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Unlock Your Creativity with Musical Canvas and GenType!
Episode 198 • 25th November 2024 • Tech Tools for Teachers • Shanna Martin
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Get ready to transform your classroom into a hub of creative expression! In our latest episode of Tech Tools for Teachers, we chat about two fun applications that will be engaging for you and your students - Musical Canvas and GenType.

#EdTech #TeachingTools #CreativeEducation #DigitalLearning #StudentEngagementLast

Takeaways:

  • Musical Canvas allows students to create digital art that generates music based on their creations.
  • GenType provides a unique way for students to design custom fonts for their projects.
  • Both tools encourage creativity and can be integrated into various classroom activities and presentations.
  • Using Musical Canvas and GenType can enhance student engagement by making learning more interactive and fun.
  • These tools help students present information in creative ways, improving their understanding and retention.
  • Incorporating AI-based tools like these into lessons can inspire students to explore new forms of expression.

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Transcripts

Shanna Martin:

Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers

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podcast, where each week we talk about

a free piece or two of technology

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that you can use in your classroom.

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I'm your host, Shanna Martin.

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I'm a middle school teacher, technology

and instructional coach for my district.

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Fuzz Martin: And I'm her producer

and husband, Fuzz Martin, and I'm

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not the type to read the titles

before we start podcasting.

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Oh, I had a really good joke in it.

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Thanks It fell short because I

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Shanna Martin: didn't read.

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Fuzz Martin: I skimmed, and then, yeah.

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Um, so anyway, hello.

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Hi.

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How are you?

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Episode 198.

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Shanna Martin: Episode 198.

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Fuzz Martin: We're getting closer.

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Shanna Martin: We are.

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Fuzz Martin: To the 200 mark.

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Shanna Martin: Woohoo.

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Fuzz Martin: The sesquicentennial.

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Shanna Martin: Yeah.

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Fuzz Martin: Hooray!

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Hooray!

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Shanna Martin: We're like,

finishing, we're like charging

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towards the holidays here.

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It is crazy.

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It is crazy.

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We're almost done with the year of 2024.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

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Shanna Martin: It's nuts.

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Fuzz Martin: Mm hmm.

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Shanna Martin: So this week we have two

very entertaining sites to talk about.

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And.

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I know you were so excited to talk

about them that you totally skipped

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the title round, and it's cool.

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Fuzz Martin: I did.

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Shanna Martin: You're human.

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Fuzz Martin: I am human.

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Shanna Martin: And I can't wait to

see what you create with these, so

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I'm sure it's going to be interesting.

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I'm

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Fuzz Martin: going to

create all of the stuff.

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Shanna Martin: Alright, so, we

have two different websites.

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Fuzz Martin: Yes.

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Shanna Martin: Gentype and Musical Canvas.

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And they actually, they kind of,

they're very different, but my reasons

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for liking them are very similar.

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So, both of them are super fun.

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Like, they're fun to play around in.

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They're, they're just entertaining.

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You get to be creative,

which we always appreciate.

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They can be used to present

information in very different ways.

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And I'll kind of talk about that

when I talk about each site.

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Like, it would be a way to share

information or for students to

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kind of share their knowledge.

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You could use it that way, or you could

use like something completely different.

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They have, both of them have uses

definitely outside of the classroom.

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Like you, these are not necessarily

built for classroom tools.

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They are just, they're AI based kind

of generation tools, and you could

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use them in your classroom, or on your

own, or for your entertainment's sake,

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when you're like, I just, your brain

is gone, and you just need a break.

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They offer a different way to be creative.

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Both of them are kind of obscure

ways to be creative and not like a

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predictable way, which I appreciate.

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And you can share them both with others.

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So once you make your creations,

you can easily share them

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out, which is pretty cool.

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Part of the fun of creating these things.

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So the first one I'm going

to do is Musical Canvas.

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Oh, okay.

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Are you ready for the other one?

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Fuzz Martin: Oh, I mean, yeah,

we'll go to Musical Canvas.

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Shanna Martin: So Musical Canvas, eh,

you'll find it in Google Arts and Culture.

