gorgeous multi-platform publication

This breathtaking stop-motion video created by Isobel Knowles has spawned a print book and irresistible soft toys available on Etsy.

12 books in 120 seconds

Another example of book trailer heaven.  The last Lemony Snicket book narrated by Mr Camp himself, Tim Curry

Robot Media storybuilder

I have been trying out the truly lovely storybook app builder by Robot Media for the past few weeks. This team is out of Barcelona and have produced a clean, pleasing, relatively easy piece of software. No strings and publishable to various platforms. I'm besotted. 

The interface is lovely, beautifully organized, and easy on the eyes.  To use it you need to have all your images in png or jpg format. Storybuilder will tween your stack of pngs for animations. The previewer is instant and really lovely.

Cons so far are:
Nonexistent instructions. There are seven videos on their youtube channel which are not particularly high resolution,  have no narration and the same annoying theme music. They load slowly which makes it hard to scrub back and forth looking for the bit you want. So a tip is to copy the url of the video and paste it into keepvid.com so you can have the 7 video tutorials on your desktop. Studying these videos to learn how to use Storybuilder requires concentrated scrutiny, but I got there.

Functions I'm hoping they'll add:
1. animations can scale up
2. drag and drop into a container, e.g. flowers into a basket
3. being able to choose x,y coordinates of draggable objects.
4. draggable characters can flip horizontally if you drag them in the opposite direction like Nosy Crow's Cinderella.
5. addition of path animation
6. being able to add code for your own special interaction


Here's a little video demo of what I've done so far with my design of The King Has Goat Ears by Katarina Jovanovic and Philipe Beha, published by Tradewind books.

Literary quality and apps

There is a very interesting topic on tonight's #storyappchat twitter chat (6-7pm) that arose out of the article in the Huff Post Education Canada on literary quality and apps, Improving Children's Literature in Digital Spaces by Daniel Donahoo. You can read about tonight's chat on the storyappchat wordpress blog. The easiest way to follow the twitter conversation is by going to a website like tweetchat.com and searching for the conversation by writing in #storyappchat. You will need a twitter account in order to contribute to the conversation. V. challenging to quickly and succinctly put together a 140 character point, but fun too.

My talk at App Camp

Can a 57-year-old artist learn to code?

Now that I'm interested in creating apps, I find I cannot get past the art creation and design stage to actually publish one if I'm not competent in coding in a relevant computer language. I would need to hire someone to do so, but I don't even have the competency to decide who is competent enough to program my design of a children's app. Alternatively, I would need to enrol with one to the DIY companies that offer templates for you to plug in your art and interactions. (My favourite of these is Kwiksher.)

Enter Bill Martin, a fellow Vancouverite I met at Dust or Magic's App Camp. He is willing to team up with me on the creation and publication of my design for The King Has Goat Ears, based on the wonderful book by Katarina Jovanovich and Philippe Beha.

But all this hunting around for the means and knowledge to publish an app has made me realize that I need to have at least a passing acquaintance with the subject of coding. A search for a format (book, course, online tutorial?) that my brain will take in has led me back, unsurprisingly, to lynda.com and Simon Allardice's Foundations of Programming video course. I am actually understanding his teaching, surprising because, to quote Adrian Mole, "I'm an intellectual, but I'm not very bright." Or, like most people, I'm smart in some ways, but thick in others.

But to return to the clever and amiable Bill Martin: he's started a Vancouver meetup for anyone interested in children's apps, and that includes parents, librarians, illustrators, authors, programmers, publishers, designers, teachers - anyone interested in this topic. The first meet and greet is scheduled for April 26, 2012. So check out Northwest Apps for Kids if you'd like to join the discussion.

Why Kids should learn to code

Today's guardian online has a stunningly well-written article on why kids should learn to code, and the key concepts they should understand.

" if they don't have a deeper understanding of this stuff then they will effectively be intellectually crippled. They will grow up as passive consumers of closed devices and services, leading lives that are increasingly circumscribed by technologies created by elites working for huge corporations such as Google, Facebook and the like. We will, in effect, be breeding generations of hamsters for the glittering wheels of cages built by Mark Zuckerberg [creator of Facebook] and his kind."

I am not surprised that this has come up in the British press first. When I was creating my show of mechanical interactive fairy tale art for the Burnaby Art Gallery

and was trying to learn basic mechanical concepts, I discovered that British schools include the technology of how to make simple machines in their art courses. Sheesh! I could have used that.