Digital Storytelling - Ideas for illustrating stories

I had the privilege of creating and running an online digital storytelling course for the African Storybook project. Here are some suggestions for illustrating stories that I gleaned from the course participants.

1. Hand drawn pictures
Hand drawn with kokis or pencil crayons and scanned into the computer.
Example: A noise in the night

2. Use cutouts
Create a background in some way. Then cut out figures and objects and place them on the background. Take a photo. Then for the next page move them around again and take another photo.
Example: Emily and the Seagull

3. Take photos
Take photos of different scenes. (Remember that if there are people involved in a photo you need to get permission from the people in the photo if you want to use it on the web).

Example 1: Andiswa Soccer Star

Example 2: On Safari

4. Use collages
Use a mix of drawing painting and odds and ends stuck on and a picture taken.

Example 1: Nonyane

Example 2: Lion collage

5. Lego people
Use lego picture templates, cut them out and past them on a piece of paper. use a scanner to upload them. Example: http://mattbgomez.com/lego-family-labeling/

6. Line drawings clipart
If you type into Google for example 'horses clip art line drawings' you'll be taken to a page like this http://goo.gl/IKqrX8.  Print what you want and then cut it out and place it on a sheet of paper and draw around it. Colour it in.

Example: Khotso goes to the zoo

7. Public domain clipart
This is clipart that is free to use. I have given some suggestions in a blogpost
‘Finding royalty free images on the Internet’

Example: What on earth are you doing?

8. Use a free computer application
Use a free computer program like PAINT or PAINT.NET or something else to draw pictures and colour them in.

Example: Elephant’s new home

There's a very simple application called  Queeky.com. You just open it and start drawing. Then you save it and add the picture to your presentation template

http://www.queeky.com/app

9. Ask friends, relatives or children to draw for you.
Why not ask others to do the pictures for you?

Example: The adventures of Meerkat and friends

10. Paint a picture

Example: A Value Painting Exercise



11. Use large almost abstract like cutouts

Example: Art Ideas for Inspiration: Illustrating Plot of a Story

12. Use cartoon-like figures
I would suggest uploading to a programme like PAINT or a similar application to colour them
Example: How to make illustrations even if you can’t draw

13  Draw childlike pictures 

Example: Draw your story – the illustrated journal

14 Ask one of the children in your class to draw for you

Example: Sipho signs away

15. Use stuffed toys
Use stuffed toys, move them around and take photos.

Example: The mystery of the vanishing books

16. Use a computer application from school

Example: Monsters under my bed

17. Foliage art

Create art foliage collages and scan them in http://goo.gl/NM9XsC

18. Tracing pictures

You can trace pictures and draw/colour them in your own way. http://www.ehow.com/video_4955159_art-ideas-inspiration-tracing-layering.html. Here is another example: http://www.wikihow.com/Illustrate-a-Children's-Book

19. Use black and white pencil drawings

You can even use pencil drawings. Here is a great collection of free p[encil drawings http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/8fZBPc/etc.usf.edu/clipart/ 

20. If you are an artist - hooray!

Here are some ideas for those who are already artists and can illustrate their own books.

http://www.ehow.com/video_2372052_illustrate-children_s-book.html

Something you cannot do

One thing tat you cannot do is simply use any clipart you find and give a link to it. The clipart must have a Creative Commons license attached for you to be able to do that 

Enjoy your illustrating!

How to easily convert different time zones to local time

What do you do when you want to hurriedly convert time in your country to another time zone? Perhaps you want to listen to a webinar from the USA or another country which is announced in their time. I want to know the South African time for the online Microsoft's Hack the Classroom event that takes place today at 08:00 PST.

All I know is that South Africa is on GMT+2! There must be many good applications to use to convert time, but I usually go to: timeanddate.com found at http://www.timeanddate.com/ and there I look for Time Zone Converter. It works well.

Step 1: Go to http://www.timeanddate.com/

Step 2: Search for Time Zone Converter and open it

Step 3: Add the time of the meeting or event you wish to attend
After that select the place to convert to. and press the green button labelled Convert Time

Step 4: Read the answer

The conversion shows that 08:00 PST is at 6pm this evening in South Africa!

It's wonderful what technology can do! The world is truly is becoming more and more of a global village!

Holiday writing task for Grade 4 using Microsoft Word

This is a cross post from the SchoolNet blog which I also write for.

In the first week back after the holidays I asked the Grade 4 class to write a short text about their holiday.  Instead of using one of the usual applications for this I decided to use a Microsoft Word template from the fabulous site Oakdome which was in the form of a phone.  We had a short oral session first and then we went to our computers to write in the Microsoft Word template.

The task
Describe, in around 200 words or less, one or two events from your summer holiday. You'll do this as though it is a phone message so although your report back has a beginning, a middle and an end you won't use paragraphs. Add an image related to your story.

Two student examples

Evaluation
The students loved using this template.