Flipping Over Online Flip Books at Do Ink

When you are procrastination and want something fun to do this website is a spot for you.  Remember making flip books as a kid, and it took you forever to get the drawing just the way you want.  Do Ink is where you want to go.  Well, this program lets you copy your drawing and then change only a small part.  This saves you some time, but it’s so fun you will spend hours with the program.  You need to sign up for your own account.  It’s free.  I have listed the up and downsides for using this online program.

Downside:

• Your work becomes their property
• Time consuming!!
• It takes a bit to get used to the program (watch the tutorials first and save yourself some time)
• There is a cost if you want to use a premade “prop”
• If you make an opps with your drawing and publish it, then you can’t go back and fix it (my mouse ear has holes)
• You need to be 13 years old

Upside:

• There is a spot where you can undo what you just did (hint it’s at the top)
• There is a spot to save
• It’s a lot of fun and if your drawing is cheesy nobody will notice because the animation part makes it move

Here is my first attempt:

After I watched the tutorials here is my advertisement for my blog.  Yep, several more hours were spent on creating this.  I tell my students never to put a “cheesy” sun in their picture.  A few days ago a student told me that he thought of a way around this.  He told me that you could put holes into it and then it would be a cheesy sun.  So I made my cheesy sun (there are stink lines for the sun rays) and a sleepy mouse for my animation.

Ways that you could use this in the classroom:

• Students could watch a short cartoon and list all the jobs that would be associated with creating a cartoon
• Students could write their own stories and create illustrations
• Students would write out an explanation for their artwork.
• Students then could be critics and evaluate another’s animation (give guidelines if critiquing classmates)

Enjoy making your own animations!

-Mrs. Berry

P.S.  I skipped a bunch of challenges and went for one that looked like a lot of fun that I could use in the classroom.  It’s from the Teacher Challenges: Free Tools Challenge #6: Exploring DoInk – Vector Images and Flash Animations.

Little Bird Tracks

A picture that I took of a bird watching me.

These are the blogs that I looked at and these are the little bird tracks that they had and what I liked about them.

Tabitha’s sidebars have a little bit of information about herself, a word map for visitors, most popular posts for the month, blogs that she follows, and a blog archive. I like how Tabitha has a little bit about herself right on the front page with an avatar. I am following her blog because she is an art teacher and her name is the same as my daughters. It is because of her side bar I found this out and follow her blog.

Britt’s Technoscience bird tracks are really nifty. She has a world map, a picture of herself, where you can find her, what she is tweeting, her 365 photos and projects, her blog roll, science resources, science teachers, web 2.0 resources, blogging about, what you say, search, log in, and subscribe. Wow it’s a lot! But, as a teacher I like having the list down the side so it’s easy to find. I also like how there are resources. As a teacher it’s an easy way to find things, almost like a book mark. I get my best ideas from others.

Miss T’s bird tracks are on both sides, on the left she has her information, a voki (really cool!) live traffic feed, visitors, and links. On the right side she has teacher challenge blogs, blog roll, blog archive, labels. I really like how Miss. T has the link for the teachers in the blog challenge. I feel pretty nifty to be on her list.

Lydia Schultz’s bird tracks include a little bit about herself (she’s from Minnesota so of course I added her), a way to search her blog, twitter updates, poll, tags, recent posts, voki, visitors, and blog archive. I really like the poll on the side bar because then visitors don’t need to search your blog for the latest poll. What a great idea!

Stacy’s bird tracks include, categories, archives, SRR feed button, blog award badges, followers. I like Stacy’s categories and how they link to a spot where you can get the information that you want.

After looking at other’s bird tracks, I thought about mine. And came to the conclusion my bird tracks need a bit of cleaning to do. So I have changed a few things. I added a picture of my avatar, I added my Prezi lesson plans links, follow the leader for RSS feeds, and email subscriptions. I still would like to put a picture of myself with my information. I haven’t figured that part out yet.

This activity could also be done with students. Before students go forth and look at other blogs sidebars, they should make a list of things that they think make a good side bar. Have students make this in a graph format or excel and have a spot to mark yes or no. After making their graph they then would look at 5-10 blogs and check off if the blog has what they considered a good side bar. Next have students write about their findings. Ask the students:

• What did you discover about side bars in blogs?
• What changes would you make to your list of good items to have on a side bar?
• What changes are you going to make to your blog’s side bar?

Enjoy my little bird tracks.

-Mrs. Berry