Art – Page 8 – iLearn Technology

Animation Chefs: Kids learn animation

October 22, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2519 views

What it is: Animation Chefs is a fun website/blog that teaches kids how to create their own animations using stop motion video techniques. The Animation Chefs teach how to create animations using a “secret” recipe. To create animations you need two things: a camera and a computer. Animation Chefs aim to help young producers of stories and animation learn about the latest and greatest ways to get their content created. The blog will continually be adding tips, tricks, and tutorials for creating online animated videos.

How to integrate Animation Chefs into your curriculum: Animation Chefs is a great place for students (and teachers) to learn the tricks of stop motion animation. Students can use this site to learn new techniques and get advice for creating their own videos. My students loved creating their own videos. Any time I mentioned a video project, the students would ask daily when we would start with it. Our students have grown up in the video generation and this is one of the languages they want to learn to speak in. Visit Animation Chefs as a class to learn about stop motion animation, for inspiration, and to learn new tricks. If you have students that are particularly intrigued by using video to tell a story, this is a great place for them to learn the tricks of the trade. Often we as teachers shy away from lessons that we aren’t familiar with. With Animation Chefs, even if you aren’t familiar with creating stop motion animation, you can provide a fun learning experience for your students. How can your students use stop motion videos for learning? Students can tell any story, illustrate their learning, explain a difficult concept, reflect on learning, or create videos for younger students/grade levels. In my computer classroom, I had students take a picture of themselves every single time they logged into the computers during the school year. We put all of the pictures in a “me” folder on their desktop, labeling each picture with the date. The last week of school, we created a stop motion video with all of the pictures by putting them into iMovie and setting the picture clip to 1 second. Students added music that they created in Garageband and a title page. The end result: each had videos of their school year where they could watch themselves “grow” up. This works especially well in second through fifth grade where the changes in a years time are marked.

Tips: Animation Chefs has a Twitter page, if your class is on Twitter, they may be a good tweep to follow as a class.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Animation Chefs in your classroom!

Flixtime: Video slideshow creator

October 19, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3046 views

What it is: Flixtime is an online tool that lets students create 60 second video slideshows. Slideshows can contain videos, pictures, text and music. The interface of Flixtime is easy to use; it looks a lot like the timelines used in iMovie and would be a great way to introduce students to the idea of video timelines and a separate sound track. With Flixtime, students can adjust the screen resolution of their video and choose a speed for their slideshow to play. As I used Flixtime, I couldn’t get over how much like Animoto it is. If you need an alternative to Animoto, this is your tool!

How to integrate Flixtime into your curriculum: Flixtime is a great tool for telling a story. Students can use Flixtime to tell a story about their learning, to illustrate a science experiment, to create a video timeline of a historical event, to illustrate vocabulary, to create an auto-bio poem, or to create a custom public service announcement. Flixtime is an easy way for students to create something new and demonstrate understanding on any topic. My students have used video slideshows to create math story problems for a buddy to solve, they turn out great and sure beat the dry story problems from math textbooks! Flixtime videos can be saved on the student Flixtime account, embedded in a class blog/wiki/website, emailed, and even downloaded!

Tips: Flixtime requires an email account for sign up. The email account doesn’t need to be verified which means that students can sign up with a temporary email account from tempinbox or mailinator. If you teach elementary students, create a class Flixtime account where students can create and save videos. This ensures that you know what is being posted and puts the videos all in one place for easy viewing.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Flixtime in your classroom!

Picture a Story: Digital Storytelling

October 13, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3687 views

What it is: As I mentioned a few days ago, I am starting a virtual classroom/club for digital storytelling. I have been on the lookout for great resources, I listed my favorites here, and now I am remembering a lot of tools I left off of my original list (like Toon Doo!). Today as I was going through my Google Reader, I learned about this gem from Richard Byrne’s Free Tech for Teachers. The Delaware Art Museum has provided a great website dedicated to storytelling. The tagline is “bringing visual art to life through stories”. On the site, students can picture a story, experience a story, or tell a story. The Picture a Story was the most intriguing portion for me, as it provides a great tool for telling a digital story. First, students choose a genre of story that they want to tell, next they choose a famous painting background for their story, students add characters (also from famous works of art), props, and then tell the story. In the tell the story section, students type out the story. If a microphone is available, students can even record the story in their own voice. When students have completed their story, it can be shared via email.

