Blank Creative Assignment

Over the break, I spent a lot of time in my backyard, soaking in the warmer weather, and watching Studio Ghibli movies. I was inspired to combine two of the media we’ve explored in previous weeks, but unfortunately, I ran out of time. I took many photos in my backyard and recorded different sounds I heard during my mini adventures with the intention of creating a digital collage and a complementary soundscape to go with it. I planned to do this in Photoshop and Audacity. Instead, I used some photos from my excursion to create a smaller collage in the PicCollage app on my phone. The result is not exactly what I envisioned, but it is useful as a building block for what I hope to create eventually. This process helped me narrow down how I want my future collage to look: wide landscape view, more mini people, drawn in details (bugs, furniture, curtains), more landscapes, and better blend/flow between terrain changes. The soundscape would add to the whimsical scene, making it more immersive and reinforcing the theme that mundane things can be magical. 

For my collage, I used the paid version of PicCollage; however, I wouldn’t recommend it for classroom use. I had a subscription through a previous project, but after using it a few times, I’ve found its tools to be limited in scope and functionality. It’s more tailored to social media use and doesn’t let you edit photos much beyond cutting and cropping. Though I did not get to create my intended project, I think the idea behind it might make an interesting lesson plan: go for a walk or spend 20 minutes outside to take photos and recordings to be later used in a connected digital collage and soundscape. Not only would students get to connect multiple media, expanding their opportunities for self-expression, but they would also have the chance to make connections with their surroundings.

Creative Coding

Common Non-Silicate Minerals

Coding is intimidating, but Scratch makes it fun! Looking back, I vaguely remember using something like Scratch in my 8th grade Computer Literacy course. I did not understand it at all. But, coming back to it as an adult, an adult who is at least better at looking things up online, coding made a lot more sense. That doesn't mean I didn't struggle, however. 

It was in class, when everyone was talking about their experience with Scratch, that I had the idea to create an interactive study tool for learning minerals. Before even thinking about code, I dug through the photos on my phone to find ones I'd taken in college while studying Geology. My Rocks and Minerals professor taught us different groups of minerals each week. One of those weeks was common non-silicate minerals. The minerals were always stored in wood trays that fit perfectly into cabinet drawers. I loved seeing all the different colors, shapes, sizes, and textures of minerals spread across the lab's tables in their wood trays, and my hands itched to examine them. With the help of a friend, we cut different mineral specimens out of my old photos to use as Sprites, and I snapped a shot of a wooden box for the project background. Then I looked at my old college notes, photos, and a few websites (https://www.mindat.org and https://geologyscience.com/minerals) and compiled a table of information I wanted to include for each mineral. 

With that done, the dreaded coding time was upon me. I knew I wanted each mineral to "say" information about itself when you click it, so I tried experimenting with that first. I got as far as "When this sprite clicked, say ___" before I encountered problems. I tried finding another rocks and minerals Scratch project to look at its code, but couldn't find anything that fit what I was looking for. I ended up searching "How do I get a sprite to say something when I click it and then have the info go away after I click it again?" Among the search results was a Scratch discussion page where users shared their code, but it still wasn't exactly what I needed. I was very confused because at this point, I didn't understand that you could make a variable or what that even meant. I ended up asking ChatGPT for help out of desperation. It was able to explain the code, what it meant, and why it worked, in ways the forums and tutorials I found could not. I'm honestly not sure how I would have figured out this part of the code without it, since none of the resources I found explained the why behind it.

After making the minerals clickable, I wanted them to light up when you hover over them, so they felt more like website buttons, and it was obvious you could click them. I googled "how to make a Sprite glow when your mouse touches it" and found another Scratch discussion post with a code example. After my experience with the last part of the code, it was much easier to understand what I was looking at, which parts would work for me, and which I needed to change. I was more creative with this part and added blocks that make the minerals wiggle and say their names when you hover over them. I played with changing their colors, but ultimately decided that, since this is a study tool, the minerals should look like themselves. 

