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What I Did on my Summer Vacation

From cycling in Brussels to kayaking in Maine, folks at FableVision have had quite a summer. Marking the end of the warm season in New England, we’ve decided to share some of our highlights from our summer vacations.

Taryn Johnson, Production Artist and Animator
“In May, I visited a friend who lives in Brussels! I also got the chance to explore Amsterdam, Bruges, and Paris. There were so many great moments that it's hard to pick one, but one of my favorites was riding a bicycle through the Belgian countryside and saying 'hello' to all the cows. There was also a nice moment reading in a magical bookstore in Paris with a little white cat sleeping next to me.”

Didi Hatcher, Lead Animator
“In May my husband Aaron and I took our daughter Katya to Bulgaria for the first time to meet that side of her family. We got four generations of women together for the first time. Having Mini Me roam around my childhood stomping grounds and play with my old toys was a weird but very cool experience.”

Sarah Ditkoff, Communications and Development Strategist
“My annual trip to Cape Cod was filled with lobster rolls, puppies, trips to light houses and windmills, and mini golf. It's a hard week to beat, I look forward to it every season. I also took a lot of trips to Wilson Farm, which is up by my parents' place, and took a calligraphy and watercolor class.”

Anny Din, Production Assistant
"This summer I decided to try something new. I modeled in a fashion show for a local Boston designer, Keisha Jean-Louis. The name of her clothing brand is QueensKnow. I really loved her philosophy and purpose for creating the brand which was created to empower and promote women of all different shapes and sizes to love themselves. I'm usually the one behind-the-scenes organizing events and projects so I figured I'd give it a shot to be on the opposite side of things as the talent. I'm so happy I chose to model in the show and it gave me a new confidence. You don't have to look like Cindy Crawford to be beautiful."

Brian Grossman, Technical Director
“My summer has been highlighted with a few local adventures, including a trip to Newport, RI with my wife’s family, a family camping trip to Cape Cod, and some fun day trips in and around Boston."

Karen Bresnahan, Executive Producer
“On my summer vacation, I went to Crested Butte to visit my daughter and granddaughters. Crested Butte is a small town located in the western part of Colorado, over 9,000 feet above the sea level of Boston, and surrounded by Rocky Mountains. We hiked, biked, went to outdoor concerts, walked around town, watched movies, and played games. It was non-stop fun for me.”

Michael Lin, QA/IT Specialist
“In my spare time, I perform as a Foley (live sound effects) artist with a local radio drama troupe. This summer, we put on our traditional mystery adaptations featuring famous literary detectives. Every show, I get to learn new tricks to bring to the Foley table, and this time I had the privilege of making the accompanying sound effects to a stabbing murder. I won't give away the secrets of how it was done, but I will say that many brave melons gave their lives to ensure we didn't have to stab any actors onstage.”

Andrea Calvin, Brand and Development Strategist
"My summer vacation travel happened a bit early this year. In May I visited my best friend in San Francisco. We explored all the literary hot spots and tourist traps. But the best discovery happened when we were searching for a restroom and cup of coffee. We stumbled onto the ILM campus and found the Yoda Statue."

Keith Zulawnik, Lead Artist
“This summer, my family rented a cabin right next to Portage Lake in Maine. We saw loons, bald eagles, and were on kayaks for the majority of the week. And, to make our summer complete, we took in a Red Sox game.”

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Who put the pop in your “Good Thinking!” culture?

A Master’s Degree in Popular Culture is not only a great ice-breaker at parties (and a surefire way to strike fear in the hearts of your parents), but it turns out to be very useful when developing an animated series for teachers about science misconceptions. Who knew? 

Before we dive in to how pop culture shaped the Smithsonian Science Education Center’s Good Thinking!: The Science of Teaching Science series, how about a quick lesson? I’m sure Ms. Reyes would approve.

Popular culture is often described as the “cultural glue” that bonds people from all walks of life together through a shared experience. For example, whether you live in Topeka or Tribeca, are 23 or 67, are a retired homemaker or a club promoter, if you both watched the series finale of Mad Men (sob), you have a common point of reference to draw upon should you meet at an airport luggage carousel. If you happen to inhabit another planet in a different galaxy, a Kardashian reference would most likely be your entry into the conversation. 

That’s in part why popular culture references – pointing to another body of work, fictional character, or well-know event – are so abundant in movies and on television. It adds another layer of enjoyment, a wink to the audience that makes them feel knowledgeable or “in on the joke.” 

