One of the units my student teacher took over was poetry and she had this great idea (from her own sixth grade experience) to have students create a pop-up book of their poems. It was pretty fascinating to watch (from my distance) the kids work on creating 3D books and they came out pretty neat. She used this site of pop-up creation techniques from Robert Sabuda.
I grabbed some images from some of the books and made her a video for her portfolio.
Peace (in the pop),
Kevin
We just finished up an independent book unit and students had to choose some way to present their final thoughts about the book they chose. A few of them used Glogster, and I sort of wish more had. My room is filled with posters, which are wonderful but soon to be sent back home. This report by one of my students is well-done, and is about the 38 Clues series. Notice how she used a good design that combines the media with text and your eyes flow over the page. She “gets it,” I think.
Peace (in the glog),
Kevin
And so, I am bringing this writing adventure to an end with the last few frames of my “App for That” skit-turned-into-webcomic idea. One thing I struggled with was how to shift from one medium (play writing) into another (comic strip writing), and what to leave in and what to leave out. I’m not sure how successful I was but it was fun and it provided me with more experience with Bitstrips for Education, which is a site I will be using this summer for my Webcomic Summer Camp with middle school kids.
I did like that I could easily make my own characters — it was quite simple, in fact — and upload other images, such as my walking iKnow device and the Greek Chorus (aka, App Development Review Board).
And I had to get my old friend, Boolean, in there, too, since I did a whole series of comics once around his development of the Grade Remorse Calculator for an App Challenge that his school took part in. I hope you see how labeling him a “typical child” is funny. It is to me, anyway.
Here is the large version of the fourth installment of “An App for That.”
Peace (on the funny pages),
Kevin
Phew. Converting a skit into a comic is not as easy as it seems. But here is part three of my App for That comic. (You can read Part One and Part Two, too). In this one, the app under development turns stodgy teachers into rock and roll stars. (You know you want it!)
Tomorrow will be the last section of the story (with a special comic strip guest tossed in!)
See the full-screen version of the comic.
Peace (in the spotlight),
Kevin
Here is the second installment of my App for That webcomic story, which I am constructing in Bitstrips. I was thinking about all those pencils that I seem to used to have had, but no longer can find. And why is that so many of my students don’t have their own pencils? It’s writing class, for goodness sake.
You can view the first part of An App for That webcomic here.
A full screen version of today’s comic is here.
Peace (in the gps),
Kevin
The other day, I shared out a play skit that I had written about developing some Apps for Education as a way to poke fun at the whole concept. I mused on the idea of turning the concept into a webcomic, and now I am in the process of doing so with Bitstrips.
Here is the first of three installments of my comic, An App for That.
(Click here to see the comic as a full page)
Peace (in the frames),
Kevin
my wife is a Boston Red Sox fan, I still love her (we have a bit of a Yankees-Red Sox rivalry here in our house, in case that is not obvious.) I forgive her because she is such a wonderful mother and friend and wife. Plus, it helps that the Yankees are kicking some Red Sox butt this year.
Peace (in the comic world),
Kevin
A few weeks ago, I wrote up this skit, thinking it might be something we could do for the staff act at our school’s Talent Show. It didn’t work. It is too long, a bit too complicated, younger kids would have been confused .. and I had a conflict that night (compounded by my son being sick).
Still, I like the skit (and wonder if I could turn it into a comic somehow?), which pokes fun at the development of Apps for education. It’s called An App for That.
Peace (in the play),
Kevin
This is the last book that I am writing this week for the Seven Picture Books in Seven Days challenge by Paula Yoo. Phew. I decided to write it about writing. Awww man!
It’s called Writing is an Adventure
Writing is An Adventure on Storybird
Peace (in the composition),
Kevin
I saw this new site — Zooburst — somewhere or another, and given that my student teacher is right now doing pop-up poetry books, I was intrigued. The site is still in beta and they are only allowing new memberships on a vetted basis, I think, but you can make 3D pop-up books. Sounds strange, right?
There are are few levels going on here, including using your webcam and a special printout that allows you to view your picture book on your hand (!), but check out what I have embedded as an example of a picture book from the site — this is my first book called The Writer Within.
(Hmm – the embed code was too big and when I shrunk it down, I seem to have lost the controls to move to the next pages. There’s just a bit of the arrows on the left and right side. See them? Click on them. If not, go HERE to read the book).
But here is where the site is fascinating — if you print out the special image they provide (branded with their logo, of course), and hold it up to your webcam, you get to “see” your 3D book come alive in the webcam window. I’m not sure how to explain it. I was hooked, though. And ZooBurst wisely has a button that will take a screenshot of you and your book, together, and email it to you as a jpeg. How cool is that? Wicked cool, man.
Peace (in 3D),
Kevin
PS — If you are wondering how a teacher finds time during the day to do this, I am home with a sick kid. I tried to get him to try it, but he wasn’t all that interested right now. Too busy being a sick pre-teen, I guess. But he did come over when the webcam kicked in and stared at it with me.
