Use these tutorials to help you learn new multimedia skils for your Hyperstudio project.
BONUS: This video will show you how to add borders and animations:
Kindergarten Technology Class January 2020
In January, the kindergarten students started coming to the computer lab for Technology class. We are using KidPix software to learn to draw and click using the mouse. Because most younger students have only used tablets, learning to use a mouse is a new challenge that can be surprisingly tricky at first!
We began learning to use a mouse by drawing “spaghetti” lines. Students have used a pencil tool to draw and have learned to change colors and size of lines. They also have drawn with chalk, crayon, and marker tools.
Next, students worked on controlling their mouse by drawing a picture of a cat.
We also used straight lines to draw a house!
Kindergarteners will continue to learn about using different KidPix tools including stamps, paint bucket fill, textured lines, and text boxes as they grow their technology skills.
Category: KidPix, Kindergarten /
3D Snowflakes using Apple Pencil and the Morphi Edu App
The third graders recently worked on a 3D design project. They used 6 point symmetry in the Morphi app to create these gorgeous 3D snowflakes. Our Apple Pencils from our MACUL grant made it easy for students to complete these complex designs.
Students began in the Morphi app by creating a small loop using the “doughnut” shape. Next, they opened the 2D to 3D tool. They turned on the “guides” tool under Symmetry and then used the + sign to add 6 lines of symmetry.
Then they started to draw. There were many oohs and ahs as their designs began to appear. Each one was as beautiful and unique as real snowflakes are! When finished, they tapped the 3D button and *BOOM* the design turned into 3D. A final step was to connect the loop and the snowflake together.
We printed out our snowflakes on our Dremel 3D printers. They look amazing!
A few hints if you try this project:
- Make sure your lines are not too thin – thin lines may easily break when printed.
- Be sure all lines connect on your snowflake or pieces will fall off the printed snowflake.
- Designs that are very complex sometimes will not print successfully.
- If your design gets too large, parts will be chopped off and your snowflake will not be round.
- The Morphi app comes in a free and paid EDU version. You will need the paid version to use the drawing tool. The drawing tool is amazing and allows you to create custom 3D designs.
- Students emailed their completed designs to the teacher for processing and printing.
- I did make the designs larger using the Print Studio software that comes with the Dremel Printers while I was preparing the files for printing. You could also adjust the size in Morphi, but doing this step later simplified the project for the students.
Bethlehem Eyewitness Drawings and Animations 2019
Our second graders recently completed this inspiring Christmas project in technology class. They began by using the Drawing Pad app to draw a portrait of one of the people who were present at Christmas: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, or the angels.
Students used the Drawing Pad app to create their portraits. They used our new Apple Pencils to draw! They enjoyed being able to draw easily with detail – much better than using a finger or a stylus!
Next, they wrote a short story that told the first-person account of what that person saw and heard on Christmas day. Finally, they used the ChatterPix Kids app to record the story and make their drawing talk!!!
The videos of their talking Christmas characters are uploaded into this gallery in Vimeo linked below. There are 44 videos so you will need to click the arrows at the bottom to go through the pages of the collection if you are looking for a specific video.
Bethlehem Eyewitness Video Gallery
We hope these videos help remind you of the special message of the Christmas season that Jesus is born.
Teacher note: Drawing Pad is one of the best drawing apps for kids, currently $5.99 on the US iTunes store. ChatterPix Kids is a FREE app that lets you record 30 seconds of audio to animate a picture.
Three Elementary Learning Strategies using Keynote
I am looking forward to presenting with Mrs. Nesbitt in March at the MACUL conference about “Eight Great Elementary Learning Strategies using Keynote.” The goal of this session will be to share ways that Keynote can be used for learning that go beyond simply making a presentation. Here are a few simple examples of ways that our students have been using some of these Keynote strategies in our technology classes.
