Pixar in a Box

[00:00:00] Shanna Martin: Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece or two of technology that you can use in your classroom. I'm your host, Shanna Martin. I'm a middle school teacher, technology instructional coach for my district,

[00:00:31] Fuzz Martin: and I'm a producer and husband, Fuzz Martin Shanna, I hate to bring this up, but when we were in our cars driving here, I thought it was incredible that you and I get to podcast together each week.

[00:00:43] Fuzz Martin: Anyway, we won't talk about that. Onward.

[00:00:47] Shanna Martin: Nice. Thank you. That's extra cute. That was clever. Thanks. Except for, unless you know what we're talking about. Yeah. Well now you will. You will have to figure it out. I feel like you should like bold, highlight bold.

[00:01:00] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

[00:01:01] Shanna Martin: Hello. If you have not guessed our topic yet, you can keep on thinking about it for a second.

[00:01:07] Fuzz Martin: And if you're a teacher at Monsters University, you might already know.

[00:01:13] Shanna Martin: Good work.

[00:01:14] Fuzz Martin: Brave of you?

[00:01:17] Shanna Martin: No. So we're here at episode two 17. Season eight. We are rolling in the school year, and we are still in September.

[00:01:31] Fuzz Martin: It's been a long month. It's been a really long month. It was an early

[00:01:35] Shanna Martin: Labor day. It was incredibly

[00:01:36] Fuzz Martin: Labor Day, and

[00:01:36] Shanna Martin: that's what we're thrown off by, like good old Wisconsin.

[00:01:39] Shanna Martin: We don't start school till after Labor Day here. For those of you in the, not in the us um,

[00:01:45] Fuzz Martin: or in like the East Coast or, yeah, like anywhere that's not, doesn't have a farming as a,

[00:01:50] Shanna Martin: yeah. Farming and tourism. Yeah. So we always start after Labor Day. When Labor Day is early, like it was this year. Mm-hmm.

[00:01:57] Shanna Martin: September just feels like a very long month. So I keep thinking like, oh yeah, we're not October. No, no, we're still in September,

[00:02:04] Fuzz Martin: but, but. September's great. 'cause you just had your birthday, so happy birthday. I

[00:02:08] Shanna Martin: did. Thank you.

[00:02:09] Fuzz Martin: You're welcome.

[00:02:10] Shanna Martin: Another year older. Yeah, another

[00:02:12] Fuzz Martin: year. Wiser

[00:02:14] Shanna Martin: travel around the sun.

[00:02:15] Shanna Martin: So we have a fun one this week I found this website and I am so excited to use it in my enrichment class where I do different fun technology things and it is great for creative thinking. It's great for math class, it's great for science connections. And it's not like some of it's video based and some of it is, hands-on mm-hmm.

[00:02:41] Shanna Martin: Type things. So the site is Pixar in a box. So if you didn't pick up that Fuz was name dropping all the Pixar movies in his intro. Pixar in a Box uses Pixar to teach all of these really cool concepts. So like my highlights, concepts, concepts,

[00:03:00] Fuzz Martin: concepts. Khan. KHAN.

[00:03:05] Shanna Martin: Oh wow. Thank you. You are just, wow.

[00:03:07] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, like, like you wanted a pun today.

[00:03:10] Fuzz Martin: You got

[00:03:11] Shanna Martin: all

[00:03:11] Fuzz Martin: of that. You, you got dad mode. Engage dad mode.

[00:03:16] Shanna Martin: Alright, here we are.

[00:03:18] Fuzz Martin: Hi. Here on going.

[00:03:19] Shanna Martin: Nice to meet you. So great things about Pixar in a Box. It teaches coding skills, it teaches design skills, it teaches math and how that works with. Holding in design. It makes super awesome, career connections for kids.

[00:03:36] Shanna Martin: Like I feel like we try to connect things to careers. As much as we can in the classroom. This shows kids how like you can have a job having so much fun, like, check this out. It gives you beside behind the scenes stuff in Pixar, which is really cool and it's really thoughtfully put together. It is connection through Pixar.

[00:03:55] Shanna Martin: It's like a collaboration between Pixar and Khan Academy. So together there's all these awesome resources for teachers and of course everything you can drop into. Google Classroom or new Microsoft. It works for both, which we love. Mm-hmm. And it's just an awesome, awesome tool. So there's several different ways to actually get the the site.

