Hello World. Welcome to Demibooks Composer Studio

I have been working toward today for a number of months now. It started in April when I emailed Professor Danny Cline, the director of the Governor's School of Math, Science & Technology here at Lynchburg College, requesting a few iPads for my Gov School students this year. I was unaware at the time forces (thanks below) at Lynchburg College were in the process of procuring a large technology grant specifically for the purpose of stimulating creativity in the arts. What followed was the miraculous dovetailing of my original request to Danny and the grant. What manifest was many iPads, apps for creating content on the iPad and related hardware to wrangle 30 iPads at once. With a little bit of hand wringing, I was able to get my friends in IT to order the supplies in time for Gov School students to use them. Yipee. And with a lot of hard work from everyone, it all came together.  Today the students worked on the iPads and were introduced to Demibooks Composer Studio.

Demibooks Composer Studio interface as you open a new document to start working.  May not seem all that exciting, but this is the front door to an universe of possibilities.

It actually all began many months ago when I read an email from my friend Lisa Goldman, organizer of Women in Animation in NYC. Will Denton was presenting information about "a powerful and intuitive authoring tool" that could incorporate animation. That sent me to Demibooks website and our lives became entwined.

So this morning I showed the students the two apps I am currently developing in Demibooks Composer Studio, Duck Takes a Ride - An Art Story and ABC.DC - An Art Alphabet as a way to introduce the interface and some of the functionality of the app. Yes, Demibooks Composer Studio is an iPad app.  All of the production is done on the iPad. My interest was to share my enthusiasm with the students, provide enough information to get them going, and see what happened. 

My project Duck Takes A Ride - An Art Story to be released soon.

 I am especially interested in having the students explore the physics capabilities. I have not done so at all in my own development work. I challenged them, as game players, to come up with a game that works in this structure. That's one reason I think Composer Studio's Hot Zones are so important. Hot Zones are a new feature in the latest version of the software. A Hot Zone is created, targets identified and the fun begins. As a target object enters or leaves a Hot Zone, a myriad of Behaviors can be programmed. I was very pleased with the results I got right away. They are taking the challenge.

Sean is one of the more enthusiastic Composer Studio users. This is the interface for his game that uses the iPad accelerometer and tilting functionality.

The dream academic environment in one inwhich tools and instruction are provided for students who are motivated to accept the challenge to own the tools and use them in their own creative expression.  In doing so, they share their findings and new knowledge with each other and inspire even more experimentation and creative expression. 

Adriana is working on this love story game.

One of the nicest surprises has been  Procreate, an app for making art on the iPad. I knew other Composer Studio developers were using it to make content on their iPads, however I had not used it before I dabbled about before introducing it to the students. They have done some very interesting work. Here is an image from Eli, one of the most prolific and inventive artists of the group.

Eli's image created in Procreate

Another student is working on an animated story about the life cycle of a butterfly.  Congratulations students for taking the challenge to create content with these exciting new tools.

An image from Faiza's life cycle animated story

I would like to thank the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges,  Richard Pumphrey, professor in the Art Department, Carol Hardin, Director of Grants Advancement, Deborah Blanchard, Director of Communications and Marketing, Danny Cline, Director of the Governor's School, Jackie Almond, Director Technology Support Services, Sharon Keefe, Technology Business Manager, Charley Butcher, Educational Technology Specialist and Donna White, Technology Support Services Technician for all of your help.  And all of the others who played a role in getting us up and running by early July.