We did it!  We held our first SSMS Jr. Tech Camp after school today.  We taught our jr. tech campers how to create themselves as cartoon characters in Bitstrips.  I thought it went well.  Granted, my expectations were somewhat limited.  There were a few “no shows”, but that ended up being a blessing when several of our computers froze.  Bottom line, though, each jr. tech camper was able to participate and all left happy and asking when the next Jr. Tech Camp session would be.  I call that a success!  Let me say, though, that it wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of our school’s technology savant, Ms. Thompson.  Thank you, Ms. Thompson, for your help and expertise!

Due to some initial concerns, teaching the students how to use Bitstrips to create their own characters ended up being alittle more time-consuming on the front end.  I wanted to control the bitstrips accounts used during camp and have access to the characters they created once camp was over.  For these reasons, I created 25 bitstrips accounts (for camp use) in advance.  To do this, I had to create 25 email addresses in advance.  (Bitstrips only allows one account per email address.)  Beyond that, I documented the main steps of character creation through a series of screen snapshots that I added to a PowerPoint of simple instructions.  PowerPoint handouts were printed.  I’m not sure the PowerPoint presentation was that necessary DURING the camp.  The students were too excited about creating their characters, changing their look, their expressions, and the color of their clothes, to pay much attention to the slide show at the front of the room.  They seemed to like the handouts, though, and that made the PowerPoint creation worthwhile.

I guess the only frustating aspect of this afternoon was that, despite my preparation, some of the computers didn’t cooperate.  I made a point of going into the lab well in advance, attempting to pull up the internet and log onto bitstrips on each of the computers.  Four of the 26 computers wouldn’t access the internet, which was okay because I had 22 students signed up.  I had each computer logged on to a different bitstrips account (which I’d created beforehand).  Everything was ready when the students arrived.  THEN, with the first keystroke to actually create a character, six or seven of the computers froze.  Some confusion ensued as those students who had functioning computers were restless to keep going and Ms. Thompson and I were trying to help the students with blank screens.  Once we admitted defeat with the frozen computers (fairly quickly), it didn’t take too long to rearrange students, have some double-up (with some grumbling, of course), and get going again.  Students who finished first gave up their computers to those students who hadn’t yet had a turn and everyone was able to participate.  The upside is that I was able to explain the computer problem to my principal and ask that the library have access to a laptop cart so the NEXT jr. tech camp can take place in the library with laptops.  He agreed.  Woo Hoo!

Check out our happy campers on the following Animoto video…