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.

Tough Gig: Creating Meaningful Media for Today's Classroom

Fairfax County Public School Digital Media Producers

Many of us grew up with a tradition of lecture based instructional media with little or no interactive engagement with students. All this has changed dramatically, thanks to the internet, YouTube and more sophisticated approaches to how students learn. How do all the pieces fit together in one of the largest school systems in the country?

To set the stage, the Fairfax County public school system is the number 1 employer in Virginia with 188,000 students and 24,000 employees. They move more people a day than the Greyhound Bus system. FCPS Digital Media Production has 14 full time employers with 800 projects per year, ranging from PSA's to hourly programming. The subject matter is educational, public information and professional development with some content for broadcast while other programming goes directly to the web. Fairfax Network is the distribution arm for educational programming that is grade level or curriculum specific. The FCPS's YouTube channel has 1238 videos.Their work is 93% grant funded and some of their many educational partners include the Smithsonian, National Archives, Library of Congress, Mount Vernon and NASA. These partners may provide funding but always provide subject matter expertise.

Kids, Art and the World

Kristin Reiber Harris
www.KristinHarrisDesign.com

I Can Do That! A Kids World Art Game

(updated 12.1.14)

 

Inspiration

This summer I participated in a Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. As a trainer for Demibooks, I was helping students use their app development tool Composer Pro to publish animated interactive stories for iPads. I came to assist Geeta Raj. She is the founder of Global Sleepover and brings years of experience in international development and humanitarian assistance with USAID. She has lived in Afghanistan, Columbia, South Sudan, Albania, the UK, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has degrees in Creative Writing and International Peace and Conflict Resolution.

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.

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

Storytelling: Tool for Creative Problem Solving

My next faculty workshop at LynchburgCollege later in October will be to demo Composer Pro from Demibooks, the developers of Composer Studio that I used with my Governor's School Media Production class in July.  I stumbled upon this excellent blog article from Second Story about the power of story to solve complex problems. It's a very timely concept in relationship to Composer Pro. It is a production tool for creating interactive media and a perfect vehicle for telling complex (or simple) stories that can be shared on iPads.

In the blog article Laura Allcorn, Second Story Senior Content Strategist, discusses a storytelling concept known as Critical Design from Dunne & Raby at the Royal College of Art. The purpose is to create something that makes people think and challenges old ideas. They do this with both fiction and humor. Laura includes this quote from Jonathan Gotschall's The Storytelling Animal about the power of fiction;

Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read non-fiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape. 

Allcorn also cited the thoughts of comedian Chris Bliss about humor to break down barriers. Here is his TedTalk Comedy in Translation.

This in mind, I think of one of my favorite apps, Sock Puppets. I would like to challenge students to explore possible solutions to serious problems with the iPad app Sock Puppets. Remember folks, the target audience for my work is young children and I often proudly describe myself as a mental age of 5. As you may be able to guess, Sock Puppets is a storytelling app in which young user select images of sock puppets and manipulate them to tell a story. Amazingly, as the user speaks, the sock puppets lip sync the speakers voice. This happens whenever the app is open and then can be recorded and played back. Hence a story is told, a play performed with puppets realistically speaking their dialogue. It's poetry in motion. And funny too.

Sock Puppets playhouse, one of many props and sets of characters

If you are in Central Virginia, mark you calendar:  Saturday, November 2 from 8:30 am until 1 pm iSchool Initiative Emily Wolfe and other guests will be at Lynchburg College to explore Contemporary Technology in Today's Classroom. Free and open to the public. Come with your students to learn how iSchool Initiative is challenging educational institutions to use all tools available to engage students.

Kristin Reiber Harris
my new app Duck Takes A Ride: An Art Story is now available in the App Store.
It is an interactive animated narrative for preschool children illustrated with 
ancient Chinese and Egyptian sculpture from major museum collections.
 

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.

Sandbox Summit 2013 SumUP

Sandbox Summit
Cambridge MA 
April 15th and 16th, 2013

Weren't able to attend? Here's an overview of the speakers, events and highlights. I tried to be brief, but this conference was delightfully content rich. Just the venue itself was a treat. Most of our sessions were in the Stata Center on the MIT campus. The campus is a stunning array of fascinating architecture, the Stata Center designed by Frank Gehry one of the most dramatic.

