shamama

The project has come to an end now!!

In the last couple of months, I have learnt a lot of things about multimedia and interactivity. This project has extended and developed my knowledge of Flash and action-scripting. I have enjoyed learning and being able to create a new project in flash.

There are several aspects of the project which we could be improved on and developed further to make this project a more successful one. But nonetheless, i feel we have achieved our original aim of the project and overall i have enjoyed working on this project.

Animated Cursor

Whilst working on the project, I came across the following website :

It showed tutorials of how to make a animated cursor. I have included a print screen of what one of the animation looks like.





At first, i was not very keen including this in our project, simply because from my own experience, i have found such animation quite annoying. However, after some thought, I felt that our target audience would actually like it as it is something different to look at.

I decided not to add a moving animation but to to simply have the 'recycle' logo as a cursor.

Below is a print screen of the final one that i created. I have included this cursor in all the sections apart from the game. Reasons for why i have not included in the game section is because i did not want the cursor to drift the target audience's attention from the actual task of completing the game.



Shamama

class presentation

On tuesday we presented our project to the class. Below are the powerpoint slides that we had:














Once we did the presentation we showed the following:

• The main interface was shown complete with the interactive button.
• I showed my complete 'recycle' section. (without any audio) I went through the information part, the quiz, the fun facts and finally I ended up with the game.
• Duke showed some images that he came up with.

Overall the presentation went fairly well. We were able to show some work that we had completed and give an idea to the class what our e-learning aim is.

Problems that we encountered doing the presentation were that since our chosen font: 'Two turtle doves' was not installed into the uni computers, once we attempted to upload the working files, the computer use an alternative font. A suggestion made by Maria, was that to convert the texts as a movie clip so to avoid this problem. This is something which we will have to implement in the final days that we have left.

Also in Lie's section. Since her chosen music is very short. It does not play seamlessly. A suggesstion made by a fellow student was to apply an action script to the video.

Things i have to do personally on my section is to:

1. Complete the voice over
2. Add the background music

Shamama

target audience- recycle section feedback

Today I tested my recycle section out on Badal, Sanjay and Pallavi.

I also showed them the blog and asked them what they thought.
I showed them possible music which i uploaded and asked them which one they liked the best.

Findings that came through were:

Recycle section

• Since i had not uploaded the voiceover, from my observation, i felt that the whole experience was not very exicting despite having a game and quiz. It made reading the text quite 'boring' and not very exicting. There definitity needs to be someone talking to the children whilst they explore the section.
• They liked the quiz and the game alot! :)
• I asked them about which music they liked the best (out of the possible ones i had) and the second one, all of them chose!

General

• Whilst browsing through our blog, i asked them which certificate they liked the best and Duke, the first one was popular! Sanjay and Badal both said that they liked it the best out of all of them and Pallavi liked the third one.
• I asked them what they thought about the R characters, and all of them liked them. They seemed to like the re-use one and the reduce one over the recycle one. :)

Below is are some very quick clips.

Shamama

Shamama- recycle section

Hey Guys!
Just a quick update..

I've completed all of my section (the information, fun facts, quiz and the game), but i have yet to still do the voice over..

I have put some print screens for you guys to see each section. Let me know what you think.

This is the 'introduction/info' section.
I thought instead of just putting the information in a plain text box, i would put it in a circle and the text fades in and out.



To maintain the child's focus, i added a simple motion tween showing how a coke and a newspaper can be placed in the recycle bins!



This is the fun facts. Again i have kept one fact per box and then after approx 7 seconds, it changes to another fact. Also i had the text having alternative colours, so one fact will be red and the following would be in black. This is in hope that it maintains the child's attention.



This is the quiz! There are 5 questions with two possible answers. If the child gets it wrong, then the following message comes up allowing the child to re- attempt the question. The child also recieves scores for the number of questions they got right.



I have implemented the changes which i said I would do to the game in a previous blog post. I have extended the time to 20 seconds, changed the scoreboard circles, changed colour schemes etc.