Bugs Bunny was a frequent borrower of cultural references (weirdly highbrow ones, like the Barber of Seville and Richard Wagner), but it was The Simpsons that really set the bar for animated television laden with pop culture references. I love the rapid-fire references in Family Guy, but one could argue that there’s very little original text holding all that self-congratulatory smugness together. But I also enjoyed Ted 2, so I clearly can’t be trusted. 

And this brings us full circle to Good Thinking!: The Science of Teaching Science (How? A talking teddy bear and a talking piece of chewed gum, obviously), and how and why we used popular culture references in the series.  

Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) launched the Good Thinking! series to explore pedagogical ideas across a range of subject-matter topics like energy, natural selection, and gravity, as well as cognitive research findings on topics such as student motivation, or the myth of left- and right-brained people, earlier this summer. It’s an engaging and entertaining web series designed to enhance K-8 science education, and deepen understanding of STEM topics for teachers and students alike.

The Smithsonian’s bold, brave, and awesome decision to make Good Thinking! an animated series (versus live action) not only gave the team at FableVision license to borrow from some of the best classic series, it also set audience (more on them in a bit) expectations. Viewers knew they were in for a something a little wacky and fun – a big departure from run of the mill professional development videos.  

Animation is a good approach to reduce the stress and apprehension around learning complex information. If animation allows the audience to let their guard down a bit, they will hopefully realize that science can be a ton of fun, and pass that same mindset on to their students. 

From the beginning, we drew on popular culture to shape Good Thinking!’s world and characters while keeping the audience in mind. 

Speaking of audience, the huge network of teachers tuning into the series is incredibly diverse — gender, age, geography, race, student population, economic status, subject matter expertise. While we can’t make a “one size fits all” experience, popular culture references are a good point of entry for people to rally around. (Remember a few paragraphs up about how pop culture is “cultural glue?”) The important thing is not to overuse them, or to make them so obscure that the creators are the only ones “in on the joke.”  In that sense, cultural phenomenon that have made their way into the pop culture lexicon (like Twilight featured in the Natural Selection episode) make good broad references. 

In creating the series, our major inspirations were the 1950s Tex Avery House of Tomorrow and Farm of Tomorrow cartoons featuring the omniscient “golden voiced” narrator and clever visual and verbal puns and gags, and the talking inanimate objects (Globey, Chairry, Clocky) from Pee-wees’s Playhouse. All of the inanimate objects that spring to life in Ms. Reyes’ classroom were based on well known actors and fictional characters (you can read more about them here) as a way to make THEM feel familiar and relatable, even when the complex scientific info they’re dispensing might not be.  

We tried to lean on references/jokes teachers would be familiar with, not just because of their own personal experiences, but because these things have become so entrenched in media representations of teaching and classrooms — so meta, I know. 

From seasonal classroom decorating to the horror show of the fridge in the teacher’s lounge, from the “secret” side of teachers that comes out when the kids go home (Ms. Reyes’ goth phase in Make it Rain!, or nod to Mad Max in Fired Up About Energy) to the “teacher’s pet” whose hand is in a perpetual state of up-ness, there are hopefully some moments in every episode that ring true.. 

darwin_ssecgoodthinking

A few more pop culture rules for the road: it’s critical the episodes and the writing stand on their own, and even if you don’t “get the reference,” the scene is enjoyable and the information presented is clear. For example, in the Natural Selection episode, Charles Darwin serves Ms. Isabella Reyes and Blossom, umbrella drinks poolside in Isabella’s daydream. It’s a funny gag if you make the connection, but nothing is lost if you miss it. 

And as tempting as it is to use hot “of the moment” references to seem hip and relevant, the series needs to live for a long time and not feel dated. That’s why I can mention doing the “Whip/Nae Nae” in this blog post, but Gummerson and Bunsen may NOT discuss their mutual heartbreak over the Affleck/Garner uncoupling. 

The Good Thinking! series is one of many projects where we have “gone to the pop culture well” for inspiration. Bite Club, a financial literacy game that teaches about retirement savings, is set in a Vampire nightclub similar to Fangtasia in the TV show True Blood. Reality TV shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World influenced the story for the Infinity Island animation for LIME Cable Broadcasting, and celebrity internet cats, the writer’s gift that keeps on giving, were the basis for Señor Ticklewhiskers character in Learning.com’s Digital Citizenship app.  There are lots of other examples as well, but in every case, the choices we made were about setting the right tone and finding the hook to draw a specific audience into the experience. And maybe a little about what we learned on Buzzfeed that day. But only a little. 

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Vote for FableVision’s SXSWedu PanelPicker sessions!

