Stop-Motion Animation Tools and Cheapbook CONTEST Winners!

At the recent Association of Children's Museums conference in Phoenix, Joe Vena, from the Children's Museum of the Arts in NYC, gave a great workshop about "Art and Technology in Creative Learning" with a focus on stop-motion animation.

Two of the tools (one hardware, one software) Joe used in the workshop were great low cost ways to play with tech --- and they were new to me, so I'd thought I'd share them with ExhibiTricks readers.

The hardware tool is a relatively inexpensive USB camera to plug into computers to capture imagery called the IPEVO Point 2 View (P2V) Camera.  It's really easy to use and robust enough to hold up to being the primary tool for kids' workshops.

The software tool is iStopMotion by Boinx Software.  The software seems fairly intuitive to use, and a nice feature of iStopMotion is the "live preview" with a semi-transparent onion skinning effect that lets you see what your next step would look like before capturing the frame.

So check out the IPEVO and Boinx websites to grab some tools to get started with your own stop-motion animation projects!


Cheapbooks Greatest Hits CONTEST RESULTS

I recently highlighted the newly released Cheapbooks Greatest Hits in an ExhibiTricks post and held a contest in which two lucky folks would win a free digital copy of this fourth volume of the Exhibit Cheapbooks.

Honestly, after reading the heart-felt stories of existing and emerging museums trying their best to stretch their exhibit dollars, I've decided to award prizes to TEN lucky winners instead of two!   I'll be sending out emails to everyone who entered to let them know whether they won or not.  Thanks again to everyone for entering, and for your interest in the Cheapbooks.

Even if you didn't enter (or win!) the contest, you should order your own copy of Cheapbooks Greatest Hits by heading over to the ASTC website.

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Cheapbooks Greatest Hits AND a CONTEST!

The fourth volume of the Exhibit Cheapbooks entitled "Cheapbooks Greatest Hits" published by ASTC is now available!

If you're not already familiar with the Cheapbooks, they are collections of floor-tested, easily reproducible (and inexpensive!) exhibit ideas contributed by museum colleagues from around the world.  Starting with the original Cheapbook published in (gasp!) 1995, each ridiculously low-priced volume has contained approximately 30 exhibit ideas.

I've been so proud to have edited each of the four volumes of the Exhibit Cheapbooks for ASTC, and to share such great ideas with the rest of the museum field.

This latest volume contains 10 of the most popular exhibit ideas from each of the first three volumes and 12 brand new exhibit ideas for a total of 42 great exhibits that you can replicate (or modify) for your own museum!

ASTC has decided to release Cheapbooks Greatest Hits in electronic format (as a PDF) to keep the price low, stay eco-friendly, and to eliminate shipping costs.  Cheapbook ideas cover many topics and formats --- we've completely got STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) covered!

You really can't find a bigger and better bargain for your exhibit development dollars than Cheapbooks Greatest Hits! So head over to ASTC's Publications Page to order your own copy right now!


BUT WAIT!  There's also a chance to win a FREE copy of Cheapbooks Greatest Hits in our CONTEST!

If you email me or leave a Comment below explaining why you'd like to win a copy of the latest Cheapbook before May 30th 2014,  I'll choose two lucky winners and send them each their own digital copy of Cheapbooks Greatest Hits!



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Resources for Citizen Scientists

Something is in the air.  The most recent versions of both Discover magazine and ASTC's Dimensions magazine feature stories and resources related to Citizen Science.

Simply put, Citizen Science provides an opportunity for people (usually non-scientists, but not always) to contribute data or data analysis or other forms of assistance to ongoing research projects.

I think it's enormously cool for kids, families, seniors (anyone, really) to get a better sense of science projects that hold a particular interest for them.

So here are three resources related to Citizen Science to grab onto:

1) Citizen Science Central  A central portal for information about projects to join, and news about, Citizen Science hosted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

2) The latest issue of Dimensions has the theme "Science Within Reach" and is chock full of great stories and resources about Citizen Science.

3) Lastly, Discover magazine has launched a new "Citizen Science Salon" blog with links to Citizen Science projects featured in their magazine articles.

So, why not check out the above resources and see if you can find a Citizen Science project that you can help out with?



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Appreciating The People You Meet Along The Way

I started writing this post about the people I've met (and stayed connected to) in the museum biz --- many who I met first on the "conference circuit."

But I've shifted my thoughts slightly,  upon hearing of the untimely death of Alan Friedman.

Alan was one of those truly kind museum people who I've met along the way, both in working on projects with the New York Hall of Science, and in conversations along that (seemingly endless) museum conference and meeting circuit.

Alan was a deep thinker who genuinely cared about museums and museum visitors, and whose thoughtful writings will continue to benefit museum folks.

What I was going to say originally in this post, and perhaps even more forcefully now in the context of Alan's passing, is to take the time to let the people around you know how much you appreciate them.  It really does mean a lot.




Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)