HyperStudio - An Affordable Alternative

By Carol Bell, Letha Clark, and Joyce Johanson

Years ago, Roger Wagner Publishing, Inc. developed HyperStudio for the Apple IIGS and provided teachers an affordable alternative to purchasing software programs that never quite seemed to meet the individual needs of children. With HyperStudio, those teachers could create software that was meaningful to the children they served. Today, with updated versions that can be transferred back and forth between Macintosh and PC platforms, HyperStudio’s sophisticated sound, graphic, and animation features join to provide teachers, therapists, and families (children too!) a tool for easily creating software for use in their classrooms and homes to relive experiences, retell stories, reinforce activities, and record a child’s growth.

HyperStudio lingo includes words like cards, stacks, and buttons. One or more cards linked together by buttons (hot spots) make a stack. Buttons on the individual cards trigger sound effects, animations, and transitions to the following card in the stack. Graphic tools are available for drawing on each card, or you may import a graphic, a photograph, or even a video to include on the card. Text can be typed for labeling objects or telling a story. HyperStudio comes with sounds but also allows you to record sounds, such as voices of the children, their family members, or their pets. Best of all, HyperStudio is so easy to understand and use that anyone with a computer, HyperStudio software, basic computer knowledge, and imagination can soon be creating stacks.

When classroom teachers and children embark upon a HyperStudio project, they often rely on cooperation and collaboration from family members, therapists, and support staff. Family members facilitate the process by sharing family photographs and stories that can be included in their children’s stacks, and by visiting the classroom to offer ideas and contributing personal touches (e.g., recording messages to the children) to the stacks as they are created. Therapists enhance classroom activities through collaboration, by integrating the personalized stacks into the therapy sessions. This process brings together the activities in the classroom and the therapy. Support staff contribute ideas to be used in the stack development, assist in the process of creating a stack, and help record content (video, photo, sound, etc) for a stack.

For the past three years, the early childhood technology staff at Macomb Projects have investigated HyperStudio as a literacy tool for the early childhood classroom and have found it to be helpful for developing emergent literacy skills such as language, emergent reading, and early writing development. Stacks were created by our staff and classroom teachers, with input from children and families in the form of ideas, photos, drawings, and sounds. HyperStudio was used to relive family and classroom experiences, to retell familiar stories, to author new stories, and to reinforce and facilitate learning activities and experiences at home and in the classroom.

Reliving experiences, such as a classroom field trip to the fire house, involved incorporating recorded images, such as children’s original works of art, photographs (scanned photographs or digital images), video, and images created with children’s software programs or the paint tools found in HyperStudio. Children were involved in selecting the images and relating descriptions of the event which an adult typed using the text tool found in the HyperStudio toolbox. The addition of auditory stimuli, in the form of speech, music, and sound brought the event to life once again. Children’s knowledge about their environment and community was expanded as they had the opportunity to reconstruct events and then experience those events each time they used their HyperStudio stack.

HyperStudio also provided a framework for children to retell favorite stories. After reading and hearing stories, children retold the stories in individual or cooperative stacks. Such activities are ideal opportunities for children to be involved in the process and develop their own version of the story, complete with original images and storyline. This type of activity supports cognitive development as children discuss ideas, make decisions, and combine illustrations and text.

Independence is fostered when children use a HyperStudio stack designed to facilitate activities. Adults can create a stack that makes use of photographs, text, and speech to guide children. Activities that are generally adult directed can be transformed into projects children can accomplish independently. Cooking activities are frequently adult directed. By using HyperStudio and incorporating photographs of utensils and ingredients, a written and verbal recipe, photographs and video of stages in the process, and clues, tips, and suggestions adults can produce a child friendly stack. Transferring responsibility from the adult to the child promotes cooperation, discussions, and socialization.

HyperStudio stacks are works in progress. As new experiences are added to the child’s schemata, the stack becomes a portfolio of the child’s growth. "All About Me" products are popular in many early childhood programs. When using HyperStudio, the "All About Me" stack can demonstrate a progression of the child’s development and changing interests over time. Like a portfolio assessment, this form of an authentic assessment can be shared by the team of educators and families and can accompany the child throughout the child’s educational career.

While HyperStudio is a product oriented program, children are heavily invested in the process involved in creating HyperStudio stacks. Children can be involved in initial planning, gathering materials, discussing content, making decisions, implementing ideas, and producing a stack with very little assistance from adults. Our experiences demonstrate that even very young children can be actively involved in each stage. The initial planning may involve a brainstorming session with children in a search for possible topics, ideas, and design. Gathering materials may include taking photographs, producing images, dictating or composing text, and videotaping. Discussing content involves all the children as they make decisions about the gathered materials, how the materials fit into the design, and possible changes and revisions. As children implement ideas, they assemble the pieces to make a whole. This may include sounds, images, video, links, animation, buttons, and transition effects. As they produce a stack, children are involved in evaluating the aesthetic qualities of the stack, the organization of the cards, the original ideas they proposed, and suggesting any necessary revisions.

When a stack is being developed, adults should

(a) consider the original objective of the stack: Does it serve the purpose for which it was intended at the outset? Is it appropriate for the audience? Is it visually and auditorially attractive?

