Pachyderm Feautured in Edutopia

Edutopia , a publication of the George Lucas Foundation, has a new article highlighting the Pachyderm project -- see The Elephant in the (Class)room: Pachyderm’s Multimedia Tool

Something large, friendly, and highly capable may be in your future. It’s Pachyderm multimedia-authoring software, a tool that allows you and your students to incorporate audio, video, text, and images into classroom presentations, digital term papers, and any multimedia project you encounter. The completed presentation can then be put on a CD or DVD, or downloaded to the author's Web site.

Too good to be true? Not at all. According to its developers, using this powerful tool is as easy as completing an online form. Better still, access to the software and a Help desk is coming as early as September, and will probably be less than $10 a month -- or free if your school or school district installs it on its own server.

The article goes on to describe the history of the project, its current status, and many quotes from NMC's own Rachel Smith:

More than a year ago, Smith tested Pachyderm's ease and affordability using her own son, five or six years old at the time, and his Lego creations. "He invented some Lego sculptures he was very proud of," Smith says. "So I took a video of him explaining why he made a certain thing or the characteristics of an animal he created."

"At that age, art is really not about the finished product. It's about the process of creating it," says Smith, a former art teacher. "The journaling, whether it's text, audio, or video, can really target that. You've got a record of the finished artwork, but you've also got a record of the process.

http://www.edutopia.org/pachyderm-multimedia-authoring-tool-software