How to integrate Picture a Story into your curriculum: Stories are powerful. I love the way that Picture a Story weaves together famous works of art with story. It teaches students to reflect on the art that they encounter and think about the stories that it represents. Picture a Story is a great way to discuss genre, characters, and parts of a story. It is also a fantastic way to bring a little art history into your classroom. It would be a neat class experiment to have students choose all the same genre, background, characters, and props and, without talking to others, write their story. After students are finished they can share their stories with the class. Students will learn about perspective, creativity, and voice as they listen to all the different stories that originated from the same picture. If you don’t have access to a computer lab, this activity could be done with an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer and students writing on paper. Let your students experiment with story and share their finished pieces with each other. Picture a story is ideal in a lab setting where each student has access to their own computer. If that isn’t a possibility, you could also have students visit Picture a Story on classroom computers as a storytelling center. The site is quick to navigate through and students can tell a story in a sentence or a few paragraphs making it a good center. If students don’t have access to email or can’t email the finished product to you, have them take a screenshot of the story to save in a digital portfolio or to print out.

Tips: The teacher section of this site has some great lesson ideas for every grade level.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Picture a Story in your classroom!

Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master

September 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments5694 views

What it is: The Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master is a portion of the Read Me program (learn about it here). This is a really cool online comic creator, the interface is fun to use and very intuitive. It is obviously geared toward students with a great look and even an embedded music player. I love the details on this site, including the headline “Reading isn’t only in books, it’s everywhere!”. Using the Graphic Novel Creator, students can create their own multi-page graphic novels with interesting backgrounds, characters, props, and customized text. The graphic novels can be saved and printed out.

How to integrate Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master into your curriculum: Graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular reading material, particularly for boys. They have even the most reluctant readers excited to pull out a book. Now those kids who love reading graphic novels, can create their own. A graphic novel is a great way for students to show what they know. They can create a graphic novel re-tell of a story as a book report, describe a science experiment, re-tell a portion of history with a superhero twist, practice another language by telling a story, even define and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.

Tips: Be sure to check out the read me site for great teachers notes, ideas, and additional resources for teaching with the Graphic Novel Creator. A special thank you to @thebookchook for introducing me to this tool!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master in your classroom!

Mo Willem’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus Lesson

September 23, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4714 views

What it is: Isn’t it great when author’s have websites as enchanting as their books? Mo Willem’s has a collection of wonderful websites starring his characters including my favorite, the Pigeon. On the Pigeon Presents website, your students will find fun games starring their favorite characters. They can learn more about Mo Willem’s books, meet the characters he has created, and even watch video interviews where he talks about his love of writing and illustrating. In the teacher’s section of the site, you will find printable posters for your classroom. On the Go Mo! site students will find Cat and her friends. Here students can play games, learn animal sounds, color online, and see Cat the cat’s gallery. Here students can see pictures that other students have drawn of cat and even submit their own. My favorite discovery of all: Mo Willem’s Pigeon has a Twitter account!

How to integrate Mo Willem’s Websites into your curriculum: If you are a Mo Willem’s fan like I am, you will be thrilled to introduce your students to his site starring his characters. Mo Willem’s has been a Caldecott Award honor for several of his books. His first, in 2004, was Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. I used this book to teach my younger students about the Caldecott award, and to help them identify shapes. Since I was in the computer lab, I taught my students to draw the pigeon using computer drawing applications. This was a great way for my students to learn how to use digital drawing tools, while creating Caldecott worthy results. The students pigeon’s always turned out fantastic and looked so much like the original that the kids felt like they too could be Caldecott honorees. If you are interested in my lesson, you can purchase it here. Mo Willem’s collection of websites would be a great tie-in to the drawing lesson and help students connect to their favorite characters.

