Challenging Student Creativity with Great Results: iPad Camp at ACOA

Artwork created in Procreate by iPad Camp student

The last full week in July was iPad Camp at the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg. This was an especially wonderful group of kids. There were 3 boys and 3 girls. That turns out to be a great balance of energy and skills. The girls were older and more focused, the boys were younger and higher energy.  These camps provide kids with an opportunity to challenge their creative problem solving skills by learning media production tools in a non-structured environment. I am most appreciative of ACOA efforts to develop arts/technology programming.

What I Learn from Three Year Olds on iPads

Kristin Reiber Harris
KristinHarrisDesign.com

I am back in the house, that is the Yellow House at Elizabeth's Early Learning Center. I had been visiting my three year old friends at this day care center for a number of years when my schedule last year made it difficult to get there. I'm back and boy am I thrilled about it.

What's so wonderful about this experience?

It's always fun to spend time with individuals who are happy, friendly and into what's happening right now, whether they are three or fifty.  

I am so respectful of their intelligence. These kids are curious and smart. As a general rule they are pretty fearless, certainly about making mistakes. They spend quite of bit of their day learning by making mistakes. (I do too.) This comes quite naturally.

I love sharing information and helping others build skill sets. That is what education is all about and interactive experiences can be a great way to explore information. 

Digital Experience with Bones at the National Museum of Natural History

Kristin Reiber Harris
KristinHarrisDesign.com

National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

With almost 7 million annual visitors, the National Museum of Natural History on the Mall in Washington, DC is the most visited natural history museum in the world. The iconic elephant in the rotunda is a familiar site to people all over the globe and one I have known since childhood.

During July I had the opportunity to spend two days in the museum. My visits focused on the Bone Hall, an historic part of the museum's collection. I was fascinated that key components of the current display date back to the original exhibition on comparative anatomy in 1881. I had invited the developers of the app Skin & Bones for the Bones Hall to speak at a meeting of the Women in Film & Video's Education & Children's Media Roundtable. I wanted to be prepared for the event.

Bone Hall, 1881     Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives

Maier Museum iPad Camp: A Success Story

Five afternoons in mid-June, the Maier Museum at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Va hosted eager and dedicated iPad artist between the ages of 8 and 13 for the first iPad camp of the summer. Surrounded by art treasures from the Maier Museum collection, what better location to inspire students to be creative.

My objective in organizing these iPad camps is to encourage students to become content creators not just content consumers. When I asked the students how they use their iPads, I heard a lot about Minecraft and Youtube. We all know how easy it is to become addicted to the wide range of media at our fingertips with our mobile devices.  My mission: convince students to use their own creative energies and expertise to become animators, storytellers and developers too. Few things make me happier than to see this mission accomplished as successfully as it was that week.

Olivia's wonderful cat with a view of the Flip Boom Cartoon interface.

6 Reasons To Go to iPad Camp

Kristin Reiber Harris

What's So Special About iPad Camp?

I have had the opportunity to work with many kids and adults in a variety of venues exploring the iPad as a tool for creative expression. My schedule this summer includes two weeks of half-day iPad camps at the Maier Museum at Randolph College the weeks of June 15th and June 22nd. The sessions are 3 hours five days in a row, the first week for kids 8 to 12 and the second week for teens and adults. Stay tuned for more dates and venues.

iPad Camp last summer at Lynchburg College  Photo Credit: Lynchburg College

Check Out These Student Authors and Illustrators Published on iPads

Still feeling the glow of the recent Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. This program was a collaboration between Global Sleepover and Demibooks to help students develop global awareness and produce interactive books on iPads. Representing Demibooks, I joined Geeta Raj of Global Sleepover for the second week of the camp. The first week she focused on helping the students develop their skills as storytellers and illustrators. She worked with them to craft stories about different countries around the world. I assisted the students with Demibooks Composer Pro. This app for creating apps, let them load their text, illustrations and audio files and add animation and interactivity to their stories and publish their work.

Isaiah King's Cover Artwork

Global Storytelling, iPad Camp and Publishing Student Authors/Illustrators

Kristin Reiber Harris

I joined Geeta Raj of Global Sleepover on Monday, July 28th at Howard University in Washington, DC for the Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute

at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. This program provided a group of students with the opportunity to explore app design as well as storytelling and interactivity.  I arrived for the second week of the camp on behalf of Demibooks to help the students produce interactive books on iPads. The first week of the camp, Geeta worked with the students writing stories with a focus on global adventures. Each story that took place in different countries with characters from that country featured in the stories.

