Creativity Tools

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Toondoo allows users to create 1-panel, 2-panel, or 3-panel comic strips. Saying something with limited space and with humor is a creative skill that can be nurtured in all people, no matter what the discipline or program.

One suggestion is to assign a group project to 3-5 students. Have them create a storyboard together that depicts a cartoon on a particular topic that is germane to the course material being taught. Have them work together to create a storyboard that they all agree on as a way of making their point with the cartoon. Then have each of them create their own rendition of that storyboard using Toondoo. They will choose different backgrounds, different characters, etc., but they will be aiming toward the same basic idea for the cartoon.

You can also create ToonBooks, which is a flip book of as many panels as you choose. Here is a good example of a ToonBook. And here’s a ToonBook telling you how to make a ToonBook.

A Toondoo user has created the following screencast tutorials:

Getting Started http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/ciiVXIr8

Adding Text: http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/ciiVXOrP

Saving and publishing: http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/ciiVXAr9

They’re in Hebrew, but don’t let that stop you from learning!

Animoto is a free music video creation site. Have your students collect some pictures on a particular theme and convert them into a music video using the copyright-free music available on the site. 30-second videos are free, full-length videos cost about $3 each. Fun and very easy.

On the Digital Photos tab you can learn a lot about using Flickr for photo hosting and management.

• BigHugeLabs – fd’s Flickr toys (good stuff)
• dumpr – hobbyist’s toybox
• Flickr Colr Pickr – very cool, created by Jim Bumgardner
• The Great Flickr Tools Collection

The pictures shown below were created using my Flickr photos and fd’s Flickr toys. Click on any picture to view larger version.

The following were made at dumpr.net

 

You can also create Flickr slideshows at SlideFlickr.com. They cannot be embedded into a WordPress blog, so click here to see one embedded in my Blogger blog.