From Blank To Beautiful

Just a bit more than a month ago Richard Byrne, educator, speaker and blogger at Free Technology for Teachers tweeted and posted on his blog about a new graphics design tool.  Canva is in invitation beta.  You can request a username at the home page.

Within a day my request was fulfilled with a message arriving in my email.  You are asked to click an Activate button to begin the registration process.  You can sign up with your email address or your Facebook account.

You are next cheerfully prompted by a Welcome screen to begin using the service.  With a single mouse click a new window opens.  At this screen you are invited to learn the basics of Canva.

To begin participate in the offered 5 Starter Challenges.  Page by page you learn how to change colors of an element, search for an image and add it to a picture, add a background, search for a favorite food to add to a page, change a layout and upload an image from your computer.  It's as easy as dragging and dropping from the tool bar on the left-hand side of the page.  Follow the screenshots below.

When the challenge is completed you are congratulated and ready to start creating your own design.

The next window is the dashboard which will appear each time you log in to Canva.  For this first time an explanatory overlay is visible.  It shows three options, create, edit and learn.

Designs offered are:

• Christmas Card
• Document (A4)
• Presentation
• Blog graphic
• Facebook cover
• Social media
• Card
• Photo Collage
• Poster
• Invitation and 
• Business card.

Above and to the right of the designs you have the choice to use custom dimensions. At the top of the page you can access their blog for up-to-date news and suggestions, get support by viewing videos, reading articles, conducting a keyword search or submitting a request, and edit your settings or log out.  You can also view any invoices you might have if you choose to use extras offered.  Keep in mind though, this is a free service.  Beneath the design choices you can view your creations, access two tutorials and invite friends (five invitations are given to you).

I decided to begin with creating a greeting card for those students, colleagues and parents who are readers of my blog.  I clicked on the icon for Christmas Card.  When the new window opens the layouts appear first.

There are more than 100 layouts from which to choose.  The first layouts are themed for the holiday template.  When you click on a layout, it becomes outlined in blue and appears on the right.

Then I uploaded images from my computer by clicking on that option on the left.  I was able to drag the images into the template. If you notice the dotted outline, the circles in the corners and circle in the center at the bottom, this element can be resized and rotated.

At the top of the element the icons represent the choice to bring forward, copy, delete, crop and transparent.  To the side of the element the number represents the page and again, you can copy the page.  Beneath this page you can also add another page.

Above this you can name your design, share it on Twitter, Facebook, preview it, undo it, send it or go home.  I previewed my creation before sending it.  It's really neat how the card is presented to viewers.  When you click on send you select Facebook contacts, Gmail contacts or enter in email addresses.

If you choose Download your card as an image or PDF, you are given a URL link, or your design is converted into a png or pdf file automatically, depending on what you choose.  Here is the link to my design so you can see how a card is delivered. (I emailed it to myself so you could view it like this.) The image alone is shown below.

As I clicked through each of the design choices the layout templates continued to change.  The amount of choices is mind-boggling; so many opportunities for making beautiful graphics.  I decided to make a couple of one page presentations to give you an idea of the templates.

If you decide to search for images from their gallery rather than loading your own, they are grouped in categories of:

• Christmas
• Lines
• Banners
• Grids
• Text Holders
• Speech Bubbles
• Shapes
• Frames
• Icons
• Arrows
• Infographics
• Technology
• Dress Ups
• Web Wireframes
• Food
• Animals
• Hand Drawn and
• Travel.

If you wanted to create a presentation for your Mock Caldecott unit, you could use a compare template like this.  Notice that each text box can be moved backward or forward, copied, deleted, have the box color changed or made more transparent.  The font style can be altered, the size changed as well as the color.  It can be made bold or placed in italics, listed or moved to the left, center or right.

For my second single page presentation I decided to focus on memorable moments from 2013.  This was the year I premiered two book trailers, Warning: Do Not Open This Book by Adam Lehrhaupt with illustrations by Matthew Forsythe and Tea Party Rules by Ame Dyckman with illustrations by K. G. Campbell, during the school year we Skyped with Ame Dyckman discussing Boy + Bot, Tom Angleberger and his Origami Yoda books and Lynda Mullaly Hunt spoke with us about One for the Murphys after our entire fifth grade read the book.

