Seventh Grade Keynote Selfie Portraits

Posted on November 3, 2018 by Karen Bosch

The seventh graders have been using the #EveryoneCanSketchnote workbook that I created in Keynote to learn more about sketchnotes, using Keynote, and drawing with the Apple Pencil. On Thursday the students learned a tracing trick in Keynote and then used a selfie photo to make their own cartoon drawing. I snapped a few photos while they were working – a lot of creative work happening! The students have been loving using the Apple Pencil – they only wish we had more so they didn’t have to share!

Here is a link to a video tutorial that I quickly put together for the students to show them how to use tracing in Keynote to make these portraits.

Clips PLUS Fiction Book Trailer Videos

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Karen Bosch

During second semester, the middle school students used the Apple Clips app to builld book trailers based on fiction books. Students were challenged to use Clips PLUS at least one other app to give an overview of their book. Here are some examples of the students’ work:

Jake used the Tellagami app to share about The Giver. (Note: Tellagami currently will not work with iOS 11.) He didn’t want to use his voice, so he used the text voice feature to create his narration. Also, note the effective way he used the black and white filters in Clips which matched the plot in the book.

Kennedy used the Toca City and Toca School apps to created cartoon clips for her video about the book Wonder. Her use of labels within the Clips app adds lots of detail and information to her story.

Nick used Minecraft to design backgrounds, Pickayou to make his characters, and then built the video pieces in Puppet Pals. Then he edited all of that together in Clips, adding titles, annotaion, and music. I was very impressed with the complex and detailed workflow that he used for this project!

Ryan combined copyright friendly photos with drawings that he made using Tayasui Sketches to make the images to illustrate Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

We hope these examples give you some inspiration on how you can app smash Clips with other apps for creative digital storytelling!

Examples for Final Video

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Karen Bosch

Life Lesson Video Examples: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/search/life%20lesson

Keynote Drawings and Magic Move

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Karen Bosch

Over the past few weeks, the multimedia tech students have been exploring how to use the drawing and Magic Move features to create some amazing animations. They followed this helpful video to get started with some of the basics of Magic Move.

Ten Ways to Use Magic Move by Simon Pile

Then they had an opportunity to get creative with Magic Move. I especially loved this Teacher Appreciation animation created by Ethan V. (We used the screen recording feature in iOS 11 to take a video of their animations.)

Students found lots of helpful ways to use Keynote to share about things they had been learning.

Next, the students took selfies and traced over top of them to draw their self portraits. Students really made some amazing portraits!

Finally, students used all kinds of tools in Keynote to add words and images to their stories. Here are videos showing some of their animations:

Julie even used GarageBand to add some awesome music to the background of her video:

All of our students have blogs where they post and reflect on their work. Joshua’s comment, “What I like about keynote is that it’s Google Slides, except 5x better” really made me smile, because it shows the depth of creativity the students were discovering! It’s more than text and an picture on a slide!

You can view their posts on this project here: https://kidblog.org/class/scs-ms-multimedia-tech-18/posts

Sphero National Park Mazes

Posted on April 21, 2018 by Karen Bosch

Sometimes the students take a project in an unexpected direction and make it better!

My middle school classes have been working on several coding units during the past few weeks. They began by using Apple’s Swift Playgrounds to learn some of the basics and vocabulary of coding. Then they transferred what they had been learning about code to the Sphero Edu app while working on a variety of Sphero Coding Challenges.

Our final project has been to design a maze and then code Sphero through it. We have done this activity before, but this year we added a theme to our mazes – US National Parks! Students did a bit of research on their selected park, then designed a maze where Sphero would give a tour of the park. Students have been challenged to use movement, color, actions, and speaking/sounds as Sphero moved through the park. Here is an example of Nick’s maze design for Glacier National Park:

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Once their plans were completed, I expected students to put a bit of tape on the floor, print out a few pictures, and add a simple ramp or tunnel to build their mazes. But as their ideas developed, my room began to explode with cardboard, styrofoam and paper cups, pipe cleaners, and gobs of masking tape. Students were having a blast BUILDING stuff – not always pretty, but definitely related to what they had learned about their national park. Here are a few of their ideas:

While researching, Ethan learned that the only way to visit Isle Royale Nationa; Park was by seaplane or boat. So he designed a boat to carry Sphero to the island. In his coding, Sphero pauses so that when it reaches the island, he can remove the boat, then Sphero can hike through the island.

Ryan’s Sphero will travel deep into Mammoth Cave – note the cave with pipe cleaner stalactites.

Sphero traveling down a waterfall at Katmai National Park. Note the salmon swimming upstream. Some bears are going to be added to this scene.

Joshua’s cardboard structures from the Grand Canyon included a bridge and the Sky Walk.

Here are some videos showing Sphero going through the National Park Mazes:

Solomon Island Boat Game Pieces

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Karen Bosch

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We recently began working on designing boat game pieces based on the boats of the Solomon Islands. The game pieces are for my missionary friend Martha Matzke who is developing a game about the Solomon Islands similar to the game Ticket to Ride. (Learn more about how we Skyped with Martha to launch the project here.

