The Medium

So there is this silver marker that appeared in the instructor's drawer. I'm not really sure where it came from or who is the owner. The children are not supposed to use it. They like to go and get it anyway. They start out trying to put ink on paper. They usually end up scribbling all over the table with their "tags". I have named it "The Graffiti Marker." The marker makes them very expressive. I can't bear to throw it out. Good thing for magic erasers!

Glitter Continued

Even after making all the Rock Star Gingerbread we still had some glitter left. The children discovered writing with glitter and glue.

The Start of the Holidays

It's officially the holidays! So we got out the glitter. My students started sprinkling it on their illustrations. Then one student poured it all over the gingerbread icon she was painting. She declared she had made a"Gingerbread Rock Star" The rest of the students joined in on the trend. We had glitter everywhere!

Zen Illustrations

I've tried my own tactics at maintaining a sane classroom. My friend gave me this sheet called Zen Dots. It was one of her undergraduate exercises at the School of Visual Arts. The children love it as well.

The Rules

My students get a little bit crazy sometimes. So the Director asked that I go over the rules. I didn't really think it would be effective to lecture the children. So I told them they needed to write their own rules. Only problem is some of them are in first grade. So I told those student they could draw their rules.

Handmade Type

Today the children made type with their hands.

Out of the Box

While I was teaching the first animations. I had several students say "I don't know what to draw." So when the next group came into the classroom I sat them down and I asked them to name things that moved. They made a list, fire, the sun, a horse, a bouncy ball....While they were making the list their classmate was hopping around the room. I pointed out that he would be a great subject for their first animation. The following animation is the result. The student went out of the set frame box to bring out the character of his classmate who never sits still. The music was also created by the children.

Check out Off frame

Very First Animations

These are the animations that I made with my elementary students. They drew their animations on numbered frames. I produced them on the computer. The students also made the music for the animation titled Fingerprint.
Check out Rectangle Man

Click here for M

And here to view Fingerprint

REdesign

I had my six to nine year old students redesign a outlined graphic of a poppy. Then we xeroxed the originals to create their own coloring sheets.

Sugar Skulls

My students made Sugar Skulls for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Sugar skulls are sold by vendors in Mexico during the week of Day of the Dead. The traditionally they are made by hand and decorated with sequins and colorful icing.

Collaborative Illustrations

I am going to start posting again because I've missed blogging. I did this collaborative illustration project with my students. They are 6-8 years old. Each student had to draw a part. Either the head the body or the feet. The paper was folded so they couldn't see what the other had drawn until the end.

You win some

All was not lost this year. I'm proud to say I convinced one student that doubted the program to stay. He really applied himself to creating a body of work. All the images he used were his own and he experimented with combining them in Photoshop.

One day I just decided.....

Two of my Digital Media students have become sculpture majors. I didn't try and stop them. They seemed pretty passionate about their choice. The first student told me she walked into her Word and Image class and just decided she didn't want to sit at a computer anymore. The other one said that he was just plan discouraged by his portfolio review. I can't really blame them for wanting to be the next Henry Moore.

Great Expectations

Another movie title sequence from the Digital Media final.

Honesty

Today in the final crit I told my student I really liked the way the music ended on his project. His response was "That was luck"

Transition

Yeah I haven't quite accepted that classes are over. I still have so many files to look at and grade. For the final in Digital Media 2 I gave the assignment of movie title sequences. I really love the transitions on this one.

It's grading time

Today it is so cold and rainy. I can't believe finals are over. The students are sleep deprived. They think tables look like comfortable places to sleep. They are yellling absurd things to stay awake. And it's time for me to give them grades.
Click here for more absurdity

Almost summer

Yesterday the Seniors celebrated their final show by handing out colored smiley faced stickers. It brighten an otherwise cold rainy day.

Tween!

So we only have two more finals to go before the semester is over. I've been collecting all the files from the semester. I came across their first Flash tweening exercise. When the students first started using Flash they kept making circles bounce across the screen. I complained. And one student said what else should I do. I said make it into something. Here are some of their solutions. The first one really makes me laugh!
Click here to see Moo!
Click here to see Shape Tween

"Bad Bad Student"

Yup it's May 4th. Only one more week until the semester is over. I open my e-mail this evening and get this message.

"I'm a bad bad student,

and I deserve to fail.






However I do not intend on doing so.
Because I will do everything I need to make up
and then some..........."
I suck.

see you tomorrow morning.

Text

I discovered this wall while walking around campus. It was the best part of a long day. I had a headache by the end. Somedays I really look forward to tenure. My students say tenure is terrible. They also say people shouldn't get engaged at 19 and that Myspace is full of whores. They are very opinionated people....

Animated Buttons

Looking back at my last two posts I realized my student probably seems a little crazy. I swear my students are not always in a manic moods. Here are some Flash buttons as proof.
Animated Dryer
Fountain
Girl and Boy

Student Blogging

This drawing was created during my class. I can't really blame him. 6 hours of class is long. I do wonder what was he thinking?
His Blog

A Case of the Mondays

So this is what happens when you give a lesson on interactivity on a Monday morning. The student who created this Flash project said, "I don't know if this is appropriate." I said if you can't express yourself in college when will you ever get the chance. It's projects like this that make me really love my job. Check out Obscenities

After Effects and Filters

In my Digital Media class the students are learning After Effects. Last Monday one of the students asked, Professor how do I make fire? Two weeks ago I told them they were only allowed to work on a project. If they did a story board first. I didn't them just playing with plug-ins. So my answer to him was "You light a match." His response was this story board. I laughed when I saw it. I always seem to get the pyros for students.

Instructions

This is the first website assignment in Digital Media 2. I had them create a website with instructions. Check out How To Be a Hipster

Drag and Drop Behaviors

This is from an exercise in creating symbols with drag and drop behaviors. I know this design includes circles. But I still love it!Check out the interactive colors

Web Narratives

Design for Web class the students had to link words and image into a narrative. These are their first attempts at using Dreamweaver and uploading their html file to the internet.


View Alyssa's narrative here
http://alyssajeanne.9f.com/homework/narrative37/index.html

View Katherine's narrative here
http://doubleyouteaf.9f.com/index.html

More Sound

And now some sound

Only words

My students have a habit of drawing a circle in Flash. Then they
animated the circle to bounce around the stage. I'm trying to get them to
do something a little more interesting with the software. For this
assignment I asked them to chose a word a convey its meaning through
the motion.

"It took forever!"

These are the students' second animations. They were created keyframe
by keyframe in Flash. They told me, "It took forever!" to make these animations.

Blogging

My Design for the Web student's first assignment was to create their own blogs. This image is from a blog about doodles done during boring classes.

http://zzzleepzzz.blogspot.com

First Animations

The students made their very first animations EVER. They created flipbooks
by hand and I showed them how to animated them in Flash.

Package something FREE

For the final project in Design 1, the students had to package something that was free. They packaged everything from anger to dust. The most popular free thing to package was religion.

Censor Your Type

I handed out pages from Tropic of Cancer to the students. The instructions were to Censor Your Type.