NARRATION
The ability to easily record audio is a valuable Keynote feature for the elementary classroom. It allows students to record themselves reading text or explaining ideas and solutions. Before Thanksgiving, I created a simple template where our second graders could share some things that they were thankful for. Students learned to use the iPad keyboard to type their ideas and then recorded themselves reading their stories. If time, some students used the Keynote shapes to illustrate their stories. Here are a few examples of this project.
ILLUSTRATION
We were blessed to receive a grant from MACUL to purchase Apple Pencils for our students to use with our iPads. Before Christmas, our third graders used them to draw an illustration of “My Best Gift.” It was interesting to view the different ways that students interpreted this idea prompt. We saved their drawings into the camera roll, then loaded them into iMovie and stretched the image out to play for 30 seconds. Then students inserted a green screen video clip of a package being unwrapped that I had created. The students thought it was pretty cool to see their picture being “unwrapped!” One class had time to add some music to the background of their movie. If we had had more time, I would have had students record audio explaining why this was their best gift. (If you didn’t want to use the green screen in iMovie, the recording could have easily be done right in Keynote.) Here are a few examples of their recordings.
ANNOTATION
Keynote is a perfect app to use when you want students to annotate text. Our fourth graders used a simple Keynote template that I made to create a “Book Snap” where they annotated a text from a story. They used a series of video tutorials that I created so they could independently guide themselves through the project. Students were asked to use different colors to show an important idea, a vocabulary word, and something they had a question about or were curious about. Then they used the Keynote shapes and emojis to help visualize the text. Here are a few examples of their Book Snaps.
4th Grade Book Snap Video Tutorials
Category: Uncategorized /
4th Grade Thanksgiving Raps with Apps
The fourth graders recently created thanksgiving “Raps with Apps” on the iPads. They began using the Smart Drums feature in GarageBand app to develop a pattern of beats. Then they wrote their rap to go along to the beats. Then they used a second iPad and used the Voice Memos app to record their rap with the beats playing in the background. The final step was to email their completed file to Miss Bosch.
Students had a lot of fun and did a great job being creative with music tools while praising God. I have posted some examples of their raps. (Note: not all students completed completed and/or emailed their raps to Miss Bosch, so are missing. A few were emailed without names and were not posted.)
I am working on adding the raps. More are coming.
Category: Fourth Grade, iPad /
KidPix Funny Leaf People 2019
Here come the funny leaf people! In this KidPix lesson, the first graders learned to create and type their name in a text box. Then they followed 4 steps to decorate their leaf person using stamps, flipped stamps, lines, and paintbrush tools! Here is a gallery sharing all of their leaf people! Click on a picture to see a larger view. (Note: a few students were absent last Tuesday when we made these pictures, so they won’t have a picture.)
Note to teachers: Although we did this in KidPix, this would work great in Pages or Keynote on an iPad. Students could photograph a leaf, then use the drawing tools and shapes to decorate!
Category: First Grade, KidPix /
3rd Grade Multiplication Array Cities with Keynote 2019
Recently, the third graders have been learning about multiplication arrays. Mrs. Parris and Mrs. Archer brought their classes into the computer lab to design an “Array City” with “buildings” that represented multiplication problems.
We used Keynote on our Mac Mini computers to make our pictures (although this lesson would also work on iPads). I used April Requard’s iTunes U Course: Array City in Keynote for inspiration. I simplified the lesson by using tables to make our buildings. Students learned how to adjust the sizing of the tables to match the multiplication problem they were representing. They added text boxes to write the problems by each building. Then they used the formatting tools to change the line and the fill colors for each building. Finally, they took advantage of all the new shapes in Keynote to add roofs and decorations to their buildings.
Here is a gallery showing all the Array Cities. Click on the image to see a larger view.
Category: Keynote, Third Grade /
Second Grade Drawings with Apple Pencils
The second-grade students were very excited to use our new Apple Pencils to learn to draw on our iPads. We used the Drawing Pad app. Students explored the different drawing tools in the app, while learning to pinch in and out to add details to their drawings. They made pictures of fall vocabulary words. Here are a few photo I took of the students while they were working.
