-: Coming up on Mobile Learning
in the Classroom: Creativity.
(techno music)
-: Hi. My name is Guy Trainin,
and this is Mobile Learning in the Classroom
from Tech Edge, and today I want
to talk about creativity.
There are two apps that have been
making me especially happy recently,
and I'm gonna talk about both of them.
The first one that we're going to talk about
is Play-Doh TOUCH, and in Play-Doh TOUCH
what you do is you create some things
out of Play-Doh and it's right beneath me.
We've played around just before we started shooting
to create some Play-Doh creatures.
We've got an elephant,
we've got a bear slash kanga,
we've got a duck and we've got a flower,
so these are things we've just
created in a few minutes.
And then what we did is we went to Play-Doh TOUCH,
and in Play-Doh TOUCH you can
actually scan your creations.
We found out that light surfaces
help you scan it the right way.
Then what you can do is you can start
playing with those creations that you've made.
Let me just take you to where we are,
and you can see that you can
have multiple creations in there.
This incorporates both the creativity
by creating these characters in Play-Doh,
and then it asks you at specific times
to create specific things in Play-Doh,
and it also has game-like features.
As we're moving through this game,
and I can move this a little bit faster
just so we can get to the game,
you can see that we can start our game.
We can start our game by scanning a creature.
Let's scan Dan's elephant.
You can see that it kind of sees
what the outline is,
and it's not always exact,
so you need to play with it.
Shadows do matter, so lighting will matter.
We've got here the lighting
that comes from the camera,
so we've got kind of a funny tail
to the elephant, which is perfectly fine.
Now we can start playing.
So you can see that you
collect Play-Doh along the way.
As you collect them, you can get
to add creatures and add creations to your work.
I'm going to use my flower
to do that, and it has to see the whole creation.
Once it does, here we have now the flower,
and again, the shadow is playing with that,
so you do have to think about lighting,
which is actually a really good lesson,
since we do expect kids to start being able to create.
You see that now the flowers are all over,
and they're part of the world we created.
That's a way to do that, and as you get along,
you are asked to make more and more creations,
and you have the opportunities to have more characters.
Here we're getting another one like us,
so now they're moving in parallel.
You can see that you can collect
different creatures on the way.
You can create them.
Let's try to incorporate our duck.
I know it's supposed to be a ghost,
but we've got a duck.
Let's see if it'll let us.
This is where things start getting tricky,
so you need to create based on
what they want you to create,
which sometimes is harder.
That's one of the challenges
that we find with this game,
is it does allow you to be creative,
but there are boundaries that
they've created around this to make sure that you
learn to create different shapes
and you're not just creating blobs everywhere.
I love this, and as we played with this
and created with this
I love the fact that it
incorporates all of these things.
It incorporates the game features,
and at the same time there's lots of creativity.
You interact with something physical,
so you're not doing something just inside the game.
You get to kind of marry the two
in what just makes me smile.
This is Play-Doh TOUCH, and I think
it's a fabulous app that allows you to do a lot
and allows kids to create and be creative.
You can do this at home,
you can do this in the classroom.
The app is great, it is available, and it is free.
The second one is one from Tiny Bop.
Tiny Bop is an outfit that created
a variety of fantastic apps for kids.
This one is called ME.
In ME you really write about yourself.
You get the opportunity to answer
some questions about yourself.
I've got a profile in there.
You can have multiple profile,
which is really useful.
It's true about many of their other things.
You can see that you fill out things like,
"This is my age."
"This is my favorite YouTube channel."
That would be Tech Edge.
Tech Edge zero one.
If you don't have a favorite one,
that should be your favorite.
It's got questions,
"If I were the ruler of the universe,
"this would be our flag,"
so you'd draw a flag, right?
You can go over the lines,
which I appreciate by the way.
So you can, actually let's use this one.
Make a flag,
and if it was the flag of the universe,
it would have to be
I would have to have a bear's face
right in the middle of the flag,
and then we can have a flower and a bird.
And so that's my flag of the universe.
You can record,
"Only my best friends know this about me."
And then you can record.
Lots of things about the user as a person.
The way I like thinking about it,
besides just being a great opportunity
to talk about yourself and really focus
on the things you care about
and kind of outline them,
what I love about this is this can be
a great way to get kids to start writing.
So they have all of this information
about themselves, and then they can use
the little things they've created
to be story starters and to really do things
that allow them to be creative
and to write meaningful things
so you can add,
"I visited this place,"
the leaning tower of Pisa, right?
Then I can draw it.
That's the leaning tower,
it's round, right?
It's not necessarily a great photo.
So you can see how you can start incorporating
and then start bringing the writing in,
so now you've told me what's the place you've visited.
Tell me more about this place,
tell me how you felt about it and all kinds of things.
You can see that you can get more
and more and more bubbles.
This is a great way for kids to really talk
about what they care about
and for you to get to know them.
So Tiny Bop ME is a great app.
It's really, really creative.
It allows kids to really bring out
what they care care about.
So today, on Mobile Learning in the Classroom
we've talked about two creativity apps.
We talked about Play-Doh TOUCH
and we talked about Tiny Bop ME,
and I'll see you next time
on Mobile Learning in the Classroom.
(techno music)