Have we mentioned yet how much we love Austin and the SXSW community? No? Well we LOVE it. And to triple our chances of presenting at SXSWedu in 2016, we’re representing the studio in a few proposed sessions: one on Zoombinis, another focused on Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science, and a third on the Early Childhood Fab Lab. We’re a bit humbled by the incredible people we’ll hopefully be sitting next to, but we need your help to actually make it to Austin!

Here’s what to do:

  1. Read the rest of this post.
  2. Be amazed by how awesome our PanelPicker submissions are! (We know, we know, we’re excited too.)
  3. Head to SXSWedu’s website here.
  4. Make an account here to view all of the submitted SXSWedu ideas. 
  5. Vote! (Voting ends Sept. 4)
  6. Share the word on social media -- we can’t do it without you! A big thanks in advance.

Good Thinking! The Science Of Teaching Science

Link to vote: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/51733

Description
The Smithsonian Science Education Center has partnered with FableVision Studios on Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science, a new, original web series and professional development resource for science educators. Too often, valuable knowledge sits unused in inaccessible journals; Good Thinking! delves into the research to share the best ideas and practices with teachers in a fun, accessible way. Good Thinking! is able to reach teachers with targeted information to support their practices.

Questions Answered

  1. Explore the potential for practical implementation of an animated web-series as part of a coherent and rigorous professional development plan.
  2. Investigate the learning science behind why our minds are designed to misunderstand science, and what educators can do about it.
  3. Discuss the need for an intersection of research and science with arts and entertainment in order to provide accessible information.

Speakers
Marjee Chmiel, Smithsonian Science Education Center
Leigh Hallisey, FableVision Studios
Danielle Gillis, FableVision Studios
Brian Mandell, Smithsonian Science Education Center

Zoombinis: Redux of a Popular Learning Game

Link to vote: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/48308

Description
Zoombinis, the popular math and logic educational game, returns nearly 20 years after its 1996 release. Panelists reveal different insights on how to bring back an old favorite & how to measure and leverage game-based learning of computational thinking. How do you relaunch a successful product from the ’90s and make it relevant for today’s generation? How do you leverage today’s research methods such as data mining to measure important learning in the game, such as computational thinking? How do you balance commercial impact with education for a popular learning game? Hear from designers, researchers, and developers to understand the choices that went into bringing back this popular learning game.

Questions Answered

  1. The panel will show how the Zoombinis game experience supports STEM learning -- specifically math, logic, and computational thinking.
  2. Designers will discuss game and learning mechanics from the original 1990’s game, and how they were preserved in the 2015 version.
  3. Researchers will discuss how middle schoolers’ learning of computational thinking is measured in the game and supported in the classroom.

Creating the World’s First Early Childhood Fab Lab

Link to vote: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/57348

Description
Fab Labs are maker spaces that use digital design and fabrication (e.g. laser cutters and 3D printers) to build STEM skills and creativity. In winter 2016, The Bay Area Discovery Museum, in partnership with TIES and FableVision, launches the world’s first Fab Lab for young learners (ages 3-10) to help them navigate the design process from concept to production, and turn their ideas into reality. This session addresses the design principles of these spaces, lessons learned from this first prototype, and curricula suggestions aligned to NGSS and CCSS. Panelists will reflect on their experience in bringing such edtech maker spaces to our youngest learners in developmentally appropriate ways.

Questions Answered

  1. Understand the power and possibility of using technology with very young children in developmentally appropriate ways.
  2. Learn from the nation’s first ECE Fab Lab prototype to consider how you can bring design and fabrication into your school, program, or classroom.
  3. Understand how math, computer science, and engineering practices can be meaningfully taught in Fab Labs with very young children.

Speakers
Elizabeth Rood, Bay Area Discovery Museum
Paul Reynolds, FableVision
Janice Morrison, Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES)

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August FableFriday: Loren Lee-Flynn, UX/UI Designer

Loren Lee-Flynn always has a story to share. Sometimes it is about someone she met at a yoga class, or her enormous family, or her work in the classroom. Other times it’s about a fun conversation she had with a client or something crazy that happened the night before with Baxter her cat. No matter the situation, Loren is never short of stories.

Perhaps it is only fitting to begin Loren’s FableFriday with her journey to FableVision story – one that is entwined with another FableVisionary.

“My FableVision journey started long before I was on staff — about 10 years before. My then boyfriend (now husband) Bob Flynn and I moved to Boston from St. Louis. We had been living in St. Louis after graduating from the illustration program at Washington University, but wanted to return to the east coast where we were both originally from. We didn’t have jobs yet, and FableVision Studios was one of the first places we looked,” she shared.

Bob was hired as a staff artist and eventually became FableVision’s Director of Art and Animation. Loren freelanced at the studio while she was teaching in an after school program.

