Digital Storytelling Resources for iPad

A very worthwhile story from the http://jonathanwylie.com/ blog:

"Google Makes TeleStory & Toontastic Free for Everyone....  

....Launchpad Toys announced that they had been acquired by Google. Ordinarily, this may not be of much interest to educators, but as of today, Toontastic and TeleStory are completely free for iOS devices and that includes all the in-app purchases that were previously a paid upgrade! Both apps are great storytelling apps for any classroom that uses iPads. Both apps are current favorites with educators, but their newly free features are about to earn them a whole lot of additional fans.

Toontastic, if you have not previously tried it, is an amazing digital storytelling app for the iPad. Teachers everywhere love this app because it is simple to use and has a built-in story arc that actively encourage students to build a well-structured story. I have seen Toontastic used in Kindergarten all the way up to high school. Such is the versatility of this app. It is also great for one iPad classrooms because several students can collaborate on the same story on just a single iPad by taking turns to out different characters in the story. Completed cartoons can be shared online or saved to the Camera Roll for use in other projects. Take a look at the new trailer for Toontastic in the video below:

Telestory is available for both the iPhone and the iPad. It’s an augmented reality video camera that lets students run wild with their imagination. It lets kids write and record a story in a number of fun themes like a news report, a space adventure or a spy movie. Using augmented reality, students become a part of the story themselves with a variety of fun video effects, and can even switch between cameras to vary the action. Great fun, and an incredibly motivating way to tell a story on the iPad. The new trailer for Telestory is below:

Looking for more ideas on how to use these apps? Check out LaunchpadEDU. It has stories, ideas and tips from other educators that are already using Toontastic and Telestory with their students. You may even end up on this page yourself if you share the way your class uses either of these apps!
Google is now making a habit of purchasing popular paid apps and making them free for everyone to use. Snapseed and Word Lens are two recent examples of this so who knows what might be next on their shortlist. In the meantime, if you are an educator who uses iPads in the classroom, go check out the newly free editions of Toontastic and Telestory. Both are well worth your time...."

Read the full story at its source: http://jonathanwylie.com/2015/02/04/google-makes-telestory-toontastic-free-for-everyone/ 

Student Creates Homeless 'Solution" - The Art of Folding Shelter: Cardborigami

What a wonderful project! Student design, beautiful 3D construction, and positive social impact!

Tina Hovsepian, a designer and philanthropist, graduated from the University of Southern California with her Bachelors of Architecture in 2009. She currently works on global commercial architecture with Callison in Santa Monica, CA. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tina always had a consuming interest in humanitarian causes, especially the plight of the homeless on Downtown’s infamous Skid Row. During her time at USC she had the opportunity to synthesize this interest with her architectural studies. In 2007 she designed and built a prototype of a temporary shelter made of folded cardboard, Cardborigami. Tina received Second Prize for Most Innovative at the 2009 USC Undergraduate Symposium for Creative Work. That was the first time an Architecture student had won an award in this school-wide category.

 

Photos of Cardborigami: http://cardborigami.org/photos/

 

 

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

• Article
• Comments (0)