[00:04:15] Shanna Martin: I'm gonna send you the cooler looking way, just because the Pixar site is cooler looking fancier. Yeah. You can get to it through Khan Academy too. But if you go to Pixar, PIXA r.com/. P-I-X-A-R in dash box, so pixar.com/pixar in a box. Mm-hmm. You'll get there. You can also just go to pixar.com. And then troll around on the site, which is also so much fun.

[00:04:47] Shanna Martin: Yeah. But the correct site, you'll see Pixar in a box and it's

[00:04:51] Fuzz Martin: Wally. Wally, I love

[00:04:53] Shanna Martin: Wally. Yeah. He is on the front. And it gives you the little background video of Pixar in a box. So if you click on that, it'll link you right to like where they're coming from, which is a great intro video for your kids.

[00:05:04] Shanna Martin: 'cause it shows like. This is what Pixar does, and this is why we're encouraging you to do it, and what a cool collaboration. So pixar.com/pixar box. You also have options on the Pixar site. If you click on films, it gives you short films, series snapshots. If you go under technology. It gives you like the software they use and technology at Pixar.

[00:05:28] Shanna Martin: Again, encouraging cool career stuff with your kids. They actually have a career section that you can click on, and it's under more, so if you go into the more section, that's where you find Pixar in a box as well. So there's several ways to get there. There's just so many cool resources that you can engage your kids in.

[00:05:43] Shanna Martin: Ah, from pixar.com/pixar. In a box, you click learn more, and then it links you right to the Khan Academy, which is where all the information is as well. It's Khan academy.org/computing/pixar so you can get there either way. So many cool things. So what it does is it kind of, there's different intro videos that kind of connect to it.

[00:06:10] Shanna Martin: So if you kind of just scroll through the Con Academy resource section for Pixar in a box, it shows you how like virtual cameras work. It shows you how, like, different types of like, like rigging works. It shows you how math works with artistry. Like they have all these cool videos. And then on the left hand side, it's all broken down into units.

[00:06:36] Shanna Martin: They do suggest it's third grade on up, third grade or fifth grade just because of the content. I think it's, it's a lot of directions and stuff. Sure. So you just have to keep that in mind. And what your student's ability level is, even if you just show the videos and kind of walk your students through.

[00:06:54] Shanna Martin: Like each piece of it, you could probably do it as a class or, you know, there's just different ways that you could absolutely build this in. So they have unit one, which is orientation. There's a little overview. They have an educator's guide that walks you through like the storytelling lessons, the production lessons.

[00:07:10] Shanna Martin: It shows you grade levels. It gives you the animation work, which is really cool. So it shows you as a teacher each lesson. And then it also gives you your NGSS Science standards, your Common Core standards. It's covering, so like the first lesson, one is animation. Introduction to animation tells you everything you need as a teacher.

[00:07:32] Shanna Martin: Gives you the intro video. This like, this one's appropriate for all ages. It does tell you like which parts are more challenging and which need more. They have the Math meets Artistry video. Again, you can drop it in a classroom or Microsoft Teams, and then it gives you the animation piece and then it walks you through like linear interpolation.

[00:07:53] Shanna Martin: So how you're going to, how your students can do that. Not only does it have the videos with it, it's got the transcript, so it does transcribe each piece that you need. Um, and again, each piece of it, like it shows you how to do different techniques. It shows you like Animation 1 0 1. It shows you each piece of it.

[00:08:13] Shanna Martin: And then it gives like, are you ready to practice? Show us what you can do. And then there's little questions that students can interact with. They have multiple choice, and they also have like the actual cartooning, like links so you know how everything works. So everything you could possibly need in planning a lesson to teach kids using math and animation and design, all with like the background of like Pixar supporting is in there.

[00:08:41] Shanna Martin: It is so cool.

[00:08:45] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, I think it's amazing and, and it goes through. Yeah. Just all, like, it crosses so many different subject matters all at once.

[00:08:54] Shanna Martin: Yes. Well, and you have to think too, as, you know, like storyboarding and design comes in to all different types of. Jobs and careers, not just if you're gonna be like a person, cartooning, you know, understanding a timeline of events is important, understanding all of those pieces.