At my home in July and August a small book group met.  One of our titles was Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff.  We had an amazing Skype visit with Liesl Shurtliff.  To our great joy we had two successful Mock Caldecott units with the students in Katherine Sokolowski's classes for 2013 and 2014.  One of the most exciting few days though, were spent in Chicago at the American Library Association Annual Conference & Exhibition.  

I have to say last week when my invitation activation arrived for Canva; it was all I could do not to spend the whole weekend trying out all the options.  This is a graphic design web application I can comfortably give high recommendations. I think you and your students will really enjoy using it.

Swinging High

Just a little over four months ago I posted about Picnik ( a day late and a dollar short) which closed officially on April 19, 2012.  They have moved some of their most loved assets over to the Google+ group.  Just prior to its closing several tweets on Twitter recommended PicMonkey . 

 This free web 2.0 application has the clearest, most concise and humorous Privacy Policy and Terms of Use that I've read yet.  Not to mention the About and Team sections which are worth reading just for fun.  Bottom line...users need to be 13 years of age.

When you access the site four boxes appear on screen; three filled with images you may edit.  The fourth represents an image of your own to edit by uploading from your computer.  When you import your image a new screen appears with your picture front and center.

To the left is a panel of editing tools.  The first set of tools are for the basic edits, crop, rotate, exposure, colors, sharpen and resize.  By clicking on the smaller icons on the far left of the bar the basic edits shift from top to bottom to:  effects, touch up (humans), text, overlays, frames and new.

The thirty-seven current effects are sorted into tried and true, basic, camera look, paintbox, area, artsy and advanced.  Fifteen touch-ups for skin, mouth, eyes and just a couple more are at the ready.  Fonts, thirty-two to be exact, can be added to your images.  Overlays or shapes come in twenty-two options.  There are eight frames from which to choose.  And seven new textures are available to try.

Here is an original image on the left.  The one on the right has been cropped, exposure and colors adjusted and the sharpening tool used.
In the third photograph I applied the effects of soften, dark edges and film grain.

In this final image I added some text which you can size, change the color, fade, make bold or in italics, justify and blend modes or right click for even more options.  I also added a drop shadow frame.  Some of the options will become part of the Royale package eventually but for now they are free, if you don't mind having a crowned monkey in your graphic.

 

It's safe to say that PicMonkey has my vote as a worthy photo editing tool.  I could have spent hours trying all the options for images.  

Up Close and Personal

Microsoft has developed a free application, Zoom.it,  that allows users to view graphics in detail.  It is ridiculously simply to use.

Go to the site.  Enter in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of an image, web page or PDF file.  Image formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF and SVG are supported.  Any size image can be referenced and loaded into this service.

Copy and paste the URL link into the space and click CREATE.  Your image now appears on the screen.  When the cursor is moved over the image four icons appear in the lower right hand corner.  These icons give the user the ability to zoom in, zoom out, go home or toggle full page.  At the bottom of the image there is a URL link to the image, or the code for embedding.  This can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Reddit.

The image below is a map of the Iditarod, The Last Great Race, a dog sledding event in Alaska beginning the first Saturday of March each year.  It becomes the focus of numerous educational projects across the grade levels in our library media center.


This is an image of Xena running out at Fisherman's Island State Park after a major snow storm.



Thanks to Richard Byrne of Free Technology For Teachers, for his post about Zoom.it on January 25, 2011.

One Stop Digital Storytelling and So Much More

For nearly a year I have wanted to see what the web 2.0 app Creaza Education offers to users.  This free application, with additional benefits for paid subscriptions, is open to students.  For those under fifteen years of age it is requested that parents or guardians give them permission to do so.

Creaza has four components.  By clicking on each of the named component tabs at the bottom of the web site home page explanatory videos can be viewed for each.

Cartoonist offers 8 possible scenarios in which digital stories, cartoons, can be created. With this tool, you can also create title cards, speech balloons, thought balloons, or scream balloons. You can also combine all this with your own images.
Your cartoon will be organised into a strip with several frames, which can be presented both on the web and printed out on paper. 

