Teaching with Claymation: Part 1 of 3

Greetings,

Hope you are doing well this week. What is Claymation? Claymation is short for Clay Animation, which includes the following:

1. Any animation using clay, materials and props.

2. Traditionally time - consuming technique of stop motion video.

3. Using a digital cameras and computers provide accessibility in the classroom.

4. Using Movie Maker 2 or a video editing program.

Claymation can be used for:

* Content on a website

* A prop for a speech

* A multimedia story

* A concept or objective demonstration

* A public service announcement

Why do you want to use Claymation?

1. Motivates, engages and challenges students to be creative.

2. Can be applied to any subject level and area.

3. Perfect for exploring concepts and objectives.

4. Requires planning, organizing and teamwork.

More Ideas for Using Claymation in the Classroom.

* Storytelling

* Creative writing

* Explanations of the Scientific processes

* Human body functions

* Visualizing math concepts

* Recreating historical events & time periods

* Demonstrating physical activities - proper exercise

Please play the video below to see how I have used claymation with a PE Objective in the past.

How do I start making a claymation video?

1. Select your idea or objective you want to communicate to your audience.

2. Plan and build a flow map of your idea.

3. Start building your character and background or back drop for your movie.

4. Take photos of movement of the character.

5. Make the Movie.

In the next 2 weeks, I will be sharing with you the following ideas:

How to build your character with clay, armature, foil, styrofoam, construction paper, small eyes, mouths, etc. and props (rocks and sticks). How to set your stage, claymation tips, animation tips, video tips, filming, editing and producing the film. I will also be sharing with you more claymation videos. To produce one video, your students may want to work in groups and it may take 3 -5 days for the project to finish. See you next week.

How to Search Google?

Greetings,

Hope you are doing well today. I will be blogging about how to do a Google search for documents, pictures, and videos. When you go to http://www.google.com/ you need to type in the search box you topic of interest, and then you type the following file extension in quotes:

1. For MS PowerPoint Documents you type “ppt”

2. For MS Word Documents you type “doc”

3. For MS Excel Documents you type “xls”

4. For Adobe PDF Documents you type “pdf”

5. For Flash Videos you type “swf”

6. For a specific phrase you need to type it all in quotes

If you want more options, then click on the right side of the box under Advance Search. Next, you will see the following options under Advance Search.




Then you can follow the instructions in the search boxes. If you go to the last topic on Need more tools, you can pull down the drop down arrow boxes to get more options on your search. You can even narrow down the file search to a particular type of file.


For example, let’s say you are looking for an interactive flash web site when teaching a concept or objective; all you have to do is pull down the drop down box and choose Shockwave Flash. Once you chose this option, then all you will find are flash video sites. Try it out with the water cycle. If you want more search options, please visit the following: Advanced Search Tips

To look for pictures you need to go to http://www.google.com/ and hover your mouse on the top left side of the screen, and you will see a blue Images link. Click on the link, and then type the name of picture you are searching for in the search box. You will do the same for Videos. Hope these helpful tips help you out. I will see you next week with another topic.

1 Week to 5,000,000 Hits

Greetings,

It's amazing when something goes viral, that a lot of people find out about it, and all the sudden it spreads like a wildfire. Of course it does take time of posting to gather a following on your Youtube or Teachertube site. This next video was released on March 1, 2010, and as of today has close to 8,000,000 hits. That's right 8 Million visits. The video is about everything working together in a synchronistic way, where everything goes just perfect. You can check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

I think this is one of their numerous videos that they have been posting consistently over a 3 - 4 year period. This is where they slowly gathered their following. Remember it takes time of posting videos consistently to get noticed. Unless you do something great and Hollywood picks it up. Yes, it really can happen. If you have not done so you can see a post I did where a video post was noticed by Hollywood Directors and Producers and someone got a nice pay out. You can check it out on the post I did back in December ,27, 2009. I have posted the video in two froms, one off of Youtube and the other posted on blogger.