Stata Center, MIT  Architect: Frank Gehry

1.  We were welcomed by Scot Osterweil, Creative Director of the MIT Education Arcade. This was not the first Summit and Scot and the founders Claire Green, Wendy Smolen have obviously developed a great working relationship to produce there events. The Arcade is involved in researching game play and creating games for enhanced learning.

2. Andy Clayman, Creative Director, Avenues: The World School
In the Beginning: Building creativity from the ground up
http://youtu.be/K0dIrjalP8w 
Avenues: The World School is a private school with a campus in Manhattan built from the ground up to create an environment that facilitates learning, creativity and preparation for life as a global citizen. Numerous YouTube videos are available about the campus and the philosophy as well as Clayman's presentation.  As they describe on  their site, "Among the most distinguishing features of Avenues is the concept of one school with 20 or more campuses in major cities around the world. Once realized, this system will allow fluid exchanges between campuses of students and teachers, as well as a full range of interactive collaborations." Stunning physical space, enlightened philosophy only down side is very expensive tuition. How can this be modified and adapted for a wider audience?

TAKE AWAY:  Sure, we have the brain power to come up with an kick-ass school but at a price that puts it out of reach for the 99%.

BEST LINK: Introductory video 

BONUS Surprise:  Sandbox Summit gave all of us a $50 certificate to donate to the teacher of our choice on Donors Choose.org. Katie Bisbee gave us some background information about the organization. Such a wonderful expression of the best of human nature on all levels. I used this gift card to support Mrs. Miller's classroom at Perrymont Elementary School here in Lynchburg, VA and Mrs. William's class at J M Hanks High School in El Paso, TX.

3. Margaret Robinson, Managing Director, Hide & Seek 
New Games/Old Rules: How we play today
I was interested in attending Sandbox because I am not a gamer. I want to have a better understanding of the value of games in an educational environment. Margaret talked about games as collaboration, inspiration, exploration and tools for sparking the imagination. Games as vehicles for creating community and games as a challenge to learn a system. For games to work, they need to be dynamic, intimate, artificial (too much like work if they aren't) and competitive, even if against yourself. This was one of my favorite sessions.

Two of their products really caught my attention.  Tate Trump is a very cool in-museum app (Tate Modern, London) that prompts visitors to collect images from the collection on their iPhones and try to outdo other players.  The criteria for the games?  If pitted against each other, which objects or people (represented in artwork in the museum) would do better in battle?  Which images best communicate exhilaration, menace or absurdity. I see their criteria as a bit off the wall, which of course makes it more interesting. Predictable would have been....well, predictable. I'm curious about their process on developing this game. I suspect it is lots of fun to play and popular.  

Another game series Hide & Seek created is 99 Tiny Games. Their objective was to make inclusive competititve events that everyone could enjoy during the 2012 Olympics in London. They came up with a scheme that placed game instructions in 99 locations around London. I checked out a few of the activities, but would love to learn about every one.  Number 61 is The Dum Dum Game, a sight and sound game for two or more players. With a good view of a number of people, one player will say dum, dum in cadence with the stride one set of people they observe. The other game player must pick out the correct set of people that sync with that cadence. Watch this video to see how it all works.

Image of Tiny Games from HideandSeek.net

TAKE AWAY:  The folks at Hide & Seek are brilliant.  Games can bring people together in a unique experience that builds community. There is value in fun and diversion.

BEST LINK: 99 Tiny Games, Wall Street Journal video

4. David Sherwin, Principal Designer, frog design
Hacking How We Learn; Everyday lessons in good design
frog design is a very large design firm with irons in many fires. frog has put a lot of energy into finding ways to use the design process to help communities that are not necessarily empowered with the skills, tools and time to improve their lives.  Their work with "The Girl Effect" was particularly impressive.  The Girl Effect is a nonprofit collaborative movement by various organizations to explores the use of digital media to help girls form community and help each other. They worked with girls in three of the largest urban slums in Nairobi to help them make connections and facilitate change in their communities. The testimonials of the girls were quite moving. They have made available to anyone their Collective Action Toolkit, resources and activities to collaboratively create solutions for community problems.