[00:09:15] Shanna Martin: And so just walks you through all of these different very cool things and then shows you how to do them. And then as a teacher, it gives you everything you need for your classroom. So it's just a really, really fun course set up by Khan and Pixar. And also you can pick and choose. So like the welcome to animation piece, I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna use that in my enrichment classroom.

[00:09:41] Shanna Martin: Am I gonna use every piece of it? Probably not. But it's a cool way to introduce my kids to it and then have them test it out and then see what they can do. And they even have two. So if I'm gonna do the animation page, they have like math meets artistry, there's a video. Mm-hmm. And then it walks you through and then says straight ahead to animation.

[00:09:58] Shanna Martin: Click and drag the ball and position it. So it's Pixar's little, that ball they're known for. It's like yellow with a blue stripe and the red star, I think it comes from Andy's playroom. Okay. And Toy story. And then it shows you how to like move things around. Mm-hmm. And select different frames so that the ball travels, how you move it.

[00:10:21] Shanna Martin: In the frame of how like that is set up in animation. Right. And then you can see how it works. It's just really well done. Well, yeah.

[00:10:29] Fuzz Martin: It's very simplified way of learning it.

[00:10:33] Shanna Martin: Yeah. And then you can just, like, here, we're gonna test this out. We're gonna drop this in Google Classroom. Mm-hmm. Try it out, have a great discussion, have kids share what they've learned, and then like, move on to the next step.

[00:10:45] Shanna Martin: Or just use it as even a. Like a lesson starter in your classroom for different things. So cool.

[00:10:52] Fuzz Martin: Very cool.

[00:10:53] Shanna Martin: Pixar in a box. Super cool. It also has all of the things that Khan Academy offers for teachers. So you can always drop in a lesson hook, an exit ticket, lesson planner, tools like those teacher tools are also available in there if you need those.

[00:11:06] Shanna Martin: Um, but this is all set up for you with teaching your kids animation and design and the videos and all the pieces, and it all connects through Pixar. And it is just a cool site to play around in, even if you, even if you don't show it to your kids. But it's a cool thing. And it could also be, not for just clubs after school, but if you have kids that need a challenge, this would be a very cool thing for them to try out if you're looking to accelerate some kids.

[00:11:33] Shanna Martin: So, sure. Check out Pixar in a box.

[00:11:36] Fuzz Martin: Pixar in a box at pixar.com/pixar. In a box. Put hyphens between. Each of the words. Yes. After the slash

[00:11:44] Shanna Martin: and also 'cause we decided the season to like shout out to some of those old episodes, which I were dying for. Yeah. Episode 32. Okay. A hundred years ago.

[00:11:53] Fuzz Martin: Yes, it was. It was a hundred years ago.

[00:11:56] Shanna Martin: Uh, I talked about Make Belief Comics and du, which are also like cartoon animating sites. Oh yeah. Um, so those have changed a bit and upgraded over time. And like any sites, especially tdu, like check content for that one because it's usually shifted towards older students. But those are also like comic or cartoon creators.

[00:12:18] Shanna Martin: Which might be something you wanna check out for your students as well.

[00:12:21] Fuzz Martin: Nice.

[00:12:22] Shanna Martin: So there you go.

[00:12:24] Fuzz Martin: There you go. All the

[00:12:25] Shanna Martin: fun things. And I will report out with what I'm doing with Pixar with my kids 'cause I think it's gonna be super fun to like show them. And I've got a lot of kids that are like obsessed with up, even though up has been out for a while.

[00:12:37] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Everyone likes Kevin.

[00:12:39] Fuzz Martin: I mean, what is that to like about Kevin? Kevin's amazing.

[00:12:44] Shanna Martin: So thanks for tuning in. This has been the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Facebook and Instagram at Smart nwi. And if you wanna get more information on the links to the technology discuss in this episode, you can visit Smart Nwi.

[00:12:59] Shanna Martin: Dot com. If you like sports show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit buy me coffee.com/smart wi or visit smartinwi.com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going. New episodes each week. Thanks for listening. Go educate and innovate.

[00:13:17] Fuzz Martin: The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast and the SMART NWI website are those of the authors, Shanna Martin, and not of her employer.

[00:13:24] Fuzz Martin: Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we sure hope they do.

[00:13:36] Shanna Martin: Wally

[00:13:45] Shanna Martin: sh.