Build your Wild Self Stories : 6th graders collaboratively create Avatars w/ Pages

6^th Grade Media Arts students utilized the web site “Build Your Wild Self” to design themselves as a regular avatar and one that features animal characteristics. The students took screen captures of their avatars off of the web site and then imported them into the publishing app – Pages

Jaden_Animal.pdf Download this file

Within Pages, the students got to digitally edit their photos, such as inserting borders on them and cropping out parts of the photo that they didn’t want. Once the photos were laid out, the students collaborated with a partner to write a story about how they turned into a monster.

Kristina_animal.pdf Download this file

One student would write the intro to the story, then exchange iPads to write the final paragraph on how they became a monster.  Check out some of these great and colorful published works that will soon become an iBook.

Animal_Vanessa.doc Download this file

NEW_Aliyah_animal.doc Download this file

Timothy_Animal.pdf Download this file

Trinity_animal.pdf Download this file

Addison_animal_.pdf Download this file

Elijah_d_animal.doc Download this file

Megan_Bright_animal.doc Download this file

Ryanator_Moss_Animal.pdf Download this file

Toontastic : animated #digitalstorytelling #ipaded about Skyrim

As part of a recent digital storytelling project, I provided the students with a writing prompt of "what is your favorite moment," "summer vacation," "most embarassing moment.." something that involved the kids memories and it had a beginning, middle and end. I discovered some great Digital Storytelling resources from Tom Banaszewski

To help with the students writing and sharing of their file, they utilized the Pages app and sent the file to the class' Dropbox account

maxr7-1.pdf Download this file

If the student needed it, I would then print off their story so they could read from it and narrate their story through the Toontastic app

  

There have been plenty of animation projects in Mr G's class in the past with my students but this was my first time using this app with my kids. I think this app can be geared more for younger students, but it was nice the kids could draw their own characters and backgrounds and narrate/animate by hopping around, similar to the Photo Puppet app

Sharing wise, I have my issues in order to make this free:

1. Student completes their film and types in MY email/password that I set up for the class account (Note: If student doesn't type in their own username/password on the Safari, they don't hit the network)
2. After a few minutes, I have to check my Gmail account that I set up with when I initially created the class' Toontastic account.
3. I click on the message within my email, which I then must view AND approve within the Toontube aspect of the Toontastic site. 
4. After reviewing, I can then share the site via Facebook, Twitter or an embed code. Since my students need to publish their own work, I need to send them their work to Edmodo
5. I copied/pasted the embed code and sent a direct message to the student on Edmodo
6. The student in turn would then have to copy/paste THIS embed code into their Kidblog account as their eportfolio. Unfortunately, through the app, students can't add in PDF files of their writing, so they had to embed their Toontastic along with a SCREEN CAP of their writing they did in pages.

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