This year, I welcomed back our students with a theme - Images of a New Year!! For a while now, I have been looking for an opportunity for students to learn more about the images that fill the world around us! (file formats and styles!!) Last school year we took the time to learn about taking selfies, stop motion animation and creating and editing videos, but I wanted them to have a chance to bring it all together! So I welcomed our students back with a fun new iPhone app that I discovered at the ISTE conference in Atlanta in June...it is called Cycloramic. I am always looking for ways to introduce new apps to students! This one fit into our discussion on images perfectly! Some of my students had seen the app when it was originally presented on the TV show Shark Tank!! The app vibrates the iPhone so that it spins 360 degrees and records either images or videos! Students were amazed! After recording, it "stitched" together images for a panoramic view!
Next, we used GifPal.com to continue the discussion of how images can be put together to make primitive movies, similar to the flip books that people draw in the corner of books! (Funny how many students had seen these!) .gifs are images that are compressed, making it easier to transfer them. Students had a great time creating our Gifs!! Just a quick caution about all of the .gif making websites! It is a good idea to preload the site and get it set up before sharing with students. Sometimes the sites can have inappropriate material, so I launch the site to the place I want them begin and then invite students to "strike a pose"! Try not to get dizzy with one of our examples!!!
Our next lesson will give students the opportunity to have some fun with image effects and collages!