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I linked, I'll link it in like the

website, but Musical Canvas, you

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can just type in Musical Canvas.

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Canvas, anywhere.

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You launch the experiment and

what's cool about it, it does run

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through Google Arts and Culture and

basically you have your little tools.

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So you have a little drawing

box where you have a paintbrush

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or you have like a little like

dots, like that makes polka dots.

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And we all know how

much I love a polka dot.

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And so you can polka dot and you can draw.

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And you can create a piece of art.

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So you can take your time drawing,

or honestly, you can just put some

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scribbles on there and then fill it.

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And so I have some purpley polka

dots and some darker purple

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zigzaggy lines and a couple of red

squiggly lines through my image.

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You can choose the size.

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You can make your, like, end larger

or smaller, whichever you choose.

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There are filters on there so

you can blur it a bit, or you can

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pixelate it a bit if you choose to.

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You can make it look like old film.

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You can just add some different

like backgrounds to it and you

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create this beautiful piece of

digital art, whatever it may be.

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I'll screenshot this and put it

on my website so you can see this

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beautiful piece of art I just made.

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So then you click generate music

and there's a cute little emoji guy.

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On the right hand side of your

screen and says, this music piece,

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I am now going to do live generation

directly inspired by this masterpiece.

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Uh, it's decided that my music

should be slow and peaceful.

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It tells me that my image is

relaxing and calming, which is funny.

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It's kind of spazzy.

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And then it makes a song based

on what you have created.

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And overall, it tells you about

like your fun piece of digital art.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

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Shanna Martin: And then.

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Tell me more.

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And so, it's just like a fun

way to create a piece of music.

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And then I was thinking, so if I had

students doing research project, or

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if I have them doing inquiry piece.

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They could generate a piece of art to

go with it, you know, like inspiration,

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like from the background or whatever,

the research, or maybe a piece of

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art, generated by whatever it may be.

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But what's cool then is

you can share it directly.

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So they have a very easy to use share

button and you can copy the link

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directly, which then technically

you could turn into a QR code.

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So then the piece of music could be QR

coded to whatever project they created.

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So there'll be music that went with

their creation, but also you can drop

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it directly into Google Classroom.

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So it does have the option to direct,

directly drop your, your music, your

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art music piece directly into Google

Classroom, along with like sharing

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on email and social media and stuff.

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The little guy like tells you why.

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So like the use of bright colors

creates a sense of optimism and joy.

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Like it, it goes through

like little descriptive.

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Pieces as to why the

image created that sound.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah, that's,

yeah, that's really cool.

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Shanna Martin: It's

really fun to play with.

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And I thought what a cool way for kids

to get other kids who may not be super

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excited about presenting information

into maybe like this is a piece of

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music that I wrote based on this

drawing that I did that's inspired by.

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You know, photosynthesis or something.

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Fuzz Martin: I'm trying to, I,

unfortunately I'm, cause I'm colorblind.

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I'm trying to make a red

background, but I cannot find red

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to save my life on the screen.

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Shanna Martin: Oh, it's in

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Fuzz Martin: the middle.

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In the middle.

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So one,

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Shanna Martin: two, three, four, five,

six columns over this red down the center.

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Fuzz Martin: Okay.

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There we go.

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Shanna Martin: Okay, cool.

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So it goes like teal.

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To green and reds in the center.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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Fuzz Martin: Thanks

Google for being, very.

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Shanna Martin: Not aware.

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But yeah, so the whole thing is to

draw on a digital canvas and it uses

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like these different visual effects.

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And the whole goal is to like

make, create your own soundtrack

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based on your piece of art.

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And it's just, it's a really a

cool thing to play around with.

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And like I said, you could link it to

a QR code so kids could write, like,

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have their art and their music together.

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They could share in Google Classroom.

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You could do it as Brain Breaks

and build it in that way.

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You could just make it a part of,

even music class, being aware of,

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like, sound waves and how sound

affects people or the impact of that.

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Also be a great, like, SEL lesson.

