Another "Paint" Program - Seashore (Macintosh)

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:23:51 -0700

(Seashore under “Downloads” under the “Teacher” button. Other sites are listed below.)

Thanks to a discussion on a list serve (and Darrin King), I have another paint-like program to pass on to you. In the past I have covered some other paint programs, some of which were downloadable, others that were on-line (see below for a list of these). Seashore is a downloadable application specific to the Macintosh. At a minimum Seashore is a nice little paint program and, at its best, it is a “light” Photoshop with layering, nudging, brushes, textures, and a host of other features.

Here are a few tips for Seashore:

Once you are at the Seashore web site, you can click on the “Download” link to begin.
A form will appear for you to fill out, but you don’t need to. Just wait a few seconds and the download will begin. Once completed, you are ready to begin.

If you want directions, launch Seashore (its in the Seashore folder you just downloaded) and click on the “Help” option in the menu bar. Select “Seashore Help” to bring up a 50+ page manual. The directions, though, aren’t the best, and in some cases, I think they are referring to an older version of the application.

Getting Started

When Seashore first starts, it will ask you for the size of the window you want to work with. You can enter numbers into the boxes, or just click the default for now. (Note at the bottom are templates that give some other options.)

Click the “Create” button to start working. If the Toolbox isn’t on the screen go to Window-->Utility Windows-->Show Toolbox. The toolbox is similar to what you have probably seen in other paint programs, with a brush, eraser, pencil, etc.

The Toolbox
For basic painting, the toolbox has these options:

The top four icons are for selecting an area of the picture. They sometimes don’t work the way you would expect. Practice a bit before using (also, see “Select None” under Edit to deactivate a selection).

The Pencil, Paint Brush, and Paint Bucket either paint a line or fill an area with a color or texture. Double click on either to bring up the options.

The Text tool lets you write on the page. Click it and then on the page where you want text. This brings up a window to type in. Click on the Font button to change fonts, styles, and colors.

The Eraser erases using the same brush style selected previously. Double click the eraser to change these options.

The Eyedropper will select the color it is on when you click it.

The Gradient Tool (green/white square) will fill the an area with a gradient of the two colors displayed in the boxes at the bottom of the toolbox. Click, draw line, and let up to create the gradient. Double click to change options.

The Nudge Tool (hand) will nudge colors and shapes.

The Color boxes let you pick the foreground color and background color. Double click and then use the color options to pick the color of your choice.

Advanced Stuff

OK, you are on your own, here, but be assured there are many options for you to explore. Read through the guide for ideas.

You can edit images by bringing them into the program.

You can create layers so that you can selectively edit areas and create some interesting effects.

OTHER PAINT/DRAW PROGRAMS
Here is a brief overview of paint/draw programs I have featured in the past and a link to them.

BASIC
ArtPad - This is a very basic on-line paint program.
TuxPaint - (download) Excellent for young kids. This is a direct link to the TuxPaint site.
ArtRage - (download) Think finger painting. This is a direct link to the ArtRage site.

NEXT STEP...
Sumo Paint - A great on-line paint program which rivals Photo Shop Elements.

EXPLORATION
ArtThread - Very unusual tools and a great application for exploring art.
Imagination Tool - Another “exploration” tool.
Beautiful Dorena - A downloaded program created by the originator of KidPix. One of the best.

Origami, Something for Every Occasion

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:07:48 -0700

(Origami Club and Origami Resource Center under “Art” under the “Links” button.)

Welcome back to the new school year! Yes, it is time to step into the classroom with enthusiasm, creativity, and, yes, directions. Directions for doing homework, completing forms, lining up, working with others in the classroom, etc. As a teacher, I was positive that all my directions were clear, concise and easy for my students to follow! Occasionally, though, my students would wrangle my precise commands into total confusion, or worse, actually follow my directions with equally bad results.

I have come to realize that producing clear steps in a process takes a bit of thought, good writing, and testing. I recently had a chance to experience someone else’s “directions” firsthand when I was challenged by a friend to make an Origami figure (the good ol’ traditional crane). After many puzzling dead ends, I finally converted the written directions into this flight-challenged green bird.