Tips: The videos on the Pigeon Presents Get to Know Mo page are really well done and will give students and inside look at how author’s develop characters.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Mo Willem’s Websites in your classroom!

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Kidopo

August 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4340 views

What it is: Kidopo is an online coloring application where kids can color online coloring books. The application simulates a real coloring experience (in other words you can color outside the lines and the more you color over a spot, the darker it gets.). There are a lot of coloring pages to choose from with categories like animals, cars and transportation, cartoons, food, toys, holidays, learning, circus, sports, music, nature, occupation, seasons, and more. Kidopo has fun printables for the classroom including coloring sheets, bookmarks, birthday printables, awards and certificates, mazes, writing paper, connect the dots, room decorations, and stickers. You will find a collection of flash games for kids including brain games, card/board games, math games, memory games, puzzle games, science games, and word games. In the craft section of the website are videos that walk students step by step through a craft.

How to integrate Kidopo into your curriculum: The online coloring book on Kidopo is a great way to help primary students practice mouse manipulation. I like that you can color inside or outside of the lines just like in a real coloring book. If you are in a computer lab setting, the Kidopo coloring book is a fun way for students to practice, and a good way for you to gauge where their fine motor skills are.

The printables on Kidopo are perfect for the classroom. Bookmarks are always fun classroom give aways and the awards and certificates are a good way to recognize your students.

The learning games on Kidopo make a good practice center activity on classroom computers. My favorite are the math games that help students with fact recall through fun arcade-type games. In the word games, you will find a fun game called Word Frenzy that will give your students a place to practice typing. Check out the games, some are better than others but they are definitely worth a look!

Tips: One of the downfalls of Kidopo are the advertisements in the sidebar and introducing the games. I use websites with this type of advertising to teach my students about how to spot ads and discuss with them why ads are placed on websites.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Kidopo in your classroom!

Sharendipity

August 5, 2010August 5, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3117 views

What it is: Sharendipity is an excellent online tool that lets you easily create your own learning and educational game. You can do this by using one of the Sharendipity ready-made templates, or you can create a game from scratch. There just isn’t always a quality game for students to practice with when you need one. I know I have found myself wishing that I could find a game focusing on the exact phonic skill or a game that used the vocabulary that we were working on in class. Often those tailor-made games just don’t exist. Sharendipity is the answer, making it simple to create your own custom games. Games are a fun way for students to practice a new skill and they make a great quick center activity on classroom computers.

How to integrate Sharendipity into your curriculum: Create games that are tailored to your students learning needs. Sharendipity makes it easy enough to create fun games, you can create one in the time it would take you to make copies of worksheets. Use one of the ready-made templates for the easiest game creation, or if you are feeling brave, start from scratch and make your own. You can upload all of your own images to Sharendipity making customization really easy. Consider using pictures of your class, school, or students as the background of a game. Your students are sure to love seeing familiar faces or landmarks as part of the game. These games are great for fact practice and recall in math, vocabulary, spelling, phonics, or geography where quick recall of the basics is key. Sharendipity will walk you through each step of the game making process and when you are finished, you can share the url or embed the game in a class website. If your students are a little older, they can make their own Sharendipity games to practice with. Students can create games for their classmates to play as a way to study. I have students who were constantly creating games and practice activities for my classroom; they got really good at it! If you are teaching in a computer lab, Sharendipity is a fun way for students to create “original” content for their wiki, blog, or website. At my school, we buddy up older grade level students with younger grade level students. It was fun for the older kids to create special games for their buddies after learning about their buddies favorite things. For example, one student found out that their buddy loved basketball and created a basketball themed spelling activity for them.

