Visit George Rota at TIES 2004. George will be giving an all day class teaching clay animation on Sunday, Dec. 5th: "Let your imaginations go as you learn about the basics of creating clay animation projects for you and your students. In this workshop, you will learn how to create short clay animation movies using iStopMotion, a simple capture application that interfaces with iMovie. All supplies will be furnished."

On Monday, Dec. 6th, he will be giving a talk on how he and Duane have used iStopMotion as their tool to teach kids about clay animation: "And now in the center ring, performing for the first time... the Amazing Hopkins Clay Animation Circus! Come see how students in Hopkins created clay animation projects using iStopMotion, a software product for creating frame-by-frame animation. Learn some planning ideas and tricks so you can begin your own clay animation projects."

Marc Boylan from ICT Links Ltd. invites all people interested in Apple computers in education to an open event on the premises of Hi-Tec Bradford Ltd: "The event next week is all about using Apple computers in education. It is an open event for people interested in education. It will feature a variety of applications including iStopMotion allowing visitors to get hands on with the software. To that extent there will be cameras, plastacine and figures for people to manipulate and record."

On Friday, Nov. 19th, 9.30am - 4pm, Marc will be hosting a training session "Animation for Starters". Please contact Marc to sign up for one of the few remaining places.

Dates for the open event are:

• Thursday, Nov. 18th, 1pm - 7pm
• Friday, Nov. 19th, 4pm - 7pm
• Satruday, Nov. 20th, 9am - 4pm

The Guardian in the UK writes about technology in the classroom: Pupils are no longer dragging their heels to traditionally 'boring' lessons like maths and French thanks to an inventive teacher who uses digital video to boost the appeal of unpopular subjects. [...] "The best thing is being involved in the filming, in the editing and even moving the models. It takes concentration and patience," says Daisy Holliday, 11, of Oakhill school and the joint creator of an animation encouraging younger pupils to count in French. [...] The Oakhill film club group used iStopMotion software to catch the movement of various clay creations and then pulled these images into iMovie to add soundtrack and credits.

Alois and Florian Röhrl from Ingolstadt made a nice Playmobil movie "Noah und der Eisberg", answering the question what Noah was doing during the 40 days and nights. They've put it up on their .Mac account. "Congratulations on iStopMotion" they write, "Father & Son Productions would like to show how much fun they had with the app. Maybe you'll like it, too." Great special effects.

Jim Coudal documents the starting of an online business on the Jewelboxing weblog. A recent post reveals how he got hooked on iStopMotion: "You know it's a good app when you try the free 7-day demo for 15 minutes and go right back and pay." Here is the raw footage of what they did. "One if the advantages of running your own business is that if you have a half-baked idea that could turn out interesting (and maybe even effective) you can pursue it."

The current issue of Mac Life has the first review of Boinx FotoMagico and a copy of the installer on the CD. Thomas Raukamp writes: "Indeed the program looks like a prime example of Mac OS X design.". His rating is 4/6 points. The only drawback he sees is missing text support - which will be added in a later version.

Jeff Carlson posted a Time Lapse of the Oct 27th Lunar Eclipse done with iStopMotion: "Tonight was a total lunar eclipse, which won't happen again until 2007. Uncharacteristically, the Seattle sky was completely clear, so I was able to point my video camera out the window and tape the eclipse. I used iStopMotion to take a snapshot every 15 seconds."

Mike Blumenthal offered a review of FotoMagico for the Mac on MacInTouch: "I have just spent a couple of days playing with the 1.01 version of FotoMagico" [...] "This is truly an incredible program for anyone working regularly with still images for slide shows presented on a computer, web or TV via DVD. It provides great control of image duration & transition effects. Its interface on the transition effects is innovative and powerful allowing some unusual results that look great." [...] "It integrates very smoothly with iTunes and iPhoto and it overcomes iDVD's 99 slide limitation and allows better audio control as well. It is faster & easier to create special effects than iMovie." [...] "This moves photographic slide shows into fun and interesting territory. The tech support was superlative as I was learning the product and findings its few limitations and quirks."