This experiment led to a few other paper folding projects, most notably, the blow up boxes to the right. At this point I started to explore paper folding web sites and see what they might have to offer teachers and students. Origami Club and Origami Resource Center were my top picks for learning how to do paper folding and using them in school projects. Some of their features were:

Directions for Making Designs

Both sites have directions, but the Origami Club is much better organized. Unlike the Resource Center, all the designs are housed at the Origami Club web site, so the directions are all similar in format. For example, If you decide to fold together a yacht, a window will appear to show you what you will end up with along with two buttons: Diagram and Animation.

The diagram is just that - a printable set of directions showing how to make the yacht. See at left.

But, as I said above, sometimes directions can be difficult to follow, let alone write.

So, this site also has the option to watch an animation showing how to fold the paper. You can start and stop the animation at will. This is a very nice feature, and make the written directions much more understandable.

All the other projects at this site have the same organization.

Levels of Difficulty
Both sites offer projects and different skill levels. It is a bit difficult to find the easy projects at the Origami Resource Center. Click on the “Origami for Kids” link on the left side and then scroll down to the link, “Origami for Kids: Easy Models” (or click here).

Origami Club has better organization of the content to determine difficulty levels. First, there is a link on the left side called appropriately enough, “EASY ORIGAMI.” But in addition, it also has a star rating for ALL the designs on the site to help you determine the difficulty of any project.

History, interesting Facts and Classroom Projects
The Origami Resource Center has a couple of features that go beyond the paper folding. If you click on some of the links on the left border of the home page, you will find a bit of history, interesting facts, and even a gallery of very advanced Origami objects.

For the classroom, though, check out the link, “Classroom Projects”. The authors provide a month-by-month list of ideas. Click on the “details here” link under the picture to see what projects they would recommend each week.

Extension: Once you and your students have had hours of experience following directions in the pursuit of Origami objects, maybe its time to have them design their own object. Once they develop something unique, challenge them to write directions (with drawings?) for others to follow.

Music, Instruments, Games

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:56:23 -0700

(Dallas Symphony Kids and NY Philharmonic Kidzone under “Music” under the “Links” button.)

Here are two great sites to help explore the world of music from a symphonic point of view. There are plenty of activities - some of which are open ended - and excellent information about music theory, musicians, composers, and instruments. Most of the content is appropriate for elementary age students. Here are some key elements of each of the sites:

DSO Kids - Dallas Symphony Orchestra Student “Music Room”

The opening page is very active! Move the mouse around to agitate the items. You can even play the piano! Some of the information, of course, is geared to the Dallas Symphony - it is their page after all! - but there is plenty left over for the rest of the world. Some points of interest from left to right in the picture:

Composer’s Corner - Click on the bust on the piano for a list of famous composers, including a short history and one or more recordings of his/her work, probably done by the Dallas Symphony.

Instrument Encyclopedia - Click on the piano music for a list of instruments. Click on an instrument to learn more about it and see a couple of pictures. You can, in theory, play samples of each, but I haven’t been able to get that to work.

File Cabinet: Making Instruments - Here are some ideas and directions for making instruments.

The Computer Screen - Here are a number of games, most of which are the standard types, but with a musical bent. Two interesting deviations from the norm are “Conductor Jump” (don’t you wish you could get that kind of action from your local conductor?) and “Composer’s Keyboard”, which lets you move notes around to make your own tunes.

Radio - Click on the radio under the table to bring up an index of samples of composers as well as music that features a specific instrument. If you want to know what a piccolo sounds like, here is your chance!

Teachers: Click on the door to go to the “Teachers Lounge”.

New York Philharmonic Kidzone

This site has some of the same content as the previous, but also quite a few new ones. From the opening image, you can click on any active link to go to a more menu driven display, as shown on the right. Here are some of my favorites:

Game Room - The activities here are very well designed, though there were a few I couldn’t get to respond (Minuet Mixer and Make Your Own Instruments in particular). Two that were interesting challenges were Orchestration Station and Musical Mingles. The first lets you add different instruments to play a song so you can hear what effect each has on the music. The second is a curious musical puzzle I am still working on!

