Group items tagged

"ABCya Animate allows students to create animated GIFs containing up to 100 frames. On ABCya Animate students build their animation creations by drawing, typing, and inserting images. Students can change the background of each frame, include new pictures in each frame, and change the text in each frame of their animations."

"If you use your iPhone as your go-to camera, you've undoubtedly come across photos that you want to print out and frame. The number one question I get from family and friends is how to make sure it'll fit into a given frame, whether it be 4x6, square, and so on. As it happens, you can size photos accordingly right inside the Photos app so they're frame ready, no computer needed. Here's how:"

"Storyboard That provides templates in which you can create your stories in a comic strip style. To help you create your story Storyboard That provides dozens of scenes, characters, and text bubbles to fill your storyboard's frames. Each element that you drag into your storyboard's frames can be re-sized, rotated, and re-positioned to your heart's content. Your completed storyboard can be saved as a comic strip, saved as a set of images (one image for each frame), or saved as a set of PPTX slides. "

"As I've mentioned in other posts, I come from a background in Experiential Education (yes, it is a specific professional discipline). I've also discussed reflecting on the activities to increase the chances of extracting learning as well as transferable skills and knowledge from the activities which is an integral part of experiential education - see my previous posts, Where is reflection in the learning process? and The Maker as a Reflective Practitioner. Another concept common to Experiential Education, that also increases the chances that transferable skills and knowledge result, is framing or frontloading the activities as part of introducing them."

Maths Frame is a site that offers more than 170 mathematics games for elementary / primary school students. The games cover basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. On the site you'll also find some games for practicing recognition, probability, and scale reading. The games can be played without registering on the site. Some of the games are labeled as as "subscribers only." Those games marked as "subscribers only" are not free.

"While critical thinking is a foundation rather than a brick, how you build that foundation depends on the learning process itself: exposing students to new thinking and promoting interaction with that thinking in a gradual release of responsibility approach. Question stems can be a powerful part of that process no matter where the learner is. Assessment (pre-assessment, self-assessment, formative and summative assessment), prompting and cueing during discussion, etc. In that light, the following 25+ question stems (we found on Kris McElroy's pinterest board) framed around the early, non-revised Bloom's Taxonomy are worth a gander."

"Animation Desk is a creative app for creating frame-to-frame animations and storyboards."

Framer beta Add cool frames to your digital photos.. instantly!

"Not all apps are created equal. Not all teacher planning and instructional design are created equal. Mash the two, and we're beginning to see the opportunity for some real disparity. In response, we've taken the popular SAMR model and use it as a framework to understand how to better teach with apps. This post started as a look at "app workflow"-the patterns of student and teacher interaction, the movement of learning artifacts, the visibility of quality criteria, assessment results, and so on, but we thought it might be better to start with some concrete examples of the movement from basic technology integration-in this case, apps-to that which redefines the learning process entirely. Below, then, are 21 ways apps can be used to teach-and learn-with varying degrees of ambition, from mere substitution of existing teaching practices, all the way to full-on redefinition of what's possible. (This post also presumes you're familiar with the SAMR model-if not, here's a good primer.)"

"Strip Designer is a great comic strip creation tool to add to your students' iPads. Priced at $2.99 USD it is $2 less than Comic Life and is just as good. Strip Designer provides dozens of comic strip layouts from simple one frame comics to one page layouts in a variety of configurations to multiple page layouts there is probably a layout that works for all students. And if not, your students can create their own custom comic strip layouts in Strip Designer."

"Recently, when I perused my twitter feed, I came upon a blog post titled Teacher as Learning Designer. Andrew Miller, the author, states: "If you are a teacher and you are trying to explain what you do, say, 'I am a learning designer!' Teachers need to be empowered with a variety of instructional designs to meet the needs of all students. They need to be honored for their expertise to create creative and engaging learning environments. We can re-frame the concept of "teaching" to truly encapsulate all that teachers can and should do!" The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? What elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?"

"The guy who helped create the "Hour of Code," an event that even got President Barack Obama pecking out a line of JavaScript, almost sounded apologetic. "Not everyone should 'code,'" acknowledges Hadi Partovi, CEO and founder of Code.org, in a chat with EdSurge. But everyone should learn to think like a computer scientist, he adds. "We're about helping schools teach computer science," Partovi says, namely, to frame questions or information the way that computer scientists do."

"Who doesn't want to improve the tone of the whole day in 5 minutes or less? What better commitment to make in the new year than to positively impact your own life, the lives of those around you, and your school's culture? The science of character strengths and social emotional learning (SEL) is well-documented and quite actionable. All that is needed is a bit of intentional leadership. Click here to download the 5 to Thrive Toolkit! Mayerson Academy, a non-profit professional learning organization, launched the "5 to Thrive Challenge" to encourage education leaders to dedicate five minutes each day over the next month to engage in simple activities that will reframe their thinking and improve the culture in their school. To help get started and frame your thinking, Mayerson Academy provides a free "5 to Thrive Toolkit" that will get you started."

Frame comparisons made easy

"Over the weekend, I finished George Couros's Innovator's Mindset.  I highly recommend reading it to understand why we should foster a culture of innovation in our schools and where to start.  A culture of innovation makes everyone a creator in our schools, unleashing the creativity that is in all of us. The Innovator's Mindset frames the steps to create that culture of innovation in a school and it gives some powerful examples of creation in the classroom.  That's where the new book by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani picks up.  The book LAUNCH is focused on the importance of a clear framework for the creative process.  I'll dig into that process in later posts as I get deeper into the book.  But, let's start with the why of creation in the classroom."

"Just got an iPad for the holidays? You lucky sod! You scored the crown jewel, the Big Tamale - the most marvelous gadget Apple has ever made. Yes, go ahead, pick up its slim aluminum frame and dive right in - Steve knew that's what you wanted to do, and he designed the iPad so you could do just that. We want to make sure you get everything right though, and we know there are a few key setup tricks along the way that new (and even some not-so-new) iPad users miss. So take a look at the short list of steps we've lined up here. They won't take long, and they'll make sure you get the best out of your iPad 2. Ready? Here we go."

"SloPro (app link) is a fun iPhone and iPad video-making app that allows you to slow down your videos without losing any image quality. When you shoot a video within this app, it will shoot it in 60fps (frames per second), as opposed to the usual 30fps.* This will allow the resulting video to be smooth and not pixelated, like when you slow down video in various movie making software."