[senit] Write your own art software in SLD

Write your own art software in SLD

Apologies for the previous email that went by accident.

My earlier post is based on the following reasoning.

I suspect that Flash (which is as you infer vector based but can  
handle bitmaps as well) is by far the most versatile piece of  
software that has been designed or ever will be for the education  
market.

It is a 'Rolls- Royce' piece of software and every one that I have  
taught it to has gasped at what can be done with it. Even after Eight  
years , I am still only scratching the surface of what can be done.  
Yet it can be used by three year olds at a VERY basic level - I've  
seen it!

My reasoning goes like this. Flash was developed as Commercial  
software when several £100,000 was spent in 1998 on a large team of  
programmers and the input of tens of thousands of web site designers  
making their suggestions of what they would like the software to do.  
In that year Macromedia achieved 100 million installations of the  
Flash Player.

Flash 4 version was a major jump from Flash 3. Since then the  
improvements have been dramatic though they have added sophistication  
to what a web site designer might want. The latter are for the most  
part of little interest to the student aged 4 to 16.  A group of us  
at the time felt that for an educational use Flash 5 made its use  
unnecessarily compicated from the 4 - 16 year old's point of view.

I cannot believe that any organisation will ever match the quality of  
Flash. They would never have the resources and why should they bother  
when Flash is already there.

I have found that it can be used in a very wide variety of ways which  
I am covering in the ICTOPUS Sharing Good Practice articles - see  
www.ictopus.org.uk

The thing that is holding Flash back is that teachers generally  
haven't got the time or energy to investigate something that they  
mistakenly feel is far too complicated so they make do with very poor  
imitations when it comes to students developing their self esteem  
from creating something that is unique and does amazing things.  
Thankfully there is an ever growing number of educationalists who are  
coming to value Flash very highly. Some Countries more than others -  
Australia seems to lead the way. This will reflect the farsightedness  
of the people leading their educational system. We in this country in  
my opinion are being held back by Becta. see http://www.tygh.co.uk/ 
christmas for  the latest projects with many additional templates and  
http://flashteachers.blogspot.com for a place to share projects.

My problem is that I have not had the time, energy or financial  
resources to promote Flash 4. Sadly Macramedia have never seen the  
true potential of Flash other than as a web site design tool. I guess  
theirs little money to be made in education so that all they have  
promoted it's use in a very limited a]way that in my opinion is  
devoid of vision.

I leave you to enjoy the last episode of star wars done with Flash 4.

http://download.theforce.net/theater/animation/stardudes/stardudes.html

Enjoy

Then perhaps more to your taste:

Some lovely photos with music at

http://www.ourfurness.co.uk/linda

Also done in Flash.

My presentation of some different projects that I have been involved  
with is at

http://www.myulverston.co.uk/flash/talks.html

Where I enthuse on video, with many illustrations, about Flash, and  
its use  in so many different projects with children from 4 to 16

I'll now leave you all in peace.

Best wishes

Geoff

On 18 Nov 2007, at 13:11, ~:'' ありがとうございました。  
wrote:

> Write your own art software in SLD
>
> I'd like to complement and endorse Geoff's stance but prefer and  
> recommend SVG which is an open web standard. one that is being  
> maintained and will integrate well with social networking in the  
> future.
>
> regards
>
> Jonathan Chetwynd
> Accessibility Consultant on Media Literacy and the Internet