I was very impressed with the campus. Undergraduate Library, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Lessons Learned from Seven iPad Camps

This camp was my 7th iPad Camp of the summer but my first specifically as a trainer for Demibooks. Emboldened with a wealth of experience working with students 8 to 13 (some adults too) I had a grasp on what could be accomplished in this short period of time. Earlier in July, I spent two weeks working with students at Linkhorne Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia. Our sessions were only 3 hours long for four afternoons a week. The students had been able to write, illustrate and produce stories that incorporated a variety of interactive components and animation. I appreciated that we would have a lot more time with the students at this camp and I saw the benefits of this extra time.

What We Learned at iPad Camp

Kristin Reiber Harris

I am in the middle of a new series of iPad camps for Lynchburg City Schools. Here are a few thoughts about what I learned during 4 sessions of iPad Camp sponsored by the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College in June. You will see lots of samples of student work and get an idea of what they learned. Some students came with some experience with animation or video, but many did not.

iPads As Creative Tools
I am even more convinced iPads are incredible tools for stimulating creative problem solving and critical thinking. The students at the four sessions at Lynchburg College ran the gamet from kids as young as 8 (by just a few days) to a retired college professor. There was a broadcast media professional, an artist, four sets of parent and child and high school students. This rich tapestry of participants produced an wide variety of work, as you can imagine.

These creative experiences with technology reinforce the value of being a content creator, not just a content consumer. 

Artist Nugent Kos used Procreate to paint this beautiful spider web for her interactive Composer Pro project.

iPad Camp Lives!

Kristin Reiber Harris

We are in the middle of the last week of our 4 session iPad Camp at Lynchburg College, sponsored by the Daura Gallery. It's been a blast. Each week there are two sessions offered, one for kids 8 to 12 in the afternoon and a second session for teens and adults in the evening.

I am helping Ryan and Callie work on Composer Pro  Credit: Lynchburg College

Why are we doing this?

My objective with the camp is to demonstrate what a great tool the iPad is for stimulating creativity and give the students an opportunity to play and experiment. I introduce four apps that I have found to be very accessible to kids and adults and get them rolling on creating their own media projects. The apps we are using are FlipBoomCartoon (animation), iMovie (video productiton), ComposerPro (book/game apps) and Procreate (art). It is very gratifying to see the students just take off and jump in.

Getting Ready for iPad Camp

Kristin Reiber Harris

Yeah, iPad Camp!
I am very excited to be preparing for four sessions of iPad Camp sponsored by the Friends of the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College. There will be two 3 hour sessions a day, the first for students 8 to 12 years old and the second for teens and adults. Each camp lasts for 5 days. I have been pleased with the response and registration and am really looking forward to getting things rolling on Monday afternoon.

Lynchburg College Dell, Lynchburg, VA  Credit:Imaginegod614 Wikipedia CC

My objectives for the camp are primarily three fold:
     1. introduce some well-tested tools for creative media production; 
         animation, video production and interactive books 
         It's important to remember this is about process, not everyone will have 
         a completed project at the end of 5 days. However, they will know how to do it.
     2. support an exploration of those tools through the students original projects
     3. walk the students through the steps professionals use to create media; 
         a good idea, planning with storyboards, asset creation and production
         (Learn about my work as a professional media producer on my website.) 

A New Way of Seeing Things: SEEC Part 3

Kristin Reiber Harris

This is Part 3 (Part 1, Part 2) of a series of articles about the recent seminar Play: Engaging Young Learning in Object Rich Environments at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center in Washington, D.C. 

I am a veteran art museum hopper. Growing up in Washington, DC I was spoiled with access to an extraordinary universe of art, most of it free. I have had the great fortune to visit art museums nationally and internationally but Washington remains a geographic center of my museum art world. There have been times on a blitz art museum swing I have hit 3 or 4 in one day. I am the first to admit that I don't always linger as much as I could like, even in exhibits that I find incredibly stimulating and informative. One such example was Gravity's Edge at the Hirshhorn. I loved the exhibit but did not linger over each piece as much as I might have liked, distracted by so much to see and do.

Hirshhorn Museum from Sculpture Garden  Credit:Public Domain  Gryffindor