Mash it up!

Whenever I get the chance, I love to squeeze in cross application utility when I teach so that kids start to generalize what one application can do when you bring in other application "parts". For example, teaching Tinkercad this past winter, we pulled in Scratch and its SVG sprite image files to create laser cut designs. I like to call this "Off Label Programming". Several years ago, I got the inspiration working with a Computers4kids learner, where I supported a project she put together made up of Scratch and Alice 2.4 snippets from which she'd created an animated short we screen casted that "mashed up" her 2D and 3D animation. And guess what? This was her first programming project, we submitted it to a Virginia Instructional Technology Association state wide programming competition, and her project won 2nd place in the 9-12 grade "animation" category! Take a look here about how you can make a mashup, too.

So, it was very exciting to me to see Lenovo doing a similar mashup in their "Good Weird" campaign! Check it out here and how they made it here.