Ok, today's blog is about a cool web site where you get pictures by spinning a galaxy. That's right, if you don't believe me, you can check it out yourself at http://www.taggalaxy.de/ You can simply type in the tags that you are looking for and you will see a galaxy with a sun and various tags to limit your search. Then you will continue to see more planets with tag words that will help you narrow your search. With the mouse, you can spin the planets and move them side to side, or up and down. It's pretty cool. Here is what the galaxy looks like when you do a search on Spring BreakMost of the pictures will come from Flickr or http://www.flickr.com/ a picture hosting web site. Anyways once you have found your globe with pictures you can click on it and spin it. Pretty cool. Alright, next week I will be sharing with you the importance of backing up your hard drive. What do you do when one goes bad and you have over 250GB of data and files on it and you have not backed it up? Yes, you can pay to recover it, but how much are you willing to pay? I will tell you about that story next week. Do not forget in April, I will be blogging about the Flip camera software and posting step by step pictures on how to create a movie using the software. Take care.

How to Take Pictures of Your Computer Screen Using MS Office 2003

Hello,

I hope you had a great week. Today I am sharing with you how to take screenshot pictures using MS Office 2003. Remember, all you have to do is push the print screen button on your keyboard. Whey you do this it will take a digital image or picture of your screen, like you see on the top. After you click it, you will not see any message that tells you that you have taken a picture and it is now ready to post. In fact you won’t notice anything different about your screen. When you click on the right side of the mouse chose the option paste and it will copy your picture in your office Document or PowerPoint. To edit the picture you have to double click fast on the left side of the mouse and you will see the Format Picture Box. If this does not work you will need to go to the very top of the screen and and chose the third option View. Then go down to the Toolbars option and check the option: picture and you will see a Picture tool bar appear on your screen like this Once you see the Picture option box, choose the little dog. It is the 4th Picture from the right side of the toolbox and choose the option Tight.

If you want to edit or crop the picture chose this icon Once you click on the little crop icon, you will see black lines around your picture. All you have to do is left click on the lines while holding the mouse and move the mouse to where you want to crop or cut the picture. Now if you double clicked on the picture you will see the following six tab options Color and Lines, Size, Layout, Picture, Text Box, and Web. You want to chose the third tab or the Layout option. When you chose this option you will see the following Next, you will click on the Tight option. It is located in the middle of the screen. Now you must decide if you want the picture aligned left, center, right or other. I would chose other and the when you click on the picture it will allow you to move it anywhere you want in your document. Once you chose the option you want click on the OK button on the bottom. You will see little white round dots around your picture (To see these white dots look very closely at the picture at the very top), which means you can now hold down the left side of the mouse to move it anywhere you want in your picture. You can also make the picture small or large by clicking on one of the dots and moving the mouse. Hope these directions help you out when you are practicing taking screen shot pictures and inserting them in your Documents or Power Points. We will see you next week.

Tell the Whole World!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a talking picture worth? This week I am introducing a new web site that lets you turn any picture into a talking picture. That’s right, a regular picture into a talking picture. All you have to do is click on the picture to the left or click on the following link: http://www.blabberize.com/ Just like the picture says, it only takes 30 seconds. It's fast, easy and also fun to use. How would you like to use this tool to teach the students a concept or an idea from a talking picture?Your students or audience will love it. You can also put it in presentations or entertain your audience to make a point. Hope you have fun playing with it and we will see you next week.

Making Professional Movies with Digital Pictures/Videos for Free!

Today, I am going to share with you some valuable resources on how to make free movies or digital stories with your computer. There is a free software program the Microsoft has installed on all computers that have Windows and most people do not even know that this program is on their own computer. The name of this free program is called Windows Movie Maker (2).

So, what do you do with all those digital pictures and videos you have taken over the past holiday? You can turn them into a professional movie by using the program above. To find the program on your computers you click on Start -> Programs -> Accessories or you can find it in your Programs menu. Look for this picture to the left, when you are looking for it.
Now, I can go over the program and explain all the details of how to add pictures, add video, edit, clip, copy, cut, combine full-motion video, still images, narration, music, effects, titles, and transitions to create your own movies or you can learn it for free by viewing the following link through atomiclearning: http://www.atomiclearning.com/moviemaker2 When you click on the link you will watch professional videos on how to use the program step by step. You can watch from the comfort of your own home, then follow along step by step. Hope you enjoy the free tutorials (they are priceless). Here is another tutorial in which you can read step by step on how to use Windows Movie Maker (2): http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx With this program you can also learn about Creating Digital Stories with Windows Movie Maker 2 Just click on the link above and it will take you to the University of Houston web site on Creating Digital Stories. Hope this helps and we will be sharing more and exciting and free info. in the future with you.