Shamama

possible music?

Hi guys..below are some snippets of songs that i found which i think could work well for the project.
Let me know which one you like the best.



I personally like all of them expect the third one!

Shamama

As an incentive for our target audience to participate in our newly revised project, we decided to present them with a certificate which they can print out and fill with the required information once they have completed each section of the three R's. This is designed to provide them with a sense of accomplishment.

Let me know what you think guys, which one would you like to use and what alterations should I make?

Test Interface

Here is the test interface.

Lie

Drape suggestions for 'R logos'

Lie, this is what i was trying to say about the 'cape being drapped to the side'.
IF you can do them this way, then it will be great ( i really do think having the Rs as superheroes is a good idea!)

But if you can't then its fine and we'll just leave them as they are..




http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_328/12253898509ucWOe.jpg


Shamama

Superhero R

Here is an initial idea of what the three R's would look like as Superheros. Personally I think that they look better without the cape. Let me know what you guys think.

Lie

Mr Earth

Hey guys, heres the characterised earth logo, its actually animated so that the earth behind the face is rotating. Unfortunately i cant upload the swf file here for you guys to see but heres a still jpeg.

Let me know what you guys think.

Lie

The 3 R's

Here are the logo's for the three "R's", hope you like them, i will post a test 'superhero R' version soon just so you guys can see how it would look. I will also upload a characterised earth once i have completed the design.

Lie

feedback on game and changes needed

Changes that will appear in the game!!

After running some initial tests in the 'recycle game' and testing them on the three children which my sister tutors..i found the following problems:

1) Each time the child played the game, they skipped the instruction part and went straight to the play button. As they did not read the instructions, they did not know what the do once the game has started!!
I then had to tell them to read the instructions first..
To change this, what i will do is in instead of having a 'start button' and 'instructions button' i will simply just have a 'read instructions button'. This will ensure the user HAS to read the instructions before playing the game.

2) I found that the time limit did not give enough time. Although initially i thought that by making it hard, it would be an incentive for the children to play again and try and get a better score. But i think i 10 seconds is too quick!!
To solve this, i will simple extend the timer and give 15 seconds or maybe even 20 seconds!

3) I also found there to be confusion about the scoring board. The children could not work out how much they had actually scored. I had to them what they scored.
I was thinking in order to change this, i will have white circles in the scoring board and once the user correctly places an item in the correct box, then each circle will get coloured in.
Once the timer runs out..i will have perhaps the following 'Count the number of coloured circles you correcty got scored'.
This way will hopefully correct any confusion about scoring board.

I will aim to implement these changes to the game by next lesson!

Shamama

Update on Arts and Craft

Just a quick update on the arts and crafts section. I have finished editing the first video: "how to make a frog". I tried to upload the video onto the blog so you guys could see it but the file is too big so I will bring it in next time we meet up.

I now have to write up a script and record the voice over to go with the video footage. I will aim to have fully completed this first video by next week.

Lie

The 3 R's logo refined

Here are some more refined logo ideas. I based them on the numberjacks. I made the R's look as if they had been cut out by a child (hence the rough edges) and gave them their respective characteristics: e.g. Recycle is green and has the recycle logo printed on him. Reduce is yellow (as he is like energy) and he is smaller (i tried to make him look like he's reducing in size) let me know if that works. If you guys like this style and the design then I will carry on and make one for Re-use. I know we said we would make superheroes so I will upload a version of them with capes and we'll see if that works.

Let me know what you guys think

Lie

Sham-recycle game!

Screen shots of my working GAME!

It was a lot of work, but i have finally managed to do it! :)

A couple of problems, i am still having is that once you click on the 'play again' button, the 'scores' do not reset, instead they remain intact. To solve this problem i have placed a action-script saving that once that button is pressed, it will go to scene 2 (instructions page). I know this is not ideal but it clears the 'scores' up and allows the player to play from scratch.