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Like, how Do these different colors

make you feel and how does that

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connect to different sounds and how

does that, you know, impact things?

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So there's just different ways

that you could build musical

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Canvas into your classroom and

let kids play around with it.

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Whether it's specifically for a

content area or just for something

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kind of creative to do and let

their minds create for a bit.

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I think it's pretty cool.

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Fuzz Martin: I'm excited to

see what this one creates.

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It's because I made a pattern that

looks like Charlie Brown's sweater.

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I want to see if it makes,

uh, Charlie Brown music.

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I don't think it will.

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I think it's going to

sound like rock music.

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Oh,

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Shanna Martin: yeah.

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Not Charlie Brown.

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No, more anime.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Fuzz Martin: That's kind of fun.

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That is

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Shanna Martin: fun.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

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I think kids will dig this for sure.

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Shanna Martin: Yeah.

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As, as do you.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's fun.

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Shanna Martin: Yeah.

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Fuzz Martin: That might be more

fun than the other one that

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I was playing with earlier.

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So you didn't realize

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Shanna Martin: I had two

super fun sites to talk about

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Fuzz Martin: this week.

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That is really fun.

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Shanna Martin: Yeah.

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So check it out.

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That one is called Musical Canvas.

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And for those of you that do like

blob beats and blob opera, I would

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add this one to your repertoire of and

there's a bunch of kids playing around

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with some music, with their kiddos.

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So there's that.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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So our second site of excitement and

fun and creativity is called gen type.

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And see, you were really

excited about this one.

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And now, now you're excited

about the other one too.

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So gen type is.

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Fuzz Martin: I mean, this one, the one

I created on this one, it's really cool.

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Shanna Martin: GenType

is coming from labs.

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google, which I talked about a bit

last season, different experiments

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that they do with AI and basically.

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You type in what you want.

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Mm-Hmm.

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to see.

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And gen type generates a font of the

entire alphabet based on your description.

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So, before I typed one in, that

was books, like a library on

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bookshelves in the classroom.

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Yep.

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And my whole alphabet was made.

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with library books.

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And then you can go and you can adjust

them if you want some to match.,

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cause they give you a variety of this.

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So this time I'm going to type in,

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Fuzz Martin: uhm, podcasting microphones.

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I, I, I did, uh, I did candy canes

on top of, uh, fluffy cotton.

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Shanna Martin: Oh, fun.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah, for the holiday season.

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Shanna Martin: That is fun.

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And what, this is something that

another, like when you were playing

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around with this and teaching

your kids, prompting AI again, we

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kind of talked about it last week.

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You have to be specific with

what you actually want it to

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say, or what you're looking for.

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So if they prompt specifically,

they'll have a more specific alphabet.

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So it takes, this one's a little slower,

not like super slow, but you gotta give

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it 20 seconds or so to create your font.

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Fuzz Martin: It's creating 26

different images, so you gotta wait.

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Shanna Martin: Yeah, so it takes a second.

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And, they also give you some, examples

down below, too, that you can see

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that other people have created before.

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And once the alphabet is created,

it's cool, because you can download

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it, you can save it as a PNG file,

and you can download your alphabet.

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So once it's created, you can then use it.

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So I was thinking, if students are

creating presentations They can, have

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their intro slides created with a font

that matches the theme of whatever

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they're presenting for information.

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Or if you have like a parent night

coming up and you have slides that you're

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creating, I'm, I'm, I have to create

a lot of slideshows for professional

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development and things like that.

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I'm always looking for different

ways just to make them entertaining.

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Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

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Shanna Martin: But I now have a.

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Letter set of full alphabet of

letters made with podcasting, mics

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and speakers, which is pretty cool.

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And then if you choose to, if there's

one that you really like, or you

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don't like, you can click on that

letter and then click the regenerate

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and it will adjust it for you.

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So like, I didn't really like

my letter H cause the background

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was different than my other ones.

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So I clicked it and it cleaned up the

background and made it slightly different.

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So now that one looks

a little bit different.

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So there's all these different ways

that you could use like a cool font

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for, you know, different projects,

presentations, information, posters.

