Sketchy Contest

Okay, so I admit to being nervous when Friday, May 12 rolled around. It was the day that GoKnow would be announcing the winners in their Sketchy contest. My students reminded me to keep checking my email, and whenever the phone rang through into our class, SILENCE descended. Unfortunately, at the end of the school day, there had been no news.

As I sat completing paperwork after school, and visiting with a former student, I thought about when I submitted the files to GoKnow and that the deadline had been 5:00 P.M. It was getting closer to that time and I figured I would go and check out the GoKnow website to see if the winners had been posted. To my happiness, they were posted. I immediately clicked on the Math link to see if any of my students placed in the top 3. None did. Then I went to the Science category. None placed. Finally, I went to the Other category. Again, none of my student files. I admit to being shocked. How could NONE of my students have placed? Then I went and looked at the winners in each category. Now I realized what our weakness was with our submissions. We had no backgound on our Sketchy submissions and our animation was pretty much limited to the subject content. That's why we'll be playing more with Sketchy this week and learning more about backgrounds and animations.

I went to the Teacher link and noticed that Rhonda Drum, our Technology Goddess, had received an Honorable Mention for her Sketchy about The Theory of the Naked Cat. What I didn't notice at first was that my Sketchy was playing as the main teacher file. It seems my Sketchy placed first in the Teacher category.I was excited, but still felt sad that none of my students placed.

I guess my students from this year will just have to work on some storyboards and come visit next year so that they can work with Sketchy and do a submission as fifth graders.

I need to somehow get those files onto my webpage so they're saved and can be viewed by my students and their families. Unfortunately, when I tried to import them to this blog, there were errors and they wouldn't upload. Since there is more than one way to skin a cat, I'll be trying some of those others out. When I figure out where the Sketchy animations will be posted, I'll add a link to this post.