Instrument Lab - This is similar to the other site but is much more comprehensive and has many more instruments to build. Be sure to continue moving the mouse to the right - there is more to explore.

Be sure to check out the other menu items. The instrument storage room lets you examine the many instruments and also plays snippets featuring each instrument. The composers’ gallery gives a little background information on each composer and also has a sample of the composer’s work to play (click the ear at the top of the page).

Good luck with these sites. I also added them to the main link page.

Award and Certificate Season

Thu, 14 May 2009 08:11:37 -0700

(My Award Maker and 123 Certificate Maker under “Writing-Language Arts” under the “Links” button.)
(Also, Jan Brett’s Site-Interactive Award Certificates under “General K-6” under the “Teacher” button.)

As the end of the school year approaches, thoughts arise of making certificates and awards to recognize students, volunteers, and staff for their contributions. Awards are a great way to show appreciation and recognition for efforts beyond the call of duty. Since they are easy to make, as I will show below, you can spend more time on what to say and how best to present the awards.

In the good old days, we had Print Shop and other commercial tools to create awards. Also, some applications, such as AppleWorks and Microsoft Word, had/have a few templates that could be used to design your own awards and certificates. But now there are excellent resources on the internet that do a very good job with no expense to you. If you can locate a color printer and some semi-fancy award paper (our print shop had a good selection or check out Office Depot) you are in business. Also, if you want to touch up an certificate beyond what is offered at the web site, you can use other applications for editing (see below for an example).

(Note: I put the first two sites in the links area under writing because these could be used with students as writing projects. Jan’s certificate maker is part of a much larger site for teachers, hence, I put it under the “Teacher” button.)

My Award Maker - Hundreds of Templates, Many Topics... (Recommended by Jody Bean)

This is my favorite site for certificates. At last count there were 313 templates here in the categories shown on the right. And the best part is that most of these are under “School Templates” (76) and “Blank Certificate Templates” (143).

To show how to use these templates, I will make an award using one of the blank templates.

1. Click on the category you want. (Blank)
2. Find the template you want. Note that there are other pages of templates you can view by clicking the page numbers just above or below the templates. You can also view a larger display of a template by scrolling over it, or make it even bigger by click on the template.
3. Download the template. Click the “Download” button below the template. The template will appear as a pdf file on your computer and will probably open in Adobe Reader or Preview (Mac).
4. Type in the text you want by highlighting the sample text and typing over it. Note: in some cases the Preview application will not display the text appropriately. If so, open the template in Adobe Reader.
5. Print the Certificate. See below.

123 Certificates - More Choices

This site doesn’t have the variety of templates (only about 100 school-related ones), doesn’t have blank certificates, and it isn’t as well organized as the first one, but it does have the advantage of printing the award directly from the browser.

To make an award, find a template to use. Then, note its name on the top of the sample (“school 3”, in this case). Then, click on the template to bring up the area for entering information. Type in the information. Important: select the template you want to use by using the pull down menu to the right of “Pick a Border”. It always defaults to the first template in list!

Finally, click the “make it!” button at the bottom of the screen. You can then print it directly from your browser.

Jan Brett’s Award Certificates

See this blog entry for more information about Jan’s site. Most of the awards are directed at primary age students.

Using an Application to Edit an Award - Pages

There are plenty of templates available, but it always happens that there isn’t one quite right for what you want. That is where other applications, such as Word, PowerPoint, Pages, Appleworks, and Keynote can be a big help. You can edit the design and even add clipart or photographs. Here is an example of how to edit using Pages on the Macintosh.

1. Change the award to a pdf file. When printing on the Macintosh you have the option of saving what you want to print as a pdf file (exception - Adobe Reader).

a. For My Award Maker, it downloads a pdf file anyway.
b. For 123 Certificates, when you are ready to print (Mac only), click the little PDF button at the bottom of the page and select “Save as PDF...”

1. Open Pages (or other application). Select a blank page and then, using Page Setup under the File menu, orient it (landscape or portrait) so it matches the award.
2. Drag or import the pdf file to the page. Expand it to fill the page.
3. Make changes using the features of the application.
4. Print. See the example below. I used only the original border and covered everything inside with the picture, added some text and ended up with a very original design.