App Smash

App Smash…what an adventure. I know what apps are and I know what the word ‘smash’ means but I had never heard of app smash before. Do you know what it is? It’s using multiple apps and putting them together into one. When I was given this assignment, I had no idea where to start. We had the option to work in our groups but because this was new to me, I wanted to venture on my own so I could get the full experience as well as to experiment. I am glad I did.

I had no idea where to start. Yes, my class had compiled a list of apps and what they were used for but that gave me nothing. What was I going to do with them? In one of my classes, we are reading Hate List by Jennifer Brown so I thought I wanted to do an app smash regarding something I could do with my students related to what we are doing in the classroom. (I wanted this project to be something I could ask my students to do as a project.)

I started with an avatar. I created one. I recorded a quote. What I wanted to do was have a stop motion of words of the quote coming out from behind my avatar but I never quite figured out how to do that. Then I ran into some issues. Some of the apps I wanted needed the update on my iPad but of course my step-children have my iPad full of games and there wasn’t enough memory so mean ‘ol wicked step-mom had to go on a deleting spree in order to do her homework. I went through a handful of apps. I had a product but I wasn’t sure if it was something that I liked.

Here is the first one I did:

Then I had class. Some groups presented theirs and I liked what I saw and I wanted to change mine. So I played with a few more apps and guess what? I ended up with a slightly different project using the same apps I had used in my first one.

My difficulties with this project:
One-trying to get the stupid thing to post to this blog! I sent the movie from my iPad to my laptop, which is not Apple. And ugh, ugh, ugh.

Two-the avatar. When I recorded the avatar in the app, I had more time but when I fused the apps, there was less time so I had to be sure of what I wanted to say. The plus to this is if I have students do this, they have to be exact and precise in what they say.

Three-the amount of apps available. Oh. My. I really did not know where to start. What this tells me if I have my student do something like this is either to give them a list of apps to use or plenty of time to do the project.

Four- This was kind of fun. I got to play. As I was finishing up, my step-daughter was sitting next to me on the couch. She asked, “This is your homework?” as I was recording my voice on my avatar. “That’s cool.” she said. She is eleven. This shows me that my students may have fun with this type of project.

This is the assignment I would give my students if I asked them to do this project.

1. Find a quote in the book that is evidence of a conflict Valerie is facing.
2. Write this quote on Phonto and save. Be sure to include your citation.
3. Develop an avatar using My Talking Avatar. Change your avatar to fit your personality. In this app, record what conflict Valerie is facing and what this tells the reader about her character. Save this recording.
4. Find a picture that represents this conflict on Google or another search engine. Save this picture to the camera roll. Be sure to include the website you found this picture.
5. Using Photogrid, combine your quote in Phonto and your picture, with citation. You can change the layout as you would like. Save this.
6. Open Fused. You will use the picture you created from Photogrid as your background and your talking avatar as the foreground. You can decide on how you would like the two blended. Save and send me your final project.

This is my final project. I like it and I really think this is something I would like my student to do.