Students were given the choice to use either Tinkercad or the Morphi app to create their designs. As you can see, their attention to details was amazing, especially considering the designs were only 40 mm long.

Students discovered that precise measuring is important. We cracked up when this teeny boat was printed – not the 40 mm size that was expected!

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Students went through multiple iterations of their designs. Becuase these files printed in about 15 minutes each, they were able to learn how to process the files for printing and then actually print them on our Dremel 3D Printers.

Here is a link to student blog posts where they share and reflect upon their project.

These models above were printed 50% larger than the 40 mm size that was needed for the actual game. By printing them slightly larger you can really see the details!

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Here is the actual size of the final versions of the game pieces. (I made slight adjustments to the student designs to help stabilize them, remove sharp pieces, and get them a similar height and thickness.)

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Our Dremel 3D40 and 3D20 printers have been going all day printing 50 of each boat design. We appreciate having great 3D printers from Dremel that make this project possible!

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We are delighted to be getting these game pieces ready to send to the Solomon Islands!

Disclosure: As a part of the 2016/17 Dremel 3D Idea Builder Ambassadors program, our school received use of a 3D40 printer. If you are interested in learning more about the Dremel Idea Builder 3D40 printer, you may contact https://3dprinter.dremel.com/education-request. I’d appreciate it if you noted Karen Bosch/this blog post as a referral in the comments/questions section at the bottom of the form. Thanks!

Merge Cube Mania

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Karen Bosch

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A few weeks ago I joined in the Merge Cube Mania and purchased 30 Merge Cubes for a dollar each at Walmart. This week I asked my middle school multimedia tech class to explore the Merge Cube apps and then write a review of the product and apps on their blogs.

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The students had a blast and were amazed at the AR/augmented reality effects when using the cubes. They wrote some insightful posts and included pictures and videos to illustrate their ideas. Some student even used the Clips app to illustrate their reviews.

Here is a link to the student blog reviews. We’d love for you to view them and even leave them a comment!

Middle Pages Merge Cube Reviews

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I also have been beta testing the Merge Cube Object Viewer. It allows you to upload a 3D file (such as a .stl file that you create with Tinkercad) and view it in 3D in the cube. It is a pretty cool way to preview 3D files. Here is an example of a boat designed by one of my students being viewed in the Merge Cube:

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

For more information on Merge Cubes, check out this detailed post from Michael Fricano.

Check out if your local Walmart has any discounted Merge Cubes available.

Here is a Merge Cube Printable that you can use to make your own cube to test out!

Life Lesson Selfie Videos

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Karen Bosch

Our Life Lesson Selfie Video project is a good way for students to creatively many of the multimedia skills that we have worked on during the semester. They used iPads to film themselves sharing 5 “Life Lessons” that were both serious and funny. Many students used filter, photo cam, and green screen apps to film their lesson clips. Then the clips were downloaded onto our Mac computers, where students used iMovie to edit the clips and add titles, music, voiceovers, and other effects. The students were very creative with how the edited their videos together. Here are their videos:

You can read the student reflections and evaluation of this project at their Kidblogs here: https://kidblog.org/class/scs-ms-multimedia-tech-17/posts

Bubble Wands: Better, Bolder, Beautiful!

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Karen Bosch

lilly wand dog wand morphi

Our Middle School multimedia tech class has been working through the 5 step design process while designing bubble wands using the Morphi app. The challenge was to see if students could improve the ability to blow bubbles (better), make it blow cooler bubbles (bolder), and then make the design of the wand look interesting (beautiful).

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Students began with designs using exact measurement.

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Some first designs were not very successful! LOL!

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bubbles iteration 2

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Students worked through several iterations of designs to address design flaws and to add decorative features. We used our Dremel 3D20 and 3D40 printers to print our projects. Above you can see examples that show how the designs evolved. Below, you can see some of the bubble wands in action!!

Each student created blog posts talking about how they planned and worked through this project. Click here to see their posts:

3D Printing Bubble Wands

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UPDATE: We were able to have a Google Hangout with Sophia, the developer of the Morphi app! Students enjoyed learning more about app development and shared some suggestions for features to add to Morphi.

Using Clips to Annotate and Narrate Sketchnotes

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Karen Bosch

The MS Tech Class has not only been making amazing sketchnotes (see this post), but also has been using the Apple Clips app to explain their sketchnotes by adding narration and annotation. Check out their videos, then click on the link underneath to see a blog post where each student wrote to share about the visual learning strategies that they have been learning!

The Apple Clips app is a wonderful free addition to classroom learning. It lets you combine photos, video clips, audio narration, closes captioning, titles, text boxes, annotations, emoji’s, and music into short Instagram style videos. It can be used in all subject areas in a variety of ways – I especially like to use it as a way for students to share and reflect on the things they are learning.