Untitled - TRS-80 Color Computer Archive

The World Inside the Computerred C'lgnozio, Associote EditorMaking Movies With Print Shop And Magic Slate"I don't belong here!" cried theteacher, shaking her head andfrowning. "My principal made mecome to this course to learn wordprocessing. But this isn't a computer course at all."As I looked around the room, Ihad to agree with her. I had takenover the elementary school's libraryto conduct my summer workshopson how to set up a multimediaclassroom. There were computers.But they were dwarfed by an arrayof other high-tech equipment whichsurrounded them. There were electronic keyboards, tape decks, turntables, huge stereo speakers andamplifiers, video cameras, tripods,VCRs, and boom boxes. The roomwas littered with stacks of videotapes, audio cassettes, boxes ofdisks, and record albums. Dozensof gray and black cables snakedtheir way across the floor. On thewalls were colorful Print Shop banners proclaiming, "Fred's Multi-Media Sandbox" and "Imagination,Creativity, and Storytelling."The room was a twenty-firstcenturystreet bazaar raucous withexotic, high-tech sounds.Beatles music blared from onespeaker, punctuated by helicopternoises and the gut-thumping vibrations from a temple gong producedby a synthesizer. One teacher haddigitized her voice and was playingit back on our Mirage samplingkeyboard: "Welcome ... Well ....Well... Well... Welcome ... to Fred'ssandbox," she sang—in a chorus ofvoices accompanied by a marimbaand a hammer dulcimer.20-Column WordProcessingI agreed with the disgruntled teacher that she had perhaps been sent tothe wrong workshop. "Look, Cherry," I said optimistically, "Now thatyou're here, let's try to make thebest of it."I steered her over to one of theworkshop's several Apple computers, sat her down, and got her started using the Magic Slate wordprocessor from Sunburst Communications. Since she had never useda computer before, I chose the wordprocessor's 20-column mode. Only20 letters fit on a line, and each ofthe letters is really big. In 20-column mode, it was easy to fill anentire screen quickly.I left Cherry searching for letters on the keyboard and went tohelp a teacher who was trying toplug her computer into a VCR. Forthe next half-day I was so busy Ididn't even think about how Cherrywas doing.The next morning while I wastraining a teacher on Brederbund'sFantavision program, someonegrabbed me, spun me around, andgave me a bear hug. It was Cherry!But she was smiling—delirious,even. "Come with me," she said,taking my hand and pulling meover to her computer. "See whatI've done!"We went over to her computerand looked at the screen. She hadwritten a wicked-witch story calledGundala—all on one screen. "That'smy daughter, Gundala," she said,beaming. "What do you think?"A New MovieBefore I could answer, one of myother teachers, Mike Roberts, said,"Let's set it to music." "And we canvideotape it," said another teacher."And Cherry can read it aloud,"suggestedanother.In five minutes the teachershad it all arranged. Mike madehaunted-house sounds on the Yamaha DX100 keyboard. Beverleyshot the Apple picture screen withthe video camera, and Cherry satright beneath the camera readingher story aloud. Beverley was sosmall she had to stand on a chairwhile she did the videotaping.We turned off all the lights,played back the tape, and watchedour little movie on the library's TV.It was great! The big, bright MagicSlate letters appeared on the TVscreen as if they were floating in ablack, nighttime sky. Mike's musicwas spooky and funereal. AndCherry had really hammed it upwhen she read the story.We all applauded Cherry, andshe stood up and took a little bow."Now that I know word processing,"she said, "I want to learn Print Shop."I had to make a phone call, so Iassigned another teacher to workwith Cherry for a while.I returned to the room 45 minutes later. "How's everything go....""Silence!" shouted Mara, a kindergarten teacher from Cahaba HeightsCommunity School. "We're tapingCherry's Print Shop movie."Cherry's Print Shop MOVIE? Iwondered. I groped my way intothe darkened room and sat down inone of the kid-sized library chairs.There at the front of the library,centered in a bright spotlight, wasCherry. Over her head, taped toone of the bookshelves, was a PrintShop sign. "Fun in the sun!" it said."Cherry Norman." In the middlewas a happy little sun, peeking outof a cloud and grinning.Our workshop had gotten offto a rocky beginning. Cherry hadled a revolt among several of theteachers who had corne to theworkshop expecting a basic primeron computers, keyboards, andword processing. I had visions ofthe whole workshop collapsingeven before it got started.But once Cherry began creating stories, poems, and movies onMagic Slate and Print Shop, she wason a roll. And the other teachersfollowed her. It was amazing to seehow much progress they made inonly two days. ©78 COMPUTEI February 1987