Recently I was asked to help some 4th grade students at Center Point-Urbana Schools get ready for the ITEC Student Technology Fair that was hosted at Grant Wood AEA on May 5, 2015. The students worked very hard to prepare and present their projects for the judges and it was a great experience for all who attended the event. The enthusiasm and drive that these students had to to develop and create successful submissions was clear for all to see. What follows, is the story of how one group put all that together to create an historical retelling of an important time in U.S. History.
The students had been researching Ellis Island in Social Studies and were finding out how it became a famous gateway for millions of immigrants entering the United States. They wanted to represent that information visually, so they took all that they learned in class and turned it into a news report. The script took some time to write but with Google Docs they could all collaborate on the same document at home or at school in order to get the job done.
When the script was finished, they were ready to record their video. I set up the green screen, put the iPad on a tripod, and gave the students some basics on what they would need to know in order to make a successful green screen movie on the iPad. They were up and running in no time and filmed their own video whenever they weren't all on screen at the same time! We used the Teleprompter Pro Lite app to scroll their script in front of them, just like the professionals do.
The students had been researching Ellis Island in Social Studies and were finding out how it became a famous gateway for millions of immigrants entering the United States. They wanted to represent that information visually, so they took all that they learned in class and turned it into a news report. The script took some time to write but with Google Docs they could all collaborate on the same document at home or at school in order to get the job done.
When the script was finished, they were ready to record their video. I set up the green screen, put the iPad on a tripod, and gave the students some basics on what they would need to know in order to make a successful green screen movie on the iPad. They were up and running in no time and filmed their own video whenever they weren't all on screen at the same time! We used the Teleprompter Pro Lite app to scroll their script in front of them, just like the professionals do.
A behind the scenes photo from the final cut!
After the filming was done, they brought their footage into the Green Screen by DoInk app to add the green screen magic. They found images of Ellis Island on Google Images, and were sure to filter search results to include images that they had the rights to reuse. For the news studio, I showed them the Movie Drops app, and we selected a suitable backdrop for the scenes that included the news anchors by themselves in the studio. The clips were then exported and saved to the Camera Roll for further editing in iMovie.
iMovie for iPad was something that all three of the students had some previous experience with, so it did not take them long to pick the news theme that they wanted and arrange their edited green screen clips in the correct order. After adding transitions, music, and some opening and closing titles, the project was ready to share with the world on the Center Point-Urbana Schools YouTube channel.
The final result can be seen in the video below, but with video production skills like these, I think you can safely predict a bright future for these hard-working 4th graders! :)
iMovie for iPad was something that all three of the students had some previous experience with, so it did not take them long to pick the news theme that they wanted and arrange their edited green screen clips in the correct order. After adding transitions, music, and some opening and closing titles, the project was ready to share with the world on the Center Point-Urbana Schools YouTube channel.
The final result can be seen in the video below, but with video production skills like these, I think you can safely predict a bright future for these hard-working 4th graders! :)
- Jonathan Wylie, Technology Consultant, Grant Wood AEA (@jonathanwylie)
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