What Kids Can Do With Movies

Here is the Simplifying Fractions movie I helped a class of 5th graders make earlier in the project. The kids wrote the song, storyboarded the video in groups, and ran the camera during filming. It took us about half a day. I edited the final product together for them. Before this project, the kids' only experience with moviemaking to this point had been a short one-hour lesson from me on storyboarding, basic shots and editing. Can you imagine what they will be able to do when they get to high school -

More updates and the future

Spring Break has arrived. Before we wrapped up I locked in another Flip Video workshop for an elementary school the week we come back from Spring Break.

Another thing I am working on is preparing schools to use the cameras if they get them in the future. The Flip Camera requires a special codec to be installed on a computer before it can read the videos. I've been working to make this a default piece of software on computers around the district.

Another idea for the future came when I was talking with my county tech director about future staff development plants. One thing we hope to implement next year is a moodle for staff development. I would love to create a moodle-based class on digital video. It would allow teachers to work at their own pace.

Word of Mouth

Another school has purchased a few Flip Video cameras and wants me to do a workshop. It seems that word is getting around. One of the things I have noticed throughout my graduate work is that new technology seems to be best integrated when teachers and principals get a chance to spread the news to each other. After a while it tends to build critical mass and then everyone is doing it. I'm hoping my work this semester is leading to that.

A funny sidenote. The class that did the Simplifying Fractions video. We had worked pretty much half a day filming it and the final video lasted about a minute. This was actually really good compared to what I've experienced in the past. Anyway, I'll let the teacher tell the story.

I went ahead and tried. It works. The kids were really excited about it. It was funny becuase they said, "All that time we worked and it only lasted a minute and a half?!" Then I said, "Imagine how long it takes to film a real movie." Then someone said, "Yeah, I'll bet it takes a week!" :)

I love kids. Anyway, they are looking over the latest draft of the movie. I should be able to post it here soon.

A successful workshop

The movie project planning workshop went over very well. I had three participants and each came up with a great idea for a project plan. One was an assistant principal who did a social studies project. He said that he obviously can't do a project since he isn't in the classroom, but that he was going to pass it along to his teachers.

I also completed a three-day moviemaking class with a group of about 10 teachers from around the county. One highlight of this was a kindergarten teacher whose students were already storyboarding their own version of humpty dumpty and planning to film their own epic version.

I have also been working on a few other projects. I went on a field trip with a group of 4th graders and filmed it. I hope to edit it together as an example to show teachers how field trip videos can be useful.

More later

Working with teachers

Things are rolling along. I just finished the second of three workshops on movie making with a mixed group of elementary and high school teachers. It's going pretty well. We have new computers in the lab and I had some issue with getting the flip camera software loaded. Luckily there is so much movie making content that I was able to move on to other topics.

I also got the three-hour planning workshop approved. This will be less a class, and more a project planning session. I'm starting to do some research on tools such as rubistar that I can introduce to help them with the project.

The introductory video is going slowly. I'm getting pulled in a hundred different directions, mainly because I am the only facilitator in our district. I'm getting asked to do things not only in elementary, but also in middle and high. I should still be able to put it together though.

Coming together

A lot has been going on over the past week or so with my moviemaking project.

First, I worked again with the 5th grade teacher whose students were doing the simplifying fractions music video. We had to go to school a half day on Saturday so I suggested we work on the movie. Her kids loved it. They came up storyboards to explain the steps in simplifying the fractions. After they did storyboards, we filmed the shots, with the kids running the camera, directing and recording everything they did. They did such a good job. Having played with the editing software the week before, they had a good grasp on how everything would come together. We got all our scenes shot except for a few extras. The kids were amazing. They were so focused, that the teacher and I remarked that we could have left the room and they would have kept on working.

Today I spent some time editing the rough cut of the video. We decided that I would do the editing for this one so that we could finish the project quickly This incremental approach to introducing the kids to video seems to be working. The teacher and I have another project planned where the students will make their own science videos from scratch in small groups. I'll post the final fractions video here when it is finished.

In other areas, I am about to start my 3-day workshop on moviemaking for teachers with flip video cameras. I will do some touch ups on the planning tomorrow, but the basic plan is this.

day 1 - brief introduction to the cameras, movimaking terms and editing software.
day 2 - storyboarding, scripting, and editing software.
day 3 - managing student projects and lesson/project plan ideas.

Finally, I am about to get final approval for my longer moviemaking project planning workshop. I am going to hold the workshop on our March 30th workday. The plan is to hold a three-hour session to plan a unit/project using moviemaking. I will start with standard course of study goals and work up through lesson plans, rubrics and logistics. Teachers who attend this workshop will need to have some familiarity with using video cameras and editing software. I will hold a one-hour workshop in the morning for those who are interested but have not done a moviemaking class before.

Moviemaking and Kids

I got a great chance last week to work with some kids. A teacher I am working with who wants to make movies with her class had a sub for a day. She asked if I would give her students an introduction to movie editing in preparation for a bigger project. I loved it! Kids seem to have an instant grip on the visual vocabulary of moviemaking. Some things I have to explain several times to adults, the kids pick up in one or two tries. This week we have a snow day make up on Saturday. I suggested we do the next step in her project then. We are going to be filming a video of her students singing a fractions song to "We Will Rock You." It should be a good first project for her kids.

In other project news, I am moving along in planning for my three-day moviemaking class with teachers. The class will cover basic camera operation and editing, as well as integrating moviemaking into the curriculum.

workshop musing

I've gotten a little done on the movie. It's tough finding time. On a more positive note, I have done some planning for my upcoming 3-day moviemaking workshop in March. A number of teachers have expressed interest, both teachers at the school and some from other schools.

This has led me to another idea. There are a number of teachers in my county who have been to one of my introduction to moviemaking workshops. But I think relatively few of them have actually took the final step and done a student movie project.

We have workday coming up at the end of March. I'm thinking about doing an all-day or half-day workshop on making a class project. It would be only for people who have had a