Exploring Aviary

Felipe Gacharna
- ITA Tech Instructor -

For the October 22nd ITA session, students had the option to join a choice session that explored Aviary. Aviary is a free online set of tools that allow for image editing and creation as well as music editing and creation. In particular, students got to explore the Phoenix photo editor, similar to Adobe Photoshop, the Raven vector editor, similar to Adobe Illustrator, the Myna music creator, similar to Sony ACID, and the Peacock effects editor, which is unlike most programs the students have experienced before in ITA.

All the Aviary software runs in a browser and is free for anyone to use! We used the specialized education version to great success, which allowed us to oversee much of what the students were able to accomplish in this session.

This student was very proud of the work she could do to her photo in a web browser software:

Phoenix (like Photoshop)


Phoenix has many of the same features that students have already learned in Photoshop, including layers, blending modes, filters, and the clone stamp tool, to name a few. In Phoenix, students got to play around with a base image of a hot air balloon that I provided.

Using the hot air balloon image, students were able to duplicate some of the functionality they are familiar with in Photoshop and then take it to another level with the Peacock effects editor.

Peacock (a unique photo editing tool)

You can "push" a layer from Phoenix directly to Peacock, edit the layer in Peacock, and then send it back to Phoenix. Here are some pictures of the edited hot air balloon image as well as a screen shot of the Peacock editor, showing the unique user interface.

These edited balloon images showcase some of what you can do with Phoenix and Peacock.

This screenshot of Peacock shows the "node-based user interface" that the tool uses. It's a rather unique user interface (UI) where the user is provided with "nodes" or blocks which they can manipulate. Nodes can be connected through the little "notches" on the top and on the bottom of each. These "notches" are inputs and outputs. Manipulating the inputs and outputs to each node allows for heavy manipulation of images, and since each node has its own properties that can also be manipulated, the user has a lot of power in creating a desired effect.

Here's another screenshot of Peacock showing the nodes more clearly and some manipulation done to a gradient.

Myna (sort of like Sony ACID or a drum machine)

The Myna music creator allowed students to mix sounds from a large library to create beats. Myna provides a simple interface, with several layers of different sounds and each sound having a track, with beats being on or off for a given beat. Volume can be tuned for each sound as well as for each particular beat, so students have a good amount of power in mixing their beats. Here is a screenshot of one of the beats created by a student as well as an over-the-shoulder picture of one of the students working on his Myna project.

Listen to some beats the students made:







Aviary also provides a Hall of Fame where anyone can look through submissions, as ranked by users. Most of the time, the projects actually allow you to open up the program used to create it so that users can view how the project was created. Students had an opportunity to look through the Hall of Fame to see what could be done with the tools they were using and to help them gather ideas of how they could achieve some effects in their final artifacts by looking through the projects that allowed you to see how they were created.

Back to School Technology Preview...

This year at the IT Academy, students will have the various opportunities to enjoy and learn about all kinds of things!

Here is a list of some of the things we have in store for the Technology Labs:

Poster Mosaic: Each student creates one piece of a whole illustrated poster!
"Campfire Tales": Creative storytelling through digital audio!
Social Justice Social Media: Students bring a cause and learn how to effectively educate others about what they care about!
Self-Portrait: Illustrate your self or your friends in creative ways!
Accessibility and Assistive Technology: Creative journey into how technology can help in many, many ways!

Using AfterEffects in Post-Production: Learn ways to use AfterEffects to adjust the video you've captured and add the subtle visual qualities that can transform the viewer experience. 

Space Text: Moving typography in film using AfterEffects!
Going Green: An exploration of the green movement in technology!
Hack This:  Not that kind of hacking... learn to make technology work for YOU in ways it wasn't necessarily designed for.
Data Visualization: Learn about the unusually fascinating and exciting world of visualizing data!
Audio Equipment Virtualization: Using virtual synthesizers, drum machines, patch cords, and effects racks -- ON A BROWSER! http://audiotool.com/app
Polyvore Magazine Layout: Learn some of the tricks of the trade in magazine page layout, using a super cool and fun website! http://www.polyvore.com/

Commercial Fun! Make short (50 seconds or less) commercials, focusing on storyline and product placement.
How DOES that work? Ever wondered how that worked? Learn some tools to find out!

It's going to be quite a semester! Keep looking out for future updates and see the amazing work of our students as these workshops unfold!

Dear Many Uses Students, Thanks for a Great Audio and Video Day

Ann Tran
- ITA Tech Instructor -

The third day into The Many Uses of Computer Camp started with the students discussing their favorite genre in music. A lot of the students listened to Rock, Oldies, Hip-Hop, and R&B.

Then, they immersed themselves into a free music creation program called "Roc" on aviary.com to compose two measures of rhythm starting with a kick drum, snare, and various other instruments. All of the students, with or without musical background, had their own unique beat. After, they used Sony Acid to add a bass line and record a voice over. In the voice over, the students composed a thank you note to the ITA students and staff for being accepted into the program.

With their audio good to go, the students dived right into Adobe Premiere, a video editing program. After an hour, the students were able to piece the video together with pre-filmed shots of the first couple days of them at ITA!

In only three short hours, the students transformed into music producers and video editors! It was a ton of fun!!

NOTICE: Video coming soon!

Prezi: Prezident of Prezentations

Marc Pedone
- ITA Tech Instructor -

The goal of this choice session was to give the students an opportunity to learn about some new presentation tools available.

We started with comparing Prezi to Microsoft PowerPoint by making a presentation of our favorite celebrities, first in PowerPoint and then challenging ourselves to make the same presentation in Prezi. By doing this, we were able to evaluate the pros and cons of each program.

After the students got a handle on Prezi, they were introduced to Prezi Meeting. This feature allows multiple people to collaborate on one presentation at one time from different computers connected to the internet. As a group, they planned out what they would present and how they would do it. On a white board, they planned the best way to present the city of Madison to someone else.

Madison, WI on Prezi

During the next session, students made two presentations. They first presented each other to the class for us to get to know each other a bit more and to familiarize ourselves once again with how to use the program.

The last challenge the students had was to present a place in the world to me. They would be separated in two different groups and use Prezi Meeting as a means to work on the collaborative project.

I feel like this session helped the students realize that there are always other options to almost every program. Sometimes those options are free and even better than the more popular choice. The students shouldn't feel afraid to find tools other than the ones ITA introduces to them. It also showed them how utilizing many tools (technology, speech, white boards, etc.) along with other people can help make very good use of time and resources. Often, students feel like they need to stick with one story, but really it's multiple stories, and collaborations that really inform us best!