Here is one of our first Romeo and Juliet animations using the Toontastic iPad App. It was made by Dikyi and Yangzen.  We liked using Toontastic because it was very easy and you can draw your own backgrounds and characters to mix with the backgrounds and characters that come with the app. But we are a little disappointed that you can't export the video as a movie file. You can only watch it on the iPad, on the Toontastic ToonTube website or you can embed it. 

For this assignment the students were asked to read Act I and then recreate an important part of Act I to show their understanding. I think that they did a great job showing their knowledge of the relationship between Juliet, the Nurse and Lady Capulet and they did a great job using the iPad to create their own content.

We are sooooo excited to have a new tray of 10 iPads in our classroom. (I love you Pam and Kathleen!) We're experimenting with the Toontastic app. Yan Fen is drawing Romeo.

           I have been totally obsessed with the idea of using infographics in the classroom during the past few months. I love the idea of visually combining charts, graphs, pictures and content. It seems like a fun, easy way to bring graphic design, math, technology and English together. I was very excited when I saw a tweet by Kathy Shrock about a new web-based app called Piktochart. Piktochart makes it very easy for students to crete their own infographics using beautifully designed templates. 
          I decided to try them out as a project choice for a research-based unit that we were doing about the life of William Shakespeare. A lot of kids were excited to try them it. The students were able to create their infographics using piktochart with very little instructions, help or guidance from me on the tech end of the project. Here are two examples created by my students.

          I think that the infographics came out amazing for our first try and I'm really proud of the students who took a risk for trying something new. I am currently working with Lindsay and Megan, two of my awesome Math teacher colleagues to develop a "Create Your Own Infographics" guide. It's still under construction. I see a lot of things that can be improved, revised and added to my use of infographics as an activity in the classroom such as requiring a "works cited" at the bottom to show where they collected their data. 

I was so excited to see the live stream of Bre Pettis' TEDxNYED talk about the importance of making things in the classroom. I almost had a heart attack when he featured one of my Hamlet Makerbot lesson plans where the students researched and recreated Elsinore Castle, the setting of Shakespeare's famous play using the amazing Tinkercad software. Here is a link to the full talk.  You can fast forward to around the 26:00 mark to see the part where Bre talks about Brooklyn International and my classroom. 

We have been experimenting with making infographics in the classroom. I think that they are a great way for students to synthesize the information that they are learning and show it off in a beautiful way. Here is an awesome infographic that compares Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Way cooler than a Venn Diagram!  There are tons of web-based tools that make it easy for the kids to put together a beautiful infographic. Right now we are using tools such as manyeyes, hohli and even wordle for stats and graphs and piktochart for putting together the final piece. I can't wait to share some final products. 

I love Brandon Peat's Star Wars Visual Alphabet. It makes for a great classroom project!