Professional Writing Retreat, part two

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post. Using some pics, I created a little slideshow movie for folks who attended the Professional Writing Institute this past weekend. I also used my SuperDuperMusicLooper program to make some music for the movie, as I continue to check out the possibilities and limitations of that program.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-596529446926397614" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Peace (on the Long Island Sound),
Kevin

Get Up — video

I used my loop remix of my song, Get Up, with some pics from a Creative Commons search engine (plus PhotoStory as an editing tool) and put together this music video:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-4430625363031699385" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Peace (with truth),
Kevin

Mini-Movies from Camp

Here are a few more small movies made by kids at my animation camp in their free time. The first one is interesting because it is a take-off on the fairly famous (and wonderfully done) web-movie called Animator Versus Animation (and the sequel). I showed the kids how to do a version of it in Pivot but it is difficult (the original uses flash). Some of the movies have sound and some do not.

Download Video: Posted by dogtrax at TeacherTube.com.

Peace (in video),
Kevin

My Dog, Bella

I was trying out a computer from the school where my wife and I will be running a claymation camp (but she just got promoted to Curriculum Coordinator at her school and won’t be around the camp much!!) and created this little movie of my dog, Bella, as she sits by the window all day, waiting for someone to bark at.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6797950917631760198" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Good Dog!

Peace (with kibbles),
Kevin

And finally … Stick Figure Movies

The last days of school for my sixth graders were spent working with a stick figure animation program and here are some of the movies they created:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=1158941878118862160" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4626591408186972447" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Peace (in frame),
Kevin

Incredibly Crazy Clocks

The other day, one of my sixth graders asked me if I had ever used Pivot for animation, which led to an interesting discussion about how this freeware software could be used with MovieMaker to create a little animated film.

So I figured I would try it out and now I am hoping to let my students try their hand before the school year runs out (soon!) and also to use this very simple, yet cool, software as an introduction to the Claymation Animation Camp that my wife and I are running this summer for the very first time (gulp).

Here, then, is the premiere of The Incredibly Crazy Clocks, using Pivot to create the animation (it comes out as an animated .gif file), then I imported the file into MovieMaker where I added some original music of mine, and a title, an I got a mini-movie.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=6106772181624048098" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Peace (frame by frame by frame),
Kevin

Baseball Dreams

This video is part of my Collaborative ABC Movie Project and it deals with baseball and kids, and the connections between my own baseball memories and the experiences of my sons this year.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-8891800749316318329" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Peace (with innings and outs),
Kevin

A new adventure: Summer Camp

My wife and I are trying something new this year — we are working together to offer two week-long Claymation Summer Camps for kids at her vocational high school. This is a new partnership between our Western Massachusetts Writing Project and her high school, and it is exciting. I stole this idea from my good friend, Tonya (she will recognize some of the information on our flier, as it comes from her flier).

 

Right now, I am in the midst of a claymation project with my sixth graders (in collaboration with second graders) and we will start filming any day now.

Here is a little movie I made for my Collaborative ABC Movie Project that shows some of the kids making their little clay creations. Some of them are very interesting and remain works in progress (I mean, clay creatures here, but I suppose I could be talking about my students, too).

I am sharing this via TeacherTube, which now allows for embedding into Edublogs, which is very cool and a great alternative to YouTube and Google Vid.

Download:Letter C – Powered by TeacherTube.com


Peace (with squishy parts),
Kevin

Teachers Teaching Teachers: TechStories

On Wednesday night, I guest-hosted Teachers Teaching Teachers on the topic of technology and storytelling. It was a bit nerve-wracking (not knowing how things were going to go and how to get everyone on) but exciting and informative and all of that good stuff.

You can listen to the show as a podcast now and check out the chat room discussion.

Among the topics:

  • What IS digital storytelling and is that even the correct term?
  • Are our notions of DS constricted by the genre of personal narrative?
  • How does the interactive Web 2.0 play into what we envision for future storytelling?
  • What is the ABC project all about?
  • What role does privacy of the storyteller (young person) play in the publishing aspect of the work?
  • And more.

Listen to the podcast

Read the Chat Room transcripts

Thanks again to Paul and Susan for inviting me to sit in. They are wonderful hosts of that weekly show.

Peace (with a story),
Kevin

Collaborative MovieMaking

In the past month or so, my friend, Bonnie, and I have launched a Weblog as a way to think about how technology can inform and inspire storytelling. We have been sharing resources, sparking discussions and just thinking about the convergence of the Web 2.0 interactive world with the traditional (!) digital storytelling techniques.


We are now moving into action, with a Collaborative ABC Movie Project, in which people will submit segments of movies based on letters of the alphabet and then we will use Jumpcut to edit them all together into one large collaborative movie. We have no idea how it will turn out, but we are game for exploration.

Here is my example for the letter A:

[googlevideo]5526288093296786506&hl=en[/googlevideo]

We’ll be sharing our experiences as we go along and I will try to move those thoughts over here. But feel free to check out Using Technology to Tell Stories blog and add your voice to our conversation.

Peace (with video clips),
Kevin