“After I got my Master’s in Early Childhood Education, I expected that I would begin teaching and my FableVision days would be over,” she said.  But, fate had another plan. While she was looking for a teaching position, a role opened up at FableVision.

“The Studio was looking for someone to create wireframes and spec documents for their educational projects. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to combine my background in the arts with my passion for education,” she shared. “I started out as an independent contractor and later I joined the team as FableVisions’s first in-house UX/UI Designer, with a dual role as an artist.”

As FableVision’s UX/UI Designer, Loren is often called on to craft fancy interfaces for apps and responsive designs for websites, all while keeping her toes wet on the art side of the studio. As August’s FableFriday, Loren shares more stories from FableVision, her time in the classroom, and her huge extended family.

As an artist with an education background, you have a unique perspective on the educational projects created at FableVision. Can you share a few moments when your experiences in the classroom have helped on projects?
My education background gives me a unique insight into how FableVision’s products will be used in the classroom by both teachers and students. A good example is the Institute for Community Inclusion/UMass Boston’s Future Quest Island (FQI), a web experience that provides students, many of them with special needs, the opportunity to explore career options and other possibilities for their adult lives. A huge part of the FQI experience is the portfolio, where students gather and showcase all of the work they’ve done on the site. I knew from my work in the classroom that it’s important to allow students to not only save their work, but also to reflect on it, self-assess, and make decisions about what they want to present and share with others. This really informed our strategy for how the portfolio should work.

Tell us about your experience with teaching! What is your best memory of working in the classroom?
My best memory of working in the classroom comes from my time as a teaching intern in a first-grade classroom. The district science curriculum included a multi-week unit on animal adaptations. I modified the unit to include as many hands-on experiences and literacy connections as possible.

One of the learning goals for the unit was to have students understand that animal body parts like skin, beaks, and claws often evolve to fulfill a specific purpose, such as protection from predators or obtaining food, and that by observing these parts closely, they could make hypotheses about how the animal might use that feature to help it survive.

I had the students first practice the observation process by giving each student a “mystery-tool” to examine closely, sketch, and make an educated hypothesis, backed by evidence, on what the tool might be used for. The mystery tools were all random gadgets I had gathered from around my apartment, and it was funny and interesting to see their guesses about the purpose of each tool. The next day, we repeated the process using models of animal beaks, claws, and hides. It was so rewarding to see the students, especially some of the more reluctant writers, excited about observing and writing. They enjoyed it so much that they asked if they could create a museum display to show off the models, and many of the students repeated the writing activity by observing different models during their free work time.

Let’s talk about user experience. What are the top things on your mind when you’re designing a webpage or interactive?
The first questions I ask myself when designing a website or interactive are, “Who is the user?” and “What is the goal/what problem are we solving?”

For most FableVision projects, goals often include specific learning objectives or benchmarks, so a huge part of the planning process is figuring out how to make sure our users meet those targets. Just as importantly — and this is key to the FableVision mission — is keeping the experience fun and engaging. Ideally, our users engage with our products because of the fun factor, and the learning happens naturally.

Responsive is the “it” word when it comes to websites, how does a responsive design change user experience?
Responsive is more than just a buzzword. It is absolutely necessary in a world where more and more users are accessing digital content through mobile devices. A good responsive website optimizes the display of content and provides a smooth experience for all users, whether they are using a PC, a tablet, or a phone.

Let’s talk Doorways to Dreams Fund’s Con ’Em If You Can, what was your role on the project?
Working on this project was a blast! The challenge came from the sheer number of characters that needed to be designed. There were about 50 in all and each one had unique attributes and personality traits that needed to be reflected in their appearance. I ended up going with a “paper-doll” approach where I assembled characters by making different combinations of face and body shapes. The fun part was giving each character a unique outfit befitting the great ’50s vintage look of the game.

What’s your favorite part of Con ’Em If You Can?
There is the secret chinchilla theme that recurs throughout the game. That touch was added by our hilarious writer and creative director, Leigh Hallisey.

You’ve done everything from print books to websites to apps for preschoolers, what’s your favorite project?
One of my favorite projects was an interactive we created for longtime FableVision client, Maryland Public Television (MPT). MPT’s Succeeding in the New World teaches students about the challenges faced by early colonial settlers in America. The interactive takes them through the process of outfitting a ship with supplies, laying out buildings and farms, and then watching as natural disasters and extreme weather descend on their settlement, often destroying it. Students then reflect on what went wrong and replay, trying to improve on their results. I was involved with all stages of the project, from early planning to final art, so I’m pretty proud of it.