If you collaborate with another class or another school, it would be neat to swap customized games with them.

Tips: If you are braving creating your own game, be sure to check out Sherendipity’s learning center for a great guide on how to use the tools.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Sharendipity in your classroom!

Aviary Education

June 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4213 views

Great news! Aviary has come out with a special education edition! In the Education version, teachers can create private student accounts, manage assignments and projects, use the image editor, vector editor, audio editor, and music creator. All content and images will be 100% school safe! Right now the Education site is in Beta, you can request an invitation to test the site with your students. If you aren’t familiar with the Aviary tools, check out my previous posts HERE. Aviary is a fabulous online alternative to those expensive Adobe creativity suites.

Meet Me at Midnight

June 24, 2010June 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments1314 views

What it is: As I said yesterday, the Smithsonian is a wealth of outstanding online activities and interactives. Meet Me at Midnight is an interactive adventure/comic book that takes place in the Smithsonian Art Museum. Through this fun mystery adventure, students are introduced to American art and Artists from the Smithsonian collection. Students are taken on adventures as they explore each item in the Root Monster’s treasure chest. The coyote teaches about sculpture, the headless horseman about landscape, and the ballerina about light. As students go through the adventures they will pick up art terminology. Each story takes place in five galleries: media, technique, design, purpose, and culture. Students will play art games and puzzles to find clues about where the artwork in the treasure chest should be returned to.

How to integrate Meet Me at Midnight into the classroom: Meet Me at Midnight is a fantastic interactive game for third to fifth grade students. The reading throughout the interactive is appropriate for 8-11 year old readers. To me, Meet Me at Midnight feels like a fun graphic novel/comic book adventure that students can interact in. The interactive takes time to get all the way through, once students get to certain points in the interactive, they can stop and get a code that they can plug in the next time they visit the site. They will pick up right where they left off. Meet Me at Midnight is a good way to pique students interest in art. There is a lot of good learning embedded in the games and puzzles. Because there is so much reading on this site, it would make a good reading center/thinking activity on classroom computers. Meet Me at Midnight is really best played individually in a computer lab setting, but I think students would also enjoy playing together in a whole class setting using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

If your class takes a field trip to your local art museum, this site is a must visit prior to the field trip. It will give students common language about what they see at the museum and students can complete the accompanying Kids Activity guide. If a field trip to the art museum is out of the question, use this site as part of a virtual field trip experience for your students.

Tips: Are you taking your family on a trip to the art museum this summer; start your art adventure by visiting Meet Me at Midnight!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Meet Me at Midnight in your classroom.

Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog

June 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments16036 views

What it is: The Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog comes from the North Carolina Museum of Art. Students are introduced to three characters in an online picture book. Zoey and Zeke are visiting their cousin Camilla who works as a curator at an art museum in Costa Rica. Soon students are swept away in a mystery and adventure as they must use clues and match up the Costa Rica art pieces with the notecards that were written by the donors of the art. Along the way students learn to read for information, and learn about art, science, history, and culture of Costa Rica.

How to integrate the Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog into the classroom: The Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog is a fun way for students to practice reading for information and practicing the inferring reading strategy. As students work through the mystery, they will also be learning about art, science, history, and the culture of Costa Rica. This is a great activity for students to complete independently in a computer lab or 1-to-1 setting, it is a little long to be completed as a center activity. If you teach younger students, or students who may not be able to read the story independently, read the story as a class or small group using a projector connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Students can work together to solve the mystery using the available clues in the story. Before students begin reading the story, they can build background knowledge by using the built in research guide. Students can learn more about Costa Rica with an interactive map, learn about the works of art they will see in the story, and the different animals represented in the works of art.

The story can be read in either English or Spanish. For older students learning Spanish as a foreign language, the activity could be completed in Spanish. This would be a fun activity to test their skills of reading for understanding in the Spanish language.

Tips: For more great related links, click on the “more” drop down from the home page. Happy solving!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog in your classroom.