TAKE AWAY: Hard for me to wrap my head about the wide and diverse range of "products" from a huge multinational company I had never heard of, but very glad to know they are putting their expertise to good work helping girls communicate and understand how they can help each other.

BEST LINK: The Girl Effect

5.  Howard Gardner, Harvard Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education interviewed by former student Carla Seal-Wanner, Director o Education and Curriculum, FlickerLab
A Conversation with Howard Gardner: Creating media for a complex world 
http://youtu.be/g4i4RifZzWk
Gardner has spent his career thinking about the multiple intelligences children bring to learning. He defines these "minds" as ways of learning and processing information; disciplined mind, synthesizing mind, creative mind, respectful mind and ethical mind.  Gardner sees 21st century literacy as being communication plus media fluency.

TAKE AWAY: Shame on US educational system for letting the Finns take "our" research and leave us in the dust.

BEST LINK: Smithsonian magazine article about schools in Finland 

6. Fred Newman, President, Barking Dog Productions
Growing Up Weird: A story told with words and sounds
Absolutely one of the highlights of the conference.  A son of the South, Fred entered the auditorium whirling a musical device over his head and singing. It took me a few minutes to realize that this wasn't someone's idea of a prank. Check out his website, you will get a sense of the flavor of his folk humor and charismatic personality. Sound gets our attention, Fred's certainly did. Fred's advice is to live the story as you tell it and tell it in the present tense.

TAKE AWAY:  Story is first, but sound is second, image is third. Fred is a very cool guy. Talented and not afraid to be who he is. Great inspiration for kids.

BEST LINK: Fred on Sesame Street 

7. Art Smarts: How MoMA inspires creativity in kids
Led by Elizabeth Margulies, Assistant Director of Family Programs, MoMA and Cari Frisch, Associate Educator, Family Programs, MoMA
I had very recently visited the Art Lab at MoMA so there were few surprises with this workshop. The Art Lab is a fabulous resource for families. Check out my recent article about my visit. In the workshop we were given supplies and tasks that were very similar to what might happen in the Art Lab. We played and made art with such props as laminated cut paper and cardboard sculpture. A sad note, it was during this workshop that we learned of the Boston Marathon bombings.

TAKE AWAY: Art Lab and the Education Program at MoMA are well conceived and I will definitely stay tuned.

BEST LINK: Current Art Lab video trailer

8. Geoff Nelson, Co-Founder and President of Cricket Moon Media
From Easel to iPad: The evolution of creativity tools
Geoff recommends these criteria for creativity app design; open ended exploration, play and endless challenges. He references an idea Chris Donnelly presents on his blog that creative freedom and structure have a dynamic relationship.  Too little structure inhibits creativity and too much structure does the same.  There is a sweet spot when structure augments the creative process.

Some apps he recommended are 123D Sculpt; Pitch Painter (very cool composing tool which is described as musical finger paint), Scribblify, Node Beat and STRAVA. The last is an app that lets you map your bike ride as you do it.  Some users have used the app to make art by planning routes that draw recognizable objects on the map.  

123D Sculpt

After Geoff introduced some of his ideas about app creation, we were instructed to break into groups to design an app...all in 15 minutes. Poppy cock I say to myself, it can't be done in such a short period of time. I was proven completely wrong. Following the idea of the benefits of structure, each of the four groups was given a topic for the app we were to brainstorm. The categories were role play, tactile creativity, construction and stories with written words. This was a competition with prizes. Well, the tactile creativity group blew us all out of the water with an idea for an ice sculpture app.  Wow, what a great idea and how much fun would that be?

TAKE AWAY:  Brilliant conceptualizing can happen in minutes with the right structure and mind set. Watch what Geoff and Cricket Moon Media are publishing, especially independent productions.