I selected the Little Red Riding Hood scenario.  Background, characters, animals, props and cartoonist effects are elements that can be added to each frame of the cartoon.  Adjustments and enhancements can be made to each of those. 


 

 Mindomo is a tool for visually organizing your thoughts.  Text, media files and links can be added to the mind maps that you design. 

MovieEditor allows the user to generate a movie from files within the app or those that have been uploaded. Graphic, sound and music files can be combined with video files to create a professional presentation complete with title frames and transition choices.  The finished product can be exported to a high resolution MP4 or YouTube.

AudioEditor is as sophisticated as MovieEditor with many options available to generate a variety of audio files.  Recording, slicing and mixing can be done to make the perfect sound.  Recording can be done to place an additional track on top of the final edit.




When first selecting the Register button in the upper right hand corner, users are taken to the Terms of Use policy.  Upon acceptance the next screen asks for first name, last name, username, password, gender, email, year of birth and country.  When registration is completed the profile or homepage appears. 

At this homepage one can change the profile picture by uploading an image from your computer.  It is placed in your media file. At this point the homepage text can be edited but a Java plug-in is needed to accomplish that task.  Also the ability to activate YouTube export is located on this page.  On the left is a list of files that have been designed using one of the four tools.  Across the top those tools can be accessed as well as any files that have been uploaded such as images, sounds and videos.

When you register a unique URL is assigned to your account.  By using this URL your homepage and all your digital productions can be seen.  Comments can be left by viewers as well as a starred rating.

 Each of the individual files designed using the four tools also has a unique URL and HTML code which can be embedded as shown above.  In order to "release" those URL and HTML codes prior to opening the file move the mouse over the small blue button beneath the frame making sure it says unshared.

This is a wonderful free web 2.0 application , simple to use but sophisticated in the finished piece.

Ahhhhh...Ahhhhhh...Kerpoof

Having read several reviews, Parents' Choice, Children's Media and Toy Reviews since 1978, and iLearn Technology, studied it as part of the Free Tools Challenge, Teacher Challenge at the Edublogs site and this week  receiving the designation as one of the Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning by the American Association for School Librarians during the ALA annual conference in New Orleans, Kerpoof needed to be explored in depth.

Kerpoof is owned and operated by the Walt Disney Company.  As an online group of design activities it offers users the option of Spell a Picture, Make a Movie, Make a Card, Make a Drawing, Make a Picture and Tell a Story.  In other words these free applications extend to users the ability to discover, create and learn in an environment that is safe and fun for the recommended grades of K-8.  Each creation button includes the recommended grade level for use.

First try out the site by clicking on the How to Play question mark at the top of the screen.  View the two tutorials on Make a Movie and Make a Picture, and read the Top 10 Questions along with the Tips and Tricks section. 

Initially registration consists of choosing a screen name, password and two secret questions and answers. Click on the blank avatar icon to do this.  Children can create their own accounts but parent involvement and permission is required.  By having an account scenes can be saved, shared or emailed to others. (All shared content is reviewed by trained moderators before it is shown on the site.)

 After educators have their own individual login, they can proceed to apply for a teacher account which requires their full name, professional email, title and school district in which they are employed. (Just click on the For Educators button.) Having a teacher account allows registration of students in one or more classes, management of those student accounts by class, multiple collaboration features and the required option to monitor activities within those accounts.

Also by clicking on the For Educators button a series of buttons appear across the top of the screen.  These provide, in addition to opening a teacher account,  an overview of Kerpoof, lesson plans, general classroom ideas, matching Kerpoof to national and some state technology standards, signing up for an e-newsletter and reading newletter archives from November 2007, a general FAQ section and the choice to contact the people at Kerpoof.

I would encourage perusal of the Kerpoof Scholastics Teachers' Guide as well as each of the lesson plans on using the individual elements of this suite. 

I have applied for a teacher account and will be using Kerpoof as part of lessons given within the library media center during the 2011-2012 school year.  Check out this video, experiment and have fun making your own creations or plans for implementing Kerpoof in the classroom.

To have all these tools together in this environment giving users or students the ability to transform those ideas, dreams or thoughts from their imaginations through graphics and writing is an educational plus.