I will still be looking into fixing the problem though..

Some of the issues that i had was about the timer and how 10 seconds was too short..

what do you think about the game?

I will bring it to class for you to play!! :D

Shamama

How to make Binoculars

Here is the final product for the second part of my "how to" section.

it's a pair of binoculars made from toilet rolls, card and ribbon.

once again the footage has been shot and all thats left is the editing which I am in the process of doing.

Lie

Wordsearch and colouring pictures ideas!

Another good find that i found was from http://www.recycle-more.co.uk/nav/page567.aspx

In their website, they have lots of PDF files which has lots of activities for the children to do.

One of their activity is to have the outlines of 'recycle images' and it asks the children to print it out and colour the picture. Also they have a word searches and the child has to print it out and do the word search.

Obviously, it would be much better if we did the two 'activities/game' using flash but i think having it still images would work very well. It would be very simple to do and would be an effective interactivity aspect to the project.

(IF we do have time, then maybe we can create them in flash but understandable with the time limit, i know that probably won't happen!)

Shamama

Arts and crafts - make a frog

Here is the final product of the "Make a Frog" video that will be in my arts and crafts section.

I have shot the necessary footage in order to make my "how to" video, and am now in the process of editing.

Lie

stila makeup using 3Rs!!

Hey!

Consequently, yesterday i got this an newsletter email from stila makeup ( i have signed up to them)

I saw in their newsletter, they are are incorporating the 3Rs in their makeup!! :O

I liked their title for 'Go Green' and thought we could use that for our certificate part?!

So have the logo and then have the three 'Rs' below....below is kind of what the layout will be..

This is a very basic layout that i did really quickly but i was thinking to incorporate an actual certificate format..

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nfsc.org/images/256f-x.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.nfsc.org/alarms.html&usg=__WeXIyMVlEUB2jJmtGCl7i5kqHaA=&h=840&w=547&sz=90&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=P6Gc6Zx_wLz-iM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=94&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsmoke%2Balarm%2Bcertificate%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R2ADSA_enGB333%26tbs%3Disch:1

Let me now about your thoughts?

Shamama

The 3 R's logo

Here are some initial logo ideas based on the numberjacks, just some quick drafts made in photoshop.

Lie

target audience research...

I took part in an informal chat with three children that my sister teaches.(Palvey aged 9, Sanjay aged 8 and Bhadal aged 6).
I asked them what they knew about recycling and if they knew anything about the three 'Rs'.

The response i got was that they knew very little. They knew that recycle was 'something about sorting rubbish'. When asked what the three 'Rs' were, all of them knew recycle was one of them, but they struggled with the other two. When asked to quess what they could be, answers i got were 'rubbish' and 'red' (im not joking!)

When I asked them if they recycled at home, they said that their mum does it and that they don't get involved!


Some of my thoughts after asking them about their knowledge about being green was that mainly that we need to make it very clear what the three 'Rs' are!!

Another idea i had was to make a section where we create a kind of certificate for the children. We could have the three 'Rs' placed on a page and we ask the children to write down what 'Rs' they have practiced in a week..I think this idea would be very good for our project and it will hopefully involve the children in a more fun way!! :)

Shamama

reduce, re-use and recycle song

Hey guys!
I found this song about recycling..I know that initially we said that we wanted to have quite a mellow and subtle music playing throughout, but i think we can use this somewhere in the project. We would need to edit it but i think it would be good to use.

The song talks about reduce, re-use and recycle!!! :D

Let me know what you think!

Shamama

The 3 R's logo

Hey guys,

Since the focus of our project is now on the 3 R's I think it would be a good idea to characterise the letter R to their respective titles. Eg. characterise an "R" for Recycle, an "R" for Re-use and an "R" for Reduce.

Drawing inspirantion from the "Numberjacks"







Lie

changes to the E-Learning: Recycle,Reduce and Re-use

After careful consideration about our E-learning project, we have decided to change some aspects of the project. Due to the feeling that our project was not focused enough, we have changed it to primarily teaching the three Rs ( recycle, reduce and re-use).