Overall, I am happy with what I created. If I had more time and understood Scratch better, I think I would have had each mineral take you to a different background with information on it, rather than have the minerals "say" the information. I used Scratch to create science materials, but I can see how it could be used in any subject. Teachers could create interactive educational resources for their lessons, and students could create their own study materials. On the more artistic end, students could use creative coding to tell their own stories, explore their identities, and connect with their peers. Creative coding also has the potential to pair well with other artistic media, such as animation, photography, sound design, drawing, painting, etc, expanding students' options for expression. 

Inspiring Scratch Project!

As rats are my favorite animals, I just had to type "rats" into the search function to see what Scratch had to offer in the way of rodents. I was delighted to find a rat maker and dress-up game by LiljatupsuLilytuft. Not only can you change the rat's coloring, fur pattern, ears, eyes, and tail, but you can also dress it up in a cute, warm winter outfit. What's not to like? I used to love dress-up games when I was a kid, so I was excited to learn that I could make my own on Scratch.

Reading Takeaways

Image Credit: Olga Tutunaru on Unsplash

Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom by Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary S. Stager
Growing up, I always felt I learned better when I got to do something with my hands. I think this is true for most people, but hands-on and experiential learning is not always applied in the classroom, despite what philosophers speculated and research has supported. I think this is one reason art class can be an escape for some students: they finally get the chance to try something themselves rather than just listen to a lecture or read about it. Art lessons can become especially interesting when students get the opportunity to engage with a technology that feels new or unfamiliar to them. The process of feeling and trial and error promotes problem-solving, creativity, and deeper understanding in learners and is self-rewarding. When you combine Papert’s “Constructionism” with Dewey’s ideas of reflection and meaning-making, you open the possibility for students to learn not just the technology but also about themselves, other subjects/topics, and the world around them; in fact, encouraging meaning-making and reflection helps the practical or technical skills students learned to stick with them.

Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Puppet Photographic Animation Techniques
Prior to reading this, I had no understanding of where stop-motion originated. It makes so much sense that stop motion evolved from early filmmakers and creatives like Georges Méliès, who experimented with practical effects. The animation lesson plan I made last week combined sound composition with stop-motion animation. Now I can imagine more ways stop-motion animation (which is way more broad than I realized with different forms such as: puppet animation, pixilation, time-lapse photography, and downshooting or cutout animation) can be combined with other materials and practices, like filmmaking, to create something unique that opens students up to a larger range of creative possibilities for self-expression.

Stop Motion Animation

Connoisseur Caterpillar

Sound effects sourced from Pixabay:

freesound_community, “042276_AMB_celery-chewing-01.wav”;

freesound_community, “3_tone_chime”;

Roman_Sol, “Magical Transformation SFX (Short).”

This week was kind of crazy, and I think this claymation reflects that. Over the weekend, much of the Art and Art Ed dept at TC, including myself, attended Conversations Across Cultures, a one-credit required symposium. During the workshops, we focused on developing and understanding our artistic processes through embodied explorations involving ourselves and different materials, much like Judy Burton's Processes and Structures course! The experience was so involved that it permeated into my assignment for New Media New Forms, becoming the background material for my claymation. 

I struggled to come up with an idea or concept for my stop motion. "Serious play", abstract lines and shapes, and sensory exploration are all that my drained brain could think of. Well, that, and... worms, for some reason (maybe I'm longing for spring). I thought back to the stop motions I've made in the past. In middle school, I used to make stop motions with my dolls. I recall enjoying experimenting with their movements and frame rates to create something smooth and realistic. In high school, I took an animation class, where our final assignment was to create a claymation. I remember again being focused on the movement of the objects and having a lot of fun making something silly with clay. Thus, my green clay worm, caterpillar thing was born. I'm a little too embarrassed to share my middle school stop motions, but this is my claymation from high school:

Where Does Your Food Come From?

It had been years since I made a stop motion, and I can't remember which programs I used, so I decided to try the free Stop Motion Studio App. I also used my iPhone camera, a small tripod, and CapCut to edit everything together. I don't have photos of my work set up, but I did make some test claymations to experiment with the background materials and how to move my little worm guy. Below are just two of them!

Test 1:

Test 2:

Overall, I really loved this process, and I wish I had had more time to work on it. I think stop motion is ripe with possibilities for the classroom! Not only is it wonderful on its own, but it also pairs well with sound composition experimentation and material exploration. It is the perfect bridge between digital, physical, and audio-visual!