So many apps, so little time...and some green screening!

Today's iPad screen shot

Just some of my apps

I've explored image manipulation programs in the past, apps that write text on pictures, apps that do collages. I've downloaded them, especially if they were free, played with them for a few days, showed them to my students, and kept on trucking. The potential in the classroom is limitless! In my continued investigation recently, I came across  Mr. Peters' website whose purposeful curricular use of many of these apps is admirable. I like how he's organized it, and I will definitely continue to explore it.

This is my to do list of projects for students next year, so far:

• Video lab reports, with or without green screen
• Memes of Science safety rules, or classroom rules
• Musical parodies of concepts, such as the Particle Theory or the Parts of the Cell or Order of Operations
• Mrs. G mentioned History news reports using the green screen (I would help by giving some Language periods for this as well)

The problem with these lofty goals, is that we have limited technology available at the school and it takes time for students to develop the technological skill set to create those products. For example, the musical parodies last year took all term to make. The Science videos took most of the unit. I felt like I didn't cover as much content, because we spent so much class time creating the product.

My solution became assessing the process, such as the script and story board for the video as well as making projects as cross-curricular as possible (Science, Oral, Media, Writing).

In the end it was worth it. We were proud of the Science videos, we shared them and viewed them several times. I don't think a final exam would've had the same effect.

Next year as we continue to explore creating complex media products, these are the more useful tutorials I found to help us as we experiment with green screens.

iMovie

Windows MovieMaker

Should we have more than 8 iPads available, we may be able to use DoInk, as it seems to be the green screen app of choice, and if you follow them on twitter, teachers are posting some fantastic examples.

How do you make time for creating? What are your challenges as you create and cover curriculum?