Digital Studios Guide

About the platform

The FRACTAL Digital Studios platform is the website where students create digital artworks related to each of the Expeditions. There are three Digital Studios on the site:

Pixel Art Digital Studio — a pixel art painting application that lets students create their own artwork or follow a pre-designed Paint-by-Numbers coloring sheet. (Expedition 1: Pixels and Possibilities)

Algorithmic Art Digital Studio — a block-based programming environment where students create geometric artworks by writing and running their own code. (Expedition 2: Coding to Create)

AI Art Digital Studio — a generative art studio where students workshop their ideas with prompt engineering and advanced options. (Expedition 3: Imagination Innovation)

As a teacher, all of these Digital Studios are available for you to use as well. You can navigate to any studio from the FRACTAL homepage (must be logged in) by clicking the studio you’d like to explore and hitting LAUNCH. The platform lives at learn.fractal-education.org.

Logging in as a teacher

You will receive a set of credentials to log into the Digital Studios platform. Once you are logged in, change your password by hovering over the avatar in the top right corner and clicking My Profile, then Edit My Profile. Note that when you change your password, you will be logged out and will have to log back in with the new one.

Managing students

You will receive a spreadsheet with login information for each of your classes. Type students’ names next to usernames to assign them, then print out login details and distribute them to students.

At the start of the study, you will ask your students (and their parents) if they would like their survey answers to be included in the FRACTAL research study. If either the student or parent does not agree, mark this in the student spreadsheet.

If a student forgets their username, reference the spreadsheet. If a new student joins the class, assign them to the next open username in the proper class. Because we are using the spreadsheets for this study, please do not edit any student information on the platform’s Admin page.

Pixel Art Studio

Launch Pixel Art Studio ↗ (must be logged in)

In the Pixel Art Studio, artists create pieces in the pixel art style by placing color on the canvas. Click any square in the grid to fill it with color — there’s an array of color options at the bottom of the screen, and more under Edit Colors.

By clicking the New button or editing the options at the top of the screen, users can change the resolution and aspect ratio of a piece. A Paint-By-Numbers option is available for artists who may have a hard time deciding what to draw. Artists save their drawings with the Save button on the left side of the screen.

Algorithmic Art Studio

Launch Algorithmic Art Studio ↗ (must be logged in)

In the Algorithmic Art Studio, artists create art with block-based programming — giving the computer instructions on how to create an art piece. The code controls a brush on a virtual canvas: move it around, draw shapes, or repeat actions.

Write code by dragging and dropping blocks into the Code Area, then press Run. Save creations by clicking Save Artwork (below the Art Canvas).

A few things worth knowing before you teach with it: if blocks are missing required inputs (like size or color), errors appear with a warning icon — hover over it (or tap, on a touchscreen) for details. Everybody gets errors in their code — even experienced programmers! In Expedition 2, students learn how to debug their code, a very important skill for a programmer. Because code blocks run one-by-one from top to bottom, order matters: shapes are drawn on top of each other, like layers of paint. And students can type where numeric inputs are needed, or use the number blocks in the Sizes tab (helpful on touchscreens).

AI Art Studio

Launch AI Art Studio ↗ (must be logged in)

In the AI Art Studio, artists generate images using prompts — descriptions of the image they’d like to generate. Enter a prompt into the text box and press Generate.

Students are taught to co-create with the generator, fine-tuning what the model produces toward their artistic vision. Beyond rewriting the prompt, they can adjust the Advanced Options: negative prompt (what should not be in the image), seed (randomizes the composition), steps (how detailed the image should be), and guidance scale (how closely the image follows the prompt). Students can also iterate on top of an existing image by choosing Mode: Image to Image in the top right of the Generator panel.

All generated images are saved to the individual’s art gallery automatically — no save button needed. If you get an error while generating, first rephrase the prompt and try again; if you still have trouble, or see “Generator is down,” reach out to a member of the FRACTAL team.

Viewing student artwork

As a teacher, you can view the artworks a student saves to their profile. Hover over your avatar in the top right of the navigation bar and open the Classes page, then choose a class to browse student galleries. Click an image to see more about it.

Students cannot see the Classes page or information about any other individual — they can only see their own art.

Both students and teachers can see their own artwork on their Profile page (avatar → My Profile). The View Artwork popup shows the studio where it was made, the date and time of creation, the prompt used (for AI Art), and whether it was made with a Paint-By-Numbers coloring page (for Pixel Art).