Powered by Blogger.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

SNACK TIME

Snacktools.com is a website that provides some really innovative and useful web apps. I had a student teacher in the fall of 2012 that came across this site. He used Flipsnack to create a digital picture book of our 1st graders' work. To create this digital flip style book, you simply upload PDF documents and let Flipsnack to the rest. Flipsnack creates awesome, digital flipbooks. Click the picture below to see our example or here.

Another tool that we have utilized in our classroom is PhotoSnack. My kids have been using Skitch to type over pictures. We recently completed an activity for MLK Day. Working with our buddy class, we came up with a list of "big words." This was completed after watching a short film about Martin's Big Words. Each kid took their picture with the iPad and then typed their "big words" on their picture. In the end, we combined all of our "big word" pictures and used PhotoSnack to create a photo slideshow to post on our blog. Click on the picture below to see PhotoSnack in action or click here


Snacktools has been a simple tool to create some great digital artifacts to share with the world. 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Doodle for Google

"One talented student artist will see their artwork appear on the Google homepage, receive a $30,000 college scholarship, and a $50,000 technology grant for their school along with some other cool prizes!"

Now is the time to put those artistic skills to the test. Check out all the details here or check out the short video below. 


Monday, January 7, 2013

Lego Avatar Maker


What?
Working with the 21st Century Learner, we are responsible for creating responsible digital citizens. This is especially true for the under 13 crowd. One tool that we have used in my classroom is the Lego Avatar Creator. The website lets students create a Lego avatar of their liking. They may customize it to suite their needs.

Why?
When using Kidblog, Voicethread or one of the many other digital tools, my students utilize their initials. In another layer of security, we use their Lego avatars with each of their accounts. This has proven to not only be a safe method but a fun way for kids to create a unique profile picture.

How?

The first step in the process is to access the Lego Avatar website.

2) Once students are on the page, they can begin customizing all the features by using the body part icons in the lower left under the screen showing their current Lego person. 

3) Saving the image can be a bit tricky depending on your platform. Macs are much easier being able to take a screen shot of only the Lego person. PC is a little more in depth. 

PC
a) print screen
c) CTRL + V (this will paste your image to allow cropping)


d) Use your mouse to draw a box around the part of the image you want to crop then click on crop selection


e) In option 2--choose if you want to resize. In option 3, choose a special effect and in option 4, choose the file format to save your avatar. Click the yellow "I'm Done." button.


f) Your final step is to save to disk, a social site or you can continue editing. 

**There are other methods for cropping your Lego avatar. However, this website allows anyone with an internet connection to crop their image. Since we have PowerPoint on all our computers, students just paste their screen shot into PowerPoint, double click on the picture, crop, right click and save as a .jpg. 


More
Check out the wiki link below for a large list of tools for creating avatars. 





Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Meograph


Looking for a fun, new tool for creating digital stories? Meograph is one of the latest that I have been using with my first graders. We have been using Skype to connect with classes across the United States. You can see our progress at Skype R' US. One goal of this project is to create a digital portfolio of facts learned throughout the school year. This allows us to compare and contrast our school to others across the US.

To help explain Meograph, I have a short video embedded below.




Below is an example of a final product that we created.



For more information about tools for creating photo/digital stories check out Richard Byrne's post. Find out about another tool here.