Saturday 21 February 2009

Photofunia

I have just come across this fun photo edition web application.

In Photofunia you can choose from a lot of different fun effects for your photos!

Check these:

Image Hosted by Cetrine.net

Image Hosted by Cetrine.net

Image Hosted by Cetrine.net

Friday 20 February 2009

Inanimate Alice

I have found Inanimate Alice, an interactive story told in 10 episodes. It looks pretty interesting!

This is taken from their site

'Inanimate Alice' tells the story of Alice, a young girl growing up in the first half of the 21st century, and her imaginary digital friend, Brad.

Over ten episodes, each a self contained story, we see Alice grow from an eight year old living with her parents in a remote region of Northern China to a talented mid-twenties animator and designer with the biggest games company in the world.

iTeach Inanimate Alice

Friday 13 February 2009

Dvolver and Zimmer Twins

Well, it's time for digital storytelling using cartoons.

I have made my first Dvolver movie. It's really easy to use and you can choose from a number of settings, backgrounds, characters and music. Here it is




I am also familiar with Zimmer Twins, which I tried for the first time acouple of years ago. Here´s a movie I made then.
http://www.zimmertwins.ca/node/401843

And here is one made by my daughter Jazmin, who was 10 years old at the time.
http://www.zimmertwins.ca/node/402729
http://www.zimmertwins.ca/node/402857

Zimmer Twins offers more expressive possibilities and I like it better. But both tools have great potential!

Sunday 8 February 2009

Animoto and One True Media

This week we were asked to explore Animoto and I could not resist playing around with it yesterday. Here are my comments:

- It looked amazing at first sight.
- You can make as many 30-second shorts for free, but they would only fit 3 or 4 pictures. Too short!
- Full-length videos are $3 each. Haven't tried...

Then I remembered I had seen another tool to do something like that and...I found it!

One True Media is a bit more complex but lets you make a video from your uploaded photos, chose styles, transitions, music and voila! There are premium (paid) features but the free ones work really well! Here's my first experiment with a few photos of my daughter and our three lovely cats.


Friday 6 February 2009

Bubbleshare and Slideshare

This week I'll be exploring and comparing Bubbleshare and Slideshare.

Bubbleshare is very straightforward to use and ideal for photo sharing. I have used it before to build a fable storybook for a fables project we did a couple of years ago. Grade 2 students had read "The Lion and the Mouse" so we did a kind of simple acting out of the fable by creating still frames of the most important parts and took pictures of them. I then uploaded the photos and captioned them with a very simple retelling of the fable.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.


I also think a nice use is for showcasing students’ productions. I have used powerpoint for that before but Bubbleshare is another option if you want to blog it.

Slideshare, on the hand, I have never used. It looks more suitable for more active presentations including video and audio. I am sure, on more detailed exploration, I will find interesting ways to exploit its potential.

Sunday 1 February 2009

PicLits

I have also tried this tool. It's called PicLits and it allows you to create word compositions/art on top of a chosen photo. BTW, thanks to Nik Peachey for suggesting it.

I am thinking about vocabulary practice but it can also work for syntaxis.

Have a look at my first attempt. I could not help using the gymnast...

PicLit from PicLits.com
See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

Bookr

I have been playing around with Bookr. It allows you to make books using pictures from Flickr.

This is my first attempt at a very simple book intended to practice basic vocabulary.



Very simple but indicative of the potential use of this tool.