Farr-Out Links to Learning » Creative

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Jen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:09:28 +0000

I’m attending NYSCATE, the annual conference for New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education. As always, the conference has been engaging, exciting, and renewing! Although the conference has kept me very busy, I did want to share this marvelous keynote given by Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity? I should mention that this is NOT the exact keynote that I listened to today, but the the message was very similar in nature and listening to Sir Robinson was absolutely inspiring. If you have an opportunity to hear him in person, I promise you will not be disappointed. In the mean time, his video still offers insight to his humor, wit, and thought provoking message.

Animate with Animasher

Jen — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:48:51 +0000

It’s Saturday…time for a little fun and play! Take some time to relax and experiment with animation using the fun, easy to use Animasher tool. I readily confess the sample I am sharing today is not mine. As much as I enjoyed this application and feel that students would benefit using it, I simply did not have as much time as I would have liked to play with it, so I am sharing a sample from the site. That’s right….once you create and post a video anyone can share it on a site…a great advantage for teachers who would like to post student work on a classroom blog or website.

To create an animation simply drag backgrounds, images, and video on to the animation screen. Add music or/or recordings. Save and share! While there is no doubting the amount of fun you and your students could have while creating animation with Animasher, please be aware this is a social network. That means that someone could post offensive material at any given time. I did not come across anything too out of line (and I’m fairly conservative), but someone could add an offensive animation at any given moment in time. That said…this is a great application that could be used to encourage sequencing, storytelling, and creativity. Please feel free to share your thoughts (and animations) using the comment link at the end of this post.

Animation testing.. by Re_Animator

Make your own| Clone and edit

Studio:Ludens Fun-time Generators

Jen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:02:47 +0000

If you are new to my blog, I should probably tell you that I tend to be a little less serious on weekends. Saturdays I tend to share some of the more fun, creative applications I have come across and on Sundays I become a bit more introspective as I share images and quotes in the form of inspirational posters.

Today I am pleased to share some nifty generators created by Studio:Ludens. Two of the generators featured on the Studio:Ludens site could be considered simply novel, but fun time-wasters, while the pattern designer could actually be used to create pattern backgrounds for web pages or PowerPoint presentations.

The tools have some interesting names:

epa:kato – generate some fascinating shapes that can be ordered as coasters by clicking and dragging various control points. The generator is somewhat addictive and reminiscent of some of the snowflake generators I have used at other sites. You can save the shapes or have a sample of the image mailed to yourself; however, the images are not suitable to use for patterns or tiles (in my humble opinion).

lux:sculptor – this generator creates a virtual sculpted lamp base. Like epa:kato, the user clicks and drags various control points to sculpt a visual image. While initially, I could not fathom a way to use this generator in a classroom setting, my husband was peering over my shoulder and suggested that students could use this generator to plan or think about a pattern for a thrown pot in ceramics or a lamp base/post pattern that could be created using a lathe. Perhaps you will think of some interesting ways to use the generator as well.

repper – this generator reminds me of the pattern maker found in Photoshop (which is pretty neat, since this generator is free). You can use a random image or upload your own. Then, select an area and view the resulting pattern. Once you have created a pattern that you like you can save it your computer for use as a tiled background for your desktop, a PowerPoint, or a webpage. I have included a couple of tiled samples below…

(we are getting close to Halloween after all )