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Yes, you look very excited over there.

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Fuzz Martin: Google, you know,

they give you like sample prompts.

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Shanna Martin: Yes.

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Fuzz Martin: Google must be listening

to me because Well, obviously.

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Because, the sample one they gave me was

lawnmower path, green lawn, aerial photo,

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and it's all alphabet It's our lawn!

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Shanna Martin: It's all

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Fuzz Martin: alphabet

made out of lawn stripes.

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Shanna Martin: Oh, cool.

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Which

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Fuzz Martin: is pretty cool.

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Shanna Martin: That's fun.

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Fuzz Martin: So,

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Shanna Martin: so yeah, so GenType gives

you so much flexibility with creating

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your own, your own alphabet and you're

able to adjust it and then use it.

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And like I said, for presentations or

for, sharing information, posters, parent

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letters, any of those communication pieces

that you want to jazz up a little bit,

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or my other thought was like, if you have

students that are putting on a production

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or a play or a Christmas concert or

a fall musical or whatever it may be.

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You could type that in and then use

that as the, like, You can take the

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style or the, you know, the style,

the label or the, you know, different

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things and you can make it match

the theme of whatever you'd like to.

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Fuzz Martin: Or if you're

creating a ransom letter.

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Shanna Martin: Or not, probably

not, maybe a mystery font.

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Good grief.

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So,

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gen type through Google Labs has just

all kinds of fun ways to do things.

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And create these cool alphabets

that you can download and create

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and then do something fun with.

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So, check that out.

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Fuzz Martin: God bless you.

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Shanna Martin: Thanks.

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So, if you're going to use it with your

students, that would be a cool thing.

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Or just as a teacher, you could

use it as a cool way to jazz up

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the information that you have to

share with people all the time.

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Check it out.

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Fuzz Martin: Check it out.

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Gentype.

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So labs.

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google slash G E N T Y P E.

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Labs.

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google slash Gentype.

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Shanna Martin: So there you go.

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Musical Canvas, Gentype.

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Both so much fun to play around with and

create with and make new fun things with.

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I'm so excited.

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Yeah,

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Fuzz Martin: it's very fun.

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Um, I, uh, I don't even know.

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Oh, I don't even know which

one was more fun at this point.

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Uh,

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Shanna Martin: And now

you're distracted by both.

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I am, I

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Fuzz Martin: am.

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I'm going to use one to

create things for the other.

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Shanna Martin: Perfect.

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Fuzz Martin: I'm create a musical

album with, the first one,

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which is called what again?

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It doesn't say on the actual thing.

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Musical Canvas.

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Musical Canvas.

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And then I'm going to, create

my album cover using GenType.

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Shanna Martin: All right.

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Fuzz Martin: So.

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That's going to be,

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Shanna Martin: can't wait

to see how that turns out.

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Fuzz Martin: It's going to

be loads and loads of fun.

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Shanna Martin: Nice.

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Fuzz Martin: Well,

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Shanna Martin: thanks for tuning in.

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This has been the Tech

Tools for Teachers podcast.

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If you ever have any questions, you

can find me on X at smartinwi or on

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Threads or on Facebook, and if you want

to get more information on the links

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to the technology discussed in this

episode, you can visit smartinwi.Com.

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If you'd like to support the show, please

consider buying me a coffee or two.

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Visit buymeacoffee.

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com slash smartinwi or visit smartinwi.

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com and click on that cute

little purple coffee cup.

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Your donations help keep the show going.

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I'll be seeing a few of you

at Slate coming up because

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that's happening here soon.

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New episodes each week.

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Thanks for listening.

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Go educate and innovate.

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Fuzz Martin: The ideas and

opinions expressed on this podcast

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and the smartinwi.com website

are those of the author, Shanna

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Martin, and not of her employer.

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Prior to using any of the technologies

discussed on this podcast, please

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consult with your employer regulations.

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This podcast offers no guarantee

that these tools will work for you

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as described, but we hope they do.

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And we'll talk to you next time on

the Tech Tools for Teachers podcasts.

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