The project will be spilt into three different sections, which each member of the group will be responsible for (I am going to do recycle section, Lie is going to do the re-use section and finally Duke will do reduce)

In each of the 'R' sections, there will all have information teaching the children what the 'R' stands for and what it is. Quizzes will be used to test the childen's knowledge. We will also have 'fun facts' and finally each section will have some sort of game for the children to play.

By having a more clearer and a more focused objective for our E-learning project, we hope this makes it a better and more successful project!

Shamama

Flash Tutorial

As mentioned before in previous posts, in the initial and final sequences of the project i.e. the main page etc there will be animated icons of an energy saving lightbulb, a recycling bin and the earth. These will all be featured infront of a outer space background, using tutorials found on YouTube, this background can be easily created.






Also as part of the interactive feature of the mentioned characters, everytime you hover over any of them they will say something relevant to what they represent. For e.g. each time you hover over the recycling bin the character will move and a voice will come up saying something like "click here to learn how to recycle the fun way". This is designed to keep our target audience engaged and entertained. Through research this tutorial was found on how to create a rollover button which is what these animations essentially are.






Duke

Animation Sequence at the beginning pt 2

As Lie mentioned in a previous post there will be an animation sequence at the beginning with several arctic animals on a small piece of ice to highlight to children the effects of global warming. The animals can either be animated or we could use real pictures of them in this segment. Further research needs to be conducted in order to see what would be most appealing and effective. Here are already existing examples of animated and real life pictures...




http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5887318/2/istockphoto_5887318-cold-climate-cartoon-animals.jpg







http://www.clker.com/cliparts/c/1/a/d/12154416611241630675lemmling_Cartoon_penguin.svg.med.png







http://images.clipartof.com/small/16292-Curious-White-Arctic-Polar-Bear-Cub-Ursus-Maritimus-Clipart-Illustration-Image.jpg






http://legalplanet.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/polar-bear.jpg






http://www.wallpapergift.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Adelie-Penguin-wallpaper.jpg


Duke

Character Development

Each member of our group has been assigned with a particular segment that we are responsible for. I am responsible for the beginning and ending sequences and I have begun to create original characters that we may be able to scan and incorporate into our project. Here are some examples...












These are only some of the rough sketches but the principle of these characters are based on some of the research that Shamama, Lie and I conducted. The idea is to use friendly cartoon-like looking characters which children can not only easily identify but can also be entertained by. This is a common attribute which we found present in pre-existing examples of being 'Green' for kids as some of our previous posts demonstrate. The idea to use a recycling bin, an energy saving light bulb and the globe as main characters is to stay consistent with our theme theme. We will conduct a survey in order to see the appeal of these images.


Duke

child like fonts

Hey guys!

Here are a number of child like fonts that i found which we can use:

Tommy's First Alphabet

(Two Turtle Doves)

There are soo many! Check out these websites out..

http://www.fontspace.com/category/child

http://new.myfonts.com/browse/synonym/child/

http://simplythebest.net/fonts/handwriting_fonts.html

http://www.freefontsweb.com/child-fonts.html

Shamama

Drawings and my nieces!

I have been drawing some images in Photoshop and Illustrator which we can use in the project..As Maria said to us to involve some children so the project has a child like feel to it, i got my niece to draw me some pictures..

As she's only 3! She did not draw very well :)
Firstly I drew the outlines of the pictures and told her to colour them in. Even then, i had to tell her to stay within the lines!

I don't know whether you think any of them are any good to use?

I got her to write me 'recycle, reduce, re-use etc'. I played around in Photoshop and edited one of them. Let me know what you think...



(This is my earth logo :D)


(My Niece's earth)


(My nieces trees..i thought we could use them somewhere in the project and also maybe in the recycle game? )






(I edited this in Photoshop, it was very quickly done but let me know what you think...)


Shamama