Macromedia Flash

I teach a high school animations class in which we utilize macromedia flash 8. I wanted to know if anyone has additional ideas for projects that I could possibly incormporate into my lessons? I like to give them animations to create that are not in the book, but go along with the material. Thanks...

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on April 16, 2009 at 2:51pm

Clair,

Looks like I put a capital for a small letter:

http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/mrsp/flashfiles/A-game.fla

This should work. I made the games a few years ago, but don't remember how I did it. Stupid!!!

Anne

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Gibbs on April 16, 2009 at 9:36am

Thanks Anne, very good idea! We normall yhave summer readings so I could have them create an animation based on a specifc chapter or some major events from the story.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Fatheree on April 16, 2009 at 11:11am

Stephen,
I used to work with 2nd grade teachers on a project that was a lot of fun. The 2nd grade students wrote and illustrated their own stories. My student brought the content back to the lab and created animated storybooks using the kids's drawings. The 2nd grade students loved seeing their work come to life. We also uploaded the stories to our school website, so that they could be used as reading supplements in the classroom.
My students have also worked with our special ed teachers to help on a project that was a lot of fun. The autistic children in their classrooms would draw picture of things that would cause them to act out in either a postive of negative way. The special needs students would come to my lab where my students would teach the students how to scan their drawings into the system. We would also record voice overs of them talking about the situations, how they handled them, and what strategies they could use to do better the next time. My students used the content to create short animations. The animations were then dropped into a timeline in Final Cut Pro where they were edited together. At the conclusion of the project we had a celebration of academic achievement for those students one evening when we invited their parents, other students, teachers, and administrators in to watch the shows. It was a very special evening.
Finally, my students run one of the largest student operated film festivals in the country. People come from far and wide to participate in the activities. I would like to extend an invitation to you to submit some of your students' work next year. We are in the process of enlarging our animation part of the program and would love to see what your kids can do. We teach animation via Flash, After Effects, and Maya at our school. Let me know if there is an interest on your part.
Best,
Joe

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on April 16, 2009 at 11:52am

Joe,

I copied and passed this onto my sister Chris, with two autistic sons and lots of contact in the autistic community. I was very impressed with the idea of taking the autistic drawings and turning them into animations to do what the "social books" have done for my nephew Andrew. Andrew is now 17, and just leaving home for a grouphome that may or may not work out. He became to violent to remain at home any longer. The other autistic son is aspergers, and finishing his 2nd year of college. He was problematic as a pre-schooler and an adolescent, but there is a strong probability he will be able to function on his own.

Meeting Andrew's needs when he was 12 and learning to read, I started a collection on personalizable books in history and other subjects. Andrew, who prevsiously wouldn't attempt to read anything unless he had seen the movie, and preferably all Disney, got into these books because they were stories about himself. I used clip art and sometime online photos or paintings to illustrate the stories. If your students would like to animate some of these stories, they can go either on my website or your linked from mine.
(the illustrations for the newest, King Midas, are medieval, and Midas was ancient greek. Couldn't find better clip art, so that story is the most needy for illustrations).

http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/books

Anne

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Gibbs on April 16, 2009 at 12:05pm

Hi Joe, I would definately be interested. I like the idea of incorporating the Special Education program into your curriculum and vice versa. My classes mainly focus on Macromedia flash, I plan on teaching a 3rd level of the class that incorporates Dreamweaver and fireworks, but I need to find the state standards for this course, and our enrollment in the part 2 class id down, so we will see. But I am interested.

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Permalink Reply by C. Hutcheson on April 16, 2009 at 12:11pm

Hi Joe,
Would you mind describing your "Film Festival"? Sounds interesting!

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Permalink Reply by Joe Fatheree on April 19, 2009 at 7:51pm

Clair,
I am in the process of uploading a series of our student films to our website. They can be seen on the main page. Scroll down to the blog section. They are broken down by genre. We are constantly updating the site, so there is always something new going on. You can access it by going to the following: http://ahafilms.ning.com/

Let me know if you have questions. We would love to have you come to next year's festival. Look forward to hearing from you.
-joe
Here is a teaser ( one of our newest films) that has been just been uploaded to the site.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy Moore on April 16, 2009 at 1:32pm

With the topic of Flash popping up I though I would pass along a heads up. Flash CS4 dropped the nifty e-learning templates (quizzes), but Adobe added them back in and improved them when they came out with the e-Learning bundle. So if you are moving up, you may want to go with the eLearning suite if you want ready made templates.

Also new in the latest editions is that Captivate has SCORM output (this is in Captivate if you buy it outside of the bundle as well). This is important when you are working with a cms such as Moodle, Blackboard, or WebCT so that any quizzes done within the activity can be output to the cms grade book.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on April 16, 2009 at 2:55pm

Thanks, Tammy,

Bob got your emaiil saying the same, and I just ordered the 30 day trial disk (I tried to d/l but on dialup it would take 3 full days!) After the trial, we'll see what we can afford for me....

Anne

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Permalink Reply by Jody Watson on April 16, 2009 at 8:29pm

Hey Stephen:
Some of the things that I used to do with Flash MX with my jh and hs students are:
1) Create an animated alphabet for kindergarten, find out how teachers at that grade are teaching the alphabet and then create an alphabet that students can go on and see the letters/sounds etc.
2) Have them create a choose your own adventure story for elementary class.
3) Have student create an online portfolio and set up your flash project like a website with buttons taking you to different portions of their portfolio. I would recommend embedding a autobiographical video or a video resume in it.

Good luck.

Jody Watson