Blender. We use Blender because other tools are $3,500. Some offer educational discounts, but a lot of our kids don't have the correct credentials to get the free version of, say, Autodesk. And we love Blender, because not only can we customize it for those young kids, but we can also make it so that it mirrors anything else they'd use in the industry. If you learn the pen tool in Inkscape, that's the same pen tool in Illustrator or any other vector program you'd use.
Overall, we're more focused on teaching kids the fundamentals of design and development as opposed to how to use a certain type of software. Depending on where you work and who you work for, the software's going to be different, or the language will be different..."


Read the full article at its source:  http://opensource.com/education/14/9/teaching-digital-creativity

New Arts Standards Involve Technology

From District Administration magazine:

"Students will dance, act and design with core arts standards...

...Updated National Core Arts Standards add media arts such as animation, film, gaming and computer design"

 

< Student Animation with PowerPoint? Yes! That and many other applications of technology already in place in the classroom used to produce wonderful Art Projects are detailed in the book

 

Visual Arts Units for All Levels

https://www.iste.org/resources/product?ID=680 >

 

 

" You think math and English have high standards? Try the arts.

The National Core Arts Standards were released in October. They update the initial standards released in 1994, which included instructional guidelines for dance, music, theater and visual arts.

The new standards add media arts such as animation, film, gaming and computer design. They emphasize developing artistic ideas, refining them, and following projects through to completion. They also require students to analyze artworks, including by examining societal, cultural and historical contexts.

Tight budgets and a fierce focus on standardized testing in math and English have led many district leaders to cut back on arts education in recent years. But advocates hope to help districts refocus on arts instruction that fosters innovation, creativity and collaboration.

All 50 states have some arts standards, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. However, many have not been updated in decades, and implementation varies widely.

For example, only some states provide funding for mandated art classes. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia required arts credits for high school graduation in 2014. And 17 states assessed student learning in the arts that year.

The updated standards are not connected to the Common Core, but they promote the nation’s college and career readiness goals for students, says Marcia McCaffrey, president of the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE).

 

“Employers are looking for students who are creative and innovative, who can take a process or project from beginning to end and understand all of the steps of revision, refinement, completion and collaboration,” says McCaffrey, who is also an arts consultant for the New Hampshire Department of Education.

The standards outline an age-appropriate progression of artistic study. They also provide a foundation for curriculum, instruction and assessment from preschool up through high school.

For example, dance standards start with preschool students improvising a routine that stops and starts on cue. By the end of high school, students should be able to design and choreograph original dances, and explain how their choices are used to intensify artistic intent..."

 

Read the full article at its source... http://www.districtadministration.com/article/students-will-dance-act-and-design-core-arts-standards 

Art helps kids with behavior problems... Not a Surprise!

"Art therapy may help kids with behavior problems"
"Reuters Health) - School-based art therapy in the UK is helping troubled kids get back on track, a new study suggests.

Begun in 2002, The Art Room program is aimed at children between the ages of 5 and 16 who have been identified by their teachers as needing emotional and behavioral support.

Currently there are nine Art Room programs in UK schools. More than 10,000 children have been through the Art Room program since it started.

In a study published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy, researchers found that children emerged from the 10-week Art Room program with less depression, fewer behavioral problems and improved self esteem.

The Art Room provides a caring and creative environment through which children can “learn and achieve through art,” said Melissa Cortina, a consultant research psychologist with The Art Room, which is based in Oxford, England...."

Read the full article at its  source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/16/us-child-psychology-art-therapy-idUSKBN0KP22S20150116

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Teacher Uses Smart Phone Photography to Foster Learning

From the popular T h e  Journal (online), the following article with 9 very good suggestions for  making contemporary photography part of teaching...

" Nicole Dalesio is a fourth grade teacher in the Pleasanton Unified School District in Northern California. She's also a digital artist who uses her talents and skills to promote learning in the classroom through photography and video projects, a practice called "iPhoneography" or iPhotography (although it's definitely not limited to Apple i-devices). Here Dalesio shares nine tips for projects and practices to help you implement "iPhotography" with your students.
1. Schedule BYOD Days for Taking Photos
Dalesio's school doesn't have a device for every student. So she has cobbled together a two-prong program. The fourth grade shares a Chromebook cart, which her class gets one day a week. Plus, she has set up a small bring-your-own-device program, in which the students write up agreements that their parents have to sign in order to participate. Then on a set schedule they bring in their own iPhones, iPads, Android smartphones, and what is turning out to be the most popular device among her students: iPod Touches. For those kids without access to devices, the class provides some extras or the kids just double up. The only common denominator: Each device has a built-in camera.
2. Start with Basic Photography Skills
Dalesio wants her students to learn how to take effective photographs, so she teaches them the "SCARE" principles in a little checklist:

• Simplify: Get rid of excess objects — the water bottle on the picnic table, the junky papers — that clutter up the background; make the canvas as "blank" as possible.
• Close/closer: "A lot of times people take pictures too far away," explains Dalesio. Get close and closer to your subject. That doesn't mean using the zoom option; it means "Zoom with your feet."
• Angle: Be creative as you're taking your picture. Try to find an unusual angle from which to shoot. That could mean standing on a picnic table or tree stump and looking down or lying on the grass and shooting up.
• Rule of thirds: The best compositions are often the ones where the main subject is either in the right third or left third of the image. So shift the image that way.
• Even lighting. "You want even lighting," says Dalesio. If there's some kind of shadow across the face, move the camera or the subject around to eliminate that. "Usually the best time to take pictures is early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the lighting isn't as harsh," she notes. "Foggy days are great for taking pictures — or overcast or even rainy days."

She also advises her students to take a lot of pictures. "You better your odds and get more practice," she tells them. That also helps them to become more discriminating. They don't share every picture; they learn how to choose their favorite one..."

Read the full article at its source: http://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/11/18/9-iphone-photography-projects.aspx?Page=1

The Big Shot Camera for STEAM Learning - Teaching Visual Art and Technology

The concept of STEAM (as opposed to STEM) has been around for a while.

STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math / STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTs, and Math. It's a great concept! Sure, why wouldn't we want to harness the power of The Arts to drive meaningful, important, relevant learning across the curriculum? Unfortunately, teachers don't often find good opportunities to make STEAM learning happen in their classrooms,

Enter the BIG SHOT CAMERA. The connections, applications, and opportunities for students to learn important Technology and Engineering concepts in a hands-on fashion as they engage in Photography, a key Visual Arts skill, are obvious with this resource. Further, there are so many ways that Photography can be meaningfully integrated into English Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and other subjects.

True, student access to Digital Cameras is no longer difficult. However, this one is special. It promises to teach students about the Science and Engineering involved in creating a camera, as well as providing an opportunity to easily make digital images as part of learning processes and projects... or just plain fun. Further, it offers simplicity and flexible functionality, too, with 3 image formats: Standard, Panorama, and 3D. Thus, it is  a resource that students can use for a wide variety of projects.

Check out the videos below as well as the camera's home website where some good, solid information about the art of Photography, as well as editing software, is offered:

 

http://www.bigshotcamera.com/