Day 57. I was messing about with my mum's iPad tonight and showing her how the Funny Movie Maker app works. In the process I made this very silly video. FYI, I like Ben Franklin, but his was one of the few faces that comes in the free version of the app so he got to be the victim of my stillness. Sorry Ben!
PS. Sorry for the VVS. (Vertical Video Syndrome)
Day 56. Our school is launching a BYOD iPad program for our Year 5 and 6 kids this year. Tonight we held a parent information evening where I was asked to speak to the parents about the reasons, rationale and strategy for its implementation. We thought it would be a good idea to record the session for any parents unable to attend, so I decided to make it my daily create for today.
The slides were created in Apple Keynote for OSX, then exported to a PDF file and imported into SlideShare.com. The audio was made with a Rode lapel mic plugged into my Nexus 4 phone, and recorded with an Android app called Easy Voice Recorder. The audio file was then transferred from my Nexus 4 to my Mac using a wireless file transfer app called AirDroid, edited in Audacity, then uploaded to SlideShare and synced to the slides with their slidecasting feature.
Sadly, slidecasting in SlideShare is about to be discontinued on Feb 28. I don't know of another service that does this syncing of slides and audio, and I have used the feature quite a bit in the past so I'm disappointed to see it go.
Day 55. Using an iPad app called Strip Design, I imported a couple of photos of Linda and I and applied a few filters to spruce them up (or down, depending on your point of view) and then arranged them in this film frame. Lots more you can do with this app, so I'm sure I'll play with it further.
I am enjoying the way this daily create is pushing me to explore more apps than I ever used to and to see what they are capable of producing. Certainly as we go BYO iPads this year at school I think it's been really valuable to spend more time playing with mine.
Day 54. I found this cute little app called Abby Robots. It's kind of basic but it lets you create your own robots by mixing and matching the head, body, legs and background. Once I made a few robot variants I used Diptic to put them all in a frame together. Danger Will Robinson, Danger!
Day 53. Today I played with an app called Chalk HD. It lets you take photos and text and renders them to look like a chalk drawing on a blackboard. And we all know that blackboards are what every teacher uses right?
It's a pretty basic app that really only does this one thing, although it has lots of filters for different effects. If you want to make your photos look like chalk drawings, you've come to the right app.
Day 52. I took these couple of photos today at school during lunchtime. We just took delivery of a batch of new Google Chromebooks and the kids were trying them out. I dropped the photos into an app called Pic Collage and tarted them up a bit with some colour and graphics, and this was the result. It's quick and easy to use, although the layering can get a bit tricky.
Day 51. I found this quote by James Ogilvy and liked it, so I used Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad to make this coloured background, then imported it into Keynote for iOS, added a text layer with the quote, then while in play mode in Keynote, took a snapshot of the screen (since there is no JPEG export from Keynote). Then I used the image as the background in the Tellagami app, created a character, then used the speech synthesiser to speak the quote. I believe they call it "app smashing" when you go from app to app like that.
In case you're interested, here is the actual quote... "Too much of our work amounts to the drudgery of arranging means toward ends, mechanically placing the right foot in front of the left and the left in front of the right, moving down narrow corridors toward narrow goals. Play widens the halls. Work will always be with us, and many works are worthy. But the worthiest works of all often reflect an artful creativity that looks more like play than work."
That's something I'm really finding with this daily create project... Creativity looks far more like play than work.
Day 50. In June this year I will be helping facilitate at the Flat Connections Conference in Sydney with my fellow Aussie global educator Julie Lindsay. Julie suggested that those of us who are facilitating at the event might contribute a short video snippet introducing themselves and the event, and then asked if I would put them together into a single video. So after a few days of messing about in FinalCut Pro X, here is the finished product, presented as my daily create for today.
It'd be great to see some of you at the Flat Connections Conference in June... I'm sure it'll be an amazing few days!
Day 49. I was completely devoid of an idea for today's daily create, and I crawled into bed without having made something for the day. As I lamented my lack of creativity, Linda started making some suggestions... Most of which I was probably too dismissive of.
But I opened up a doc and jotted down a few ideas based on her suggestions, and ended up with this little piece of poetry...
"Creativity is finding good solutions", Linda said.
Still, little inspiration seemed to float around my head.
"What about a song? A cartoon? Or a superhero?"
But my creative processes were turning up a zero.
"Maybe you could make a web account for something new?
There's always new things on the web to see and try and do!"
I didn't think that signing up was honestly creative,
So I sat and pondered further, feeling somewhat brain depletive.
I couldn't think of what to make to finish off my day,
So I jotted down a few ideas and words (if just to play)
And as I wrote to make those words, I felt an urge to grow 'em,
And pretty soon, hey how 'bout that! I wrote a daily poem!
Day 47. These pretty mandala designs were made with an iPad app called iOrnament. It lets you create symmetrical patterns with amazing sophistication, especially if you splurge out for the 99c in-app purchase to unlock the extra features. I created one basic round mandala design then applied some randomising effects to it, to create the four variations you see here. All four of these design variations are based the same basic pattern.
Once I made all four of them I arranged them in this 4-up grid design using another app called Diptic, which can arrange multiple images in a single framed picture.
Day 45. Valentines Day today and my daily create was that I made dinner for Linda and I. We had an appetiser of baked mushrooms stuffed with white beans, coriander and onions. Followed by a main of BBQed pork tenderloin and cherry salsa. Never made these before, but they were pretty good.
PS: You can click the image to enlarge it. Day 36. My mum gave us a climbing plant for Christmas and we thought it would be nice to get it to grow over the large watertank in our backyard, which we have always thought was a bit of an eyesore. In fact weliked the idea so much we went out and bought a couple more plants (Mandevillas if you're curious) and some planter pots to put them in.
The problem was getting a trellis for the plants to grow on. I didn't want to have to construct anything with lattice... too much work! I thought that a wire mesh would do the trick, but would look pretty ugly, and the plastic meshes were even uglier. Plus, all these ideas for trellis would have been fairly expensive to buy the materials to make them.
My creative solution was to buy two Merbau hardwood planks, and I glued them along the top and bottom of the watertank using Liquid Nails. I pre-drilled holes in them and inserted small eyelet hooks, and then threaded heavy duty fishing line through them, up and down and diagonally, until there was a "web" of clear lines for the plants to grow on. In just a couple of days the plants are already sending tendrils out along the lines and starting to grow up the tank. I expect that by next summer it will be pretty well covered.
Not only do we have now a trellis that is near invisible and unobtrusive as the plants grow on it, but it cost a total of about $20, and took less than an hour to make. I like being able to come up with one-off creative solutions to household problems like this.
Day 35. This image was made using an app called Play Art. It has a collection of arty bits from well known artists that can be dragged around and rearranged. It's good for getting students to look at the different styles and signature artworks of artists, and to play around with compositional ideas. Thanks again to Cathy Hunt from iPad Artroom for putting me onto this app.