(b) review the opportunities for potential learning: Does it provide opportunities for interaction? Does it inspire children to explore? Does it encourage children to solve problems?

(c) evaluate the graphics: Was the integrity of child produced images maintained? Were they drawn by children or by adults? Are images from classroom experiences and field trips incorporated? Are children fairly represented?

(d) assess the sounds contained in the stack: Are children’s voices incorporated? Did teachers, families, support staff, therapists contribute to the audio recordings? Have techniques been used to preserve sound quality?

(e) consider the design of the stack: Are there buttons on every card? Do the buttons cause an action? Who contributed to the process of developing the stack? Is the stack usable without additional instructions?

Although all of these questions are not applicable to every stack created, all are important considerations for evaluating the product as it progresses through various stages toward completion.

HyperStudio, produced by Roger Wagner Publishing, is a multifaceted program for children and adults who find the computer an important tool and would like to invest time in preparing stacks that are instrumental in the learning process of young children.

HyperStudio -- $119.95 to 199.95 depending on vendor

Roger Wagner Publishing, Inc., 1050 Pioneer Way-Suite P, El Cajon, CA 92020.

800-HYPERSTUDIO, 619-442-0522, or FAX: 619-442-0525, www.hyperstudio.com

HyperStudio

What Do You Hear?

Introduction

Stories with repetitive language can be excellent tools for enticing listeners to join in during oral reading, increasing social interaction and communication. Young children continue to be egocentric and consider themselves the center of the world. Using HyperStudio, children can identify with the character and the story when they apply a familiar repetitive tale to become authors and illustrators using their own drawings and words. Pictures and video can be added to bring the stack to life and personalize the story.

Materials

• Computer
• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (Martin, B., Jr.)
• HyperStudio
• Choose one or more means for children to create a drawing:
• Kid Pix Studio
• Kid Draw tablet
• Large sheet of white paper (the size of the scanner is an ideal size), markers (dark colors), and paints
• Flatbed color scanner
• Digital camera

Introductory Activity

• Read the book, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (Martin, B., Jr.) with the children. Discuss the different animals and the sounds that they make. Play a tape of animal sounds and ask the children to identify the animals.
• After reading the book, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, provide children with markers and sheets of white paper to draw an animal. Ask the children what animal they hear and what kind of sound the animal makes. Write their words down. Put in the format "I hear a(n) (animal), (animal sound) in my ear." Fill in the blank with the animal's name and the sound it makes. The children can move and act like the animals portrayed in their pictures. Capture the children's creative movement on videotape or on the QuickCam. Some children may choose not to act, but may say the words they dictated.
• Another method for preparing the images for HyperStudio, would be to ask the children to draw their animals in Kid Pix Studio. The teacher can type the child's words "I hear a(n) (animal), (animal sound) in my ear" below the drawing in Kid Pix Studio. The images with the text can be added to the stack as clip art.

Ahead of Time

• The teacher will need to scan the animal drawings the children made and save the images. Short video clips can be taken from the video captured earlier.
• Start a new stack, create and name the title card (#1), "Children, Children, What Do You Hear?" Later you may ask the children to title the stack as a group. Add a movie to the card of the children imitating the animals that were illustrated.
• Choose a new card (#2) and create a text block on this card. It needs to be a large block to hold the sentence, "(Child's name), (Child's name), What do you hear?" Create a large invisible button and place it over a large portion of the card.
• Under "Things to do," choose New Button Action. From the disk library, choose Ghost Writer. In the field, hit the return button four times and type in the sentence "(Child's name), (Child's name), What do you hear?"
• Under Things to do, add sound. A teacher, parent, or another child can record the words. When the button is created, it can be clicked on and the words will emerge as if they are being typed. The size and shape for the button can be manipulated to give the best effect.
• Add a new card (#3), and load the child's animal drawing, with dictated text, as clip art. Or add only the drawing and make a text block to type "I hear a(n) (animal), (animal sound) in my ear." Either picture may need to be re-sized to fit on the card. Add buttons to connect the cards. Repeat the steps for cards 2 and 3 for each child in the class. After all the cards have been added, add the last card with rolling credits.

Computer Activity

• After the children have explored the stack, let them add the sound for their words "I hear a(n) (animal), (animal sound) in my ear." Children can make new buttons on the text or edit the text block and record their words.
• Children may want to make buttons and add video using the Quick Cam. The children may pretend to be the animal, say the words, and/or make something up. Other children may want to animate their pictures.

Extended Activity

• Make a classroom book by printing the stack, laminating pages, and binding. Create individual books and/or a classroom book to add to the reading center.
• Create a play of the stack. Print each child's illustration (back print which is backwards) on ‘iron on T-shirt transfer paper’ with a color ink jet printer (do not print the words). Iron the image on a white T-shirt. With the teacher as narrator, ask the children to play the parts of their characters in the stack. Videotape the play for the children to review later.

Summary

Children should decide what to add to the stack as you guide them through the actual steps. Children can name their buttons and type the letters, help name files and do the steps for animation. Some children might want to draw on their cards and add more detailed features.