The Teacher Toolbox

A huge thanks to Sharon in Scotland for suggesting stripcreator.com to go with the others free online comic strip generators listed on my site. It certainly has a lot more options than some of my older tools.

As an introductory activity to comic strip creation I have the kids bring in the ‘lamest’ joke they can find. They then have to create a comic strip out of it. It is an excellent way to discuss pun. For the ‘the usual suspects’ that don’t bring you a joke, Yahooligans has a really good lame joke section that they can peruse.

Here are a couple of ideas from my webpage for using sites like these:

- Use the websites provided to produce a short comic strip about something you are passionate about.

- Using the websites above create a comic strip of a joke that will make an adult laugh. NB you will need to use a clever play on words rather than something that will make a child laugh.

- In a group of 4 convert a fable into a comic strip. Hints - You will need to sub-task a lot and be very clear on the design decisions you all make.

Today I’ve put together a scaffold for people wishing to experiment and be a little more creative in the publishing of poetry.

The poetry scaffold is a step by step guide to creating a verbal collage about each student. It encourages reflection and experimentation.

My son added a Wordle to his blog based on his blog tags and I made mine by ‘Pasting a heap of text’ into Wordle. We enjoyed playing with this tool and I think your students will also.

Have fun with Wordle

Adrian

PS Try performing this poem by readng it with a different volume and intonation for each word. Maybe even with a soundtrack behind it of Miles Davis

Each year Hiroshima Day (August 6) just tends to slip under the radar in most schools. But I feel this day is so important that I spend the whole day on it in order to teach a little empathy.

One of the activities I do during the day is introduce ‘ecphrastic poetry’. This is a very powerful form that offers many opportunities to - ask questions, observe, interpret, infer, synthesize, hypothisise and, in this case, empathize.

Tonight I’ve put together a webpage of scaffolds that I’ve collected over the years that will help you on your way to adding ecphrastic poetry to your tool-box. I’ve also added a couple of teaching ideas and resources for Hiroshima Day.  NB I’ve added a .bmp file of the parchment and Peace Park Dome from the poem above for you to download, drop into an image editor and publish the poetry you create.

Adrian

By combining the first line of Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and the Build Your Wild Self character generator you will get a great narrative starter or a launchpad into literary description.

The Story Starter

‘As (insert name) awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he/she found himself/herself transformed into an enormous creature.’

Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis - 1916

Surrealism is either a form that students either love or hate. In my experience I find boys tend to like the Surrealists much more than girls. I wonder what your experience is?

Surreal Painter is another online art tool that allows you to make all sorts of design decisions in creating your own surreal art.

NB You might like to try put the only Surrealist joke I know.

Q. How many Surrealists can you fit in a phone box?

A. A fish.

cheers

Adrian

PS Thanks a heap to karlyb from my Twitter network for this tool.

When exposing children to Art’s diverse makeup I always make sure I throw Mondrian into the mix.

It is so cool to see students firstly mock Mondrian’s works but when you challenge them to emulate the works they find it much harder than they had initially imagined. At this point I throw in the line, ‘ Surely there is a beauty in the way the paint is applied to the canvas. How do you think he got it so ‘flat’ looking? ‘.

In the realm of traditional media I have had most success in producing ‘Mondrian like’ homages by giving the students small paint rollers and black electricians’ tape.

Now we have online tools such as the Mondrian Machine

… and life is sooooooooo a little easier

Adrian

After watching Ze Frank’s talk on TED (as recommended by Adrian G) I’ve been looking around the web for online art creation tools. NB I’m not looking for these to to replace traditional media but rather to enhance it. These tools allow students to experiment with a multitude of ideas very quickly as they refine the Design Process.

The Collage Machine is one of the tools that I’ve been interacting with to create discussions about the ideas behind collage.

Adrian

Throughout my career I have found that students really like the work of Kandinsky. They seem to like the interplay between geometric shapes and colour. Tonight I’ve been experimenting with a tool called Brushster and whilst it can do many things, I was instantly reminded of Kandinski’s work and set about emulating it using this tool.

See what you think.

Adrian

I often say to my students that, ‘Drawing with a mouse is like picking your nose with your elbow’ to which I tend to get a bit of a chuckle from the punters.

That said, Scribbler is a site that I’m currently using to explore online art tools with students. I find tools such as these can open up a great deal of discussion about what ‘Art’ really is.

NB I’ve found that if I combine Scribbler with German Expressionism I am getting results that I wouldn’t normally get with primary aged students.

cheers

Adrian

Ok, I’m not a big fan of ‘tagging’ - JFK (Just For Kicks) etc - but I do tend to like graffiti art when it is done well

Tonight I’ve been playing with this online grafitti art generator and there really are a lot of design decisions that you have to make in creating your ‘tag’.

I’m thinking it might be a welcome sight on a blog, tray tub, workbook, class door or Math program cover… you know the one… the one in the plastic sleeve. hehehehehe

There are six different designs to play with here. Let your students loose on this site to see what they can produce and see what uses they can generate for the products created.

Adrian