BeFunky Fun For Teachers

I have previously mentioned BeFunky on this blog (9/21/2010 and  01/31/2011) As stated on their blog:  BeFunky simplifies photo editing and effects for everyday people. 
Check out how this classroom teacher in England used this web 2.0 application in his classroom, BeFunky In Your Classroom.

In the interview he describes the specific activity, how the children responded and the results which are pretty amazing for the age of the children.  This might be a good year-end project with classroom photographs. 

I checked their Terms/Privacy section again today and it states that users need to be 13 years of age so I am curious as to how he was able to use it with 8 and 9 year old students.  But the app is certainly easy enough for them to use and there is no registration requirement where any information about them could be stored.  To begin they just need to click the Get Started button.  Then they have the option of  clicking on six boxes:  Edit your photo, Apply Photo Effects, Apply Artsy Effects, Add Graphics, Shapes, add Text, Speech Bubbles or Add Frames, Borders.  After selecting one of these boxes a photo needs to be uploaded. 

With parental permission for a classroom activity this would certainly be possible.

Choices, choices, choices...Flex or Funky

Last week I needed to do some quick editing of a graphic that I wanted to use on this blog but Adobe Photoshop was on my computer at home.  Quickly searching online I discovered a site, while up and running for several years, was new to me...FotoFlexer.  This site boasts of being the world's most advanced online image editor.  Images can be uploaded from your computer, FotoFlexer, PhotoBucket, Facebook, MySpace, Picasa, Flickr, Phanfare, Smugmug and Yahoo Search.  Upon uploading your graphic a series of tabs appears at the top of the work area:  Basic, Effects, Decorate, Animations, Beautify, Distort, Layers and Geek.  The Basic tab includes Auto Fix, Fix Red Eye, Crop, Copy Region, Resize, Rotate, Flip Horizontal or Vertical, Adjust (hue, saturation and lightness), Contrast and EZ Collage.  There are 25 different options included in the Effects tab.  Stickers, text, glitter text, draw, erase, fill, grab color, insert a face, fun cards, borders and poster are choices within the Decorate tab.  The Animations tab reveals animated stars, animated lovies and animated stickers.  Believe it or not under the Beautify tab are smooth, sharpen, fix blemishes and smooth wrinkles.  Images can be twirled left or right, bulged, pinched, stretched or squished be selecting the Distort tab.  Under the Layers tab the user can add images, select, select all, duplicate, opacity, push back, push forward group, ungroup or merge.  And the Geek tab contains Smart resize, Smart recolor, Smart cutout, Smart scissors, curves, morph and web cam.  Some of these features are still in Beta form but will be useful to the more experienced photo editor user.  When you have tweaked the graphic you can save it to your computer or a variety of social or photo sites or a tiny pic can be created to embed it in your blog or web site, it can be emailed or a URL/Link can be generated.  I did have trouble trying to get the tiny pic function to work.  That is probably because my computer is older than dirt and slower than molasses in January.

As much as I like Be Funky ( it was mentioned in a blog on 9/21/2010 regarding the making of comics) in comparison it lacks the extent and sophistication of FotoFlexer.  After uploading a photo for editing a bar of choices appears across your image as opposed to tabs above your image in FotoFlexer.  The choices in Be Funky are Edit, Apply Effects, Add Goodies, Add Frames and Add Text.  Options included under Edit are rotate/flip, resize, brightness/contrast, exposure, hue/saturation, color filter, temperature, sharpen, blur filter, enhance detail, smooth, highlights/shadows and duotone.  These are similar to those available in Fotoflexer.  I did use the crop tool in both.  The tool in FotoFlexer was better by allowing more options for sizing before the crop.  There are 26 possibilities under Effects.  Many are the identical to those in FotoFlexer but not always. The Goodies are all stickers with various themes.  The Frames does offer more choices for fun and the holidays.  There are 15 fonts within the Add Text selection.   Upon completion of editing an image in Be Funky can be saved to your computer, the library, Facebook or Twitter.  It can be printed or shared via email, Facebook, MySpace or Flickr. 

For both of the web sites users need to be 13 years of age.  No registration is required and they are free.  These sites could be very useful in adding appealing graphics to school, professional or personal creations.  They offer excellent possibilities to users of various capabilities. 

Be Funky Pop Art Effect



FotoFlexer Pop Art Effect