BEST LINK:  Their Egg Foo You app

9. Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, Co-Founders of Jib Jab Media Inc and StoryBots
Storytelling 2.0
http://youtu.be/G7JaMTRm3sI
I fell in love with these "boys". I already knew I loved their products, they were half of the reason I came to Sandbox. They were charming, savvy presenters and had a wonderful story to tell of persevering, having a solid creative strategy and plain ole hard work. We all know them for their political animated video "This Land is Your Land" from the 2004 presidential campaign.  What I didn't know is that they were on the verge of throwing in the towel right before "This Land" went viral.  Fast forward to today and they have had 80 million views for that video. That was a memorable jolt but they still had to craft a business model that would make money. They hit upon customizing content which allowed customers to use their own images on JibJab templates. Now as fathers and family men, they focus on media for children with their site StoryBots. As I got to share with the brothers as I almost tackled them as they were leaving the Stata Center, I think their book Biggest Pizza Ever is one of the best stories ever. I look forward to reading many new StoryBots.

StoryBot.com

TAKE AWAY: Fun to meet heroes and have them act like they are genuinely appreciative of the admiration.

BEST LINK: Biggest Pizza Ever

10.  Mathias Crawford, Stanford Graduate Fellow, Department of Communication, Stanford University
After the Sandbox: Everything we didn't learn in kindergarten 
http://youtu.be/6S7e2cmUlKI
 A bit brain dead by this time Tuesday afternoon, my take away from Mathias is that the best kind of play requires/encourages attention to the other, as in bebop and jazz. He said his game of choice is Cold Claim. 

TAKE AWAY: Jazz is a collaborative game

11.  Alan Schulman, Chief Creative Officer, SapeintNitro
It's a Brand new World: Moving from storytelling to storyscaping
Alan felt that collaboration was the best creative model, referencing previous speaker Mathias's jazz and bebop references. He described storyscaping as: understanding experience space, ie retaining more from the experience than the story; an organizing or Big Idea, copy, tranform, combine; develop a storyscape and lastly never use a period, always a comma, keep things going.

TAKE AWAY:  Everything is a Remix has found fans on every level. A MUST SEE.

BEST LINK:  Everything is a Remix 

12. Dale Dougherty, President and CEO of Maker Media
Make it Happen: Turning ideas into innovations
http://youtu.be/liTTqgXpDmg
The Maker Movement is changing industry, culture and education. The idea is to change the passive consumer into a producer and an uninspired student into an engaged learner. Dale works to create spaces in schools, communities and online to help kids and adults build, tinker, explore, fail and become creative makers. Huh, this is what artists do... The maker movement is a return to play and focuses on activities that build confidence. The Maker Mindset is interdisciplinary, interacts with others and is playful. He pointed out, and I concur, we live in a time of tactile deficiency. Dale left us with this thought.  You can learn to do anything.
TAKE AWAY:  Support local arts programs, artists are makers.  Incorporate more technology into my kids arts programs.

BEST LINK: Young Makers, makers in education

13. Pitch Sessions with Jean Hammond, Learn Launch, Learn LaunchX
Unfortuneaty now I am running on only the few brain cells still firing. Jean Hammond of Learn Launch hosted a number of companies as they pitched their apps for potential funding. School Fuel, customizes apps and resources for schools, referencing Common Core Standards.; BoomWriter for collaborative writing, TimeTribe developed by an anthropologist and OutThink, presenting Tornado Maker to manipulate weather phenomenon. Very solid presentations with Tornado Maker my clear favorite.

TAKE AWAY:  These were robust companies pitching that had invested both lots of time in money to get where they were.

BEST LINK: Tornado Maker Kickstarter video 

20130416  LearnLaunch - School Fuel
http://youtu.be/K9q1eG5KKPM

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - Tiggly
http://youtu.be/6pRdeh6U3UM

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - BoomWriter
http://youtu.be/ZFTrBomMGjs

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - The Time Tribe
http://youtu.be/gsNUg8VtOwE

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - Yummico
http://youtu.be/81gAhbi-U1M

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - Outthink
http://youtu.be/GHim0vl04yA

20130416 Sandbox Summit LearnLaunch - Cognii
http://youtu.be/o7LTpgp_JB8


Kudos and a big thanks to Claire and Wendy for a job well done providing an opportunity to build community and exchange stimulating ideas.

Thank you Scott Traylor from 360Kid.com for the session video.