What inspires you creatively?
The thing that inspires me the most is watching people who are great at what they do. To me, that’s the best thing about being at FableVision — I’m surrounded by people I can learn from every day.

You have a passion for fonts, currently, what is your favorite font and your least favorite font. Why?
We use a lot of Google fonts at FableVision, because we do so many web projects. Lately I’ve liked Karla, a nice, clean sans serif that still retains plenty of character. My least favorite font is probably Arial. I get the hate for Comic Sans, but after working with teachers who had to make hundreds of cubby labels and classroom notices for small children, I can see it at least has its place. Arial just looks homely in any context.

You have a huge family (especially cousins). Can you share a bit about your cousin Christmas traditions?
Between all the aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, and assorted children, there are about 50 of us, so we take up a lot of room. We always get together on Christmas Eve for a gift swap, but in our version, you cannot simply steal a gift. My cousin, Alex (who has a real knack for game design) has come up with a series of little games (think Minute to Win It). If you want to steal a gift that the person you’re stealing from wants to keep, you need to challenge them to one of these games — winner keeps the gift! It changes a little every year as Alex keeps the favorites and improves or replaces those that don’t go over as well. This year’s favorite was New Roach City. You can see a video of it here.

Who is Baxter?
Baxter is my cat. He’s too grouchy to come into the studio, but he’s been featured on the FableBlog before.

More about Loren:

Favorite
Meal to Cook: Roasted chicken and Brussels sprouts
Thing to eat: Tapas
Snack: Cheese, crackers, and olives
Movie: The Big Lebowski
Book: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Animated Movie: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Song: New song: Sunday Candy, Chance the Rapper; Older song: Fantasy, Mariah Carey
Vacation: Hawaii 

Least Favorite
Meal to cook: Chicken pot pie — I can never get it to come out right
Thing to eat: Cilantro
Snack: Anything with artificial sweeteners
Movie: Un Chien Andalou — I still haven’t recovered from being forced to watch it in college art history
Vacation: When I went to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day with college friends and got food poisoning. I still went out, but couldn’t even have a beer.

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Zoombinis: The Journey’s Complete

zoombinis

Around this time last year in a packed conference room at FableVision Studios, the Zoombinis team mapped out a re-launch plan. What TERC, FableVision Studios, and Learning Games Network (LGN) didn’t know is that they were about to embark on an epic adventure of their very own.

Before we travel further let’s make sure everyone knows about Zoombinis. Not too long ago in 1996, the original game, The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis hit stores as a CD-ROM game. Kids loved it! Nearly 20 years later, TERC was ready to bring the game back with a mobile spin. We were excited, but the fans were ecstatic.

In Zoombinis, the player helps the little blue guys escape imprisonment from the evil Bloats – who had taken over everything and canceled holidays! Boarding a boat, crossing the Allergic Cliffs, topping the pies in Pizza pass, and jumping Mudball Wall – players use their logic and reasoning to solve unique challenges along the way to their new home – Zoombiniville. 

Zoombinis is equal parts fun and challenging, filled with memorable quotes – did some one say “Make Me a Pizza!”? – and loveable characters, but Zoombinis is also a learning game and provides a deeper understanding of logic. Hear what FableVision president Gary Goldberger has to say:

In the months that followed the kick-off, the Zoombinis team enjoyed the good life as they looked for ways to revamp the beloved ’90s game for its new digital home.

It feels like everyone had a hand in this journey. As the producer on the Zoombinis game (and a fan of the original game), FableVision’s Polly Searles sprung into action to keep all the pieces chugging along. Hear what she has to say in her Developer Diary:  

Maybe it wasn’t tackling Titanic Tattooed Toads, or conquering Lion’s Lair, but each FableVisionary lent his or her talents to tackle a series of challenges in this unique process. This process included redesigning the Zoombinis themselves, digitally painting rich backgrounds for the new aspect ratios and optimizing it all for the touch screen, developing the game in Unity to ensure the animations and the game play blend in the export for mobile and web play, retracing all the animation to provide fans with the classic look-and-feel within the new technology, launching and then celebrating a successful Kickstarter campaign, recording and editing developer diaries, prepping for news interviews; demoing the game at conferences, and so much more. 

 

On Aug. 6, the Zoombinis reached the shores of their new home in the Apple and Google Play stores, ready for a new generation. Mac, Windows, and Kindle Fire versions will be released later this summer. What are you waiting for? Jump on over to start building your Zoombinis, and be sure to tell your friends and leave us reviews! Now…who’s ready for slice of pizza?

Here’s what a few more FableVisionaries had to say:


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