anisadancer1218

After spending the past six months deschooling, my 12yo son seems to
be looking for some guidance. He has expressed interest in interested
in getting support for some of his creative interests. These include
creative writing, cartooning, computor animation and game making. I am
looking into what non-virtual courses might exist near where we live
(Philadelphia). But, does anyone know of any online forums or courses
along the lines of any of his interests especially ones that would be
geared towards homeschoolers or at least, children? I recall that
someone had started a writers' workshop. Does anyone have information
about that?

Thanks.
Andrea

Pamela Sorooshian

I have one suggestion for you ....

<http://www.secretschool.com/>

Ringer's Secret School of Writing - my oldest daughter did this and
absolutely LOVED it. Ted Ringer studied with Natalie Goldberg, author
of "Writing Down the Bones," the BEST creative writing book ever!

You can try a lesson on the website, for free. We paid for it and it
was money well spent!

-pam


On Nov 4, 2005, at 6:24 PM, anisadancer1218 wrote:

> After spending the past six months deschooling, my 12yo son seems to
> be looking for some guidance. He has expressed interest in interested
> in getting support for some of his creative interests. These include
> creative writing, cartooning, computor animation and game making. I am
> looking into what non-virtual courses might exist near where we live
> (Philadelphia). But, does anyone know of any online forums or courses
> along the lines of any of his interests especially ones that would be
> geared towards homeschoolers or at least, children? I recall that
> someone had started a writers' workshop. Does anyone have information
> about that?
>
> Thanks.
> Andrea
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Joyce Fetteroll

On Nov 4, 2005, at 9:24 PM, anisadancer1218 wrote:

> computor animation and game making

Here's something I posted a while ago. Sorry for the goofy formating.
I copied it from Unschooling.info message boards.

The Cartoon Smart website also has some Quicktime tutorials (some
free ones to download and if you like those more to buy) on how to
animate using Flash.

> [url="http://www.stagecast.com/"]Stagecast Creator[/url] is a good
> place to start. He can start making games immediately by just
> moving objects around the screen and the program writes the code
> for him. But the code is editable so he can start tinkering with it
> at any time. They have some really great tutorials that will get
> him started quickly. There's a demo version that limits you to just
> a few objects. And, no, he won't need to know math to program [;)]
> But he'll pick it up as he goes along! [:D]
>
> And something I just found out is that you can write games in
> Flash. The great thing about Flash is that he can put his games up
> on the internet and let his friends play [:)] (Flash also does
> animation among other things.) Macromedia offers a [i]generous[/i]
> discount for educators (including homeschoolers). (It's $99 at the
> [url="http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-
> EDU"]Education Store[/url]) (It says homeschoolers qualify at their
> discretion. If they turn you down I found this list of academic
> discounters at Adobe that sell their software (among other things):
> [url="https://www.academic-collegiate.com/products.htm"]Academic &
> Collegiate Software[/url]
>
> BTW, if he thinks he might be interested in doing webpages, you
> might give serious consideration to the suite of programs (Studio
> MX 2004 for $100 more) that includes Dreamweaver (for creating
> webpages), Flash and 2 art programs. (We've both used Fireworks a
> lot for drawing.) (Without the educator's discount it's like $600 [:
> 0]) Most of the big internet service providers (AOL, Earthlink and
> such) have walkthroughs to put up simple webpages so Dreamweaver
> isn't necessary but it is nice if he has the urge for less generic
> [:)]
>
> There are [i]loads[/i] of tutorials about Flash on the internet. A
> good beginning might be the Quicktime videos at [url="http://
> www.cartoonsmart.com/"]Cartoon Smart[/url]. Scroll down to the
> bottom and there's one for Video Games. The freebies we
> downloaded ... well he didn't edit out his "Oops, didn't mean to do
> that"s [;)] but they were very easy to use. You just run Flash and
> Quicktime at the same time and follow along with what he does. You
> can pause and back up just like with a video.
>
> I've also heard good things about [url="http://www.ambrosiasw.com/
> games/coldstone/"]Coldstone Game Engine[/url] for developing RPGs.
> There's a demo version at the website to download. I don't have any
> personal experience with it though. If you type Coldstone and
> review into Google, that should turn some information up.
>
> (For non-Macophiles, as far as I know the above are all available
> for Windoze too. There's also Dark Basic that I've heard really
> good things about and for which there's a ton of support and
> tutorials. And my daughter took a 2 week full day course at
> [url="http://video-game.internaldrive.com/"]ID Tech Camps[/url]
> where they used [url="http://www.clickteam.com/English/
> multimedia_fusion.htm"]Multimedia Fusion[/url] which she really
> liked. (The camp used the standard version at the time. There are
> free trials at the website.) She also liked the camp but they were
> a bit pricey.)

Joyce
Answers to common unschooling questions: http://home.earthlink.net/
~fetteroll/rejoycing/
Weekly writing prompts: [email protected]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Marjorie Kirk

I was talking to an acquaintance who designs websites and does a lot of work
with graphics about Flash software for animation. She recommended something
called Swish. She said it does the same things as flash but is much easier
to use and cheaper. Has anyone used this?

TIA,
Marjorie

k

Lovely! Thanks for the link, Pam. You have great info.

Kathe



> I have one suggestion for you ....
>
> <http://www.secretschool.com/>
>
> Ringer's Secret School of Writing - my oldest daughter did this and
> absolutely LOVED it. Ted Ringer studied with Natalie Goldberg, author

> of "Writing Down the Bones," the BEST creative writing book ever!
>
> You can try a lesson on the website, for free. We paid for it and it

> was money well spent!

Pam




> After spending the past six months deschooling, my 12yo son seems to
>> be looking for some guidance. He has expressed interest in
interested
>> in getting support for some of his creative interests. These include
>> creative writing, cartooning, computor animation and game making. I
am
>> looking into what non-virtual courses might exist near where we live
>> (Philadelphia). But, does anyone know of any online forums or
courses
>> along the lines of any of his interests especially ones that would
be
>> geared towards homeschoolers or at least, children? I recall that
>> someone had started a writers' workshop. Does anyone have
information
>> about that?
>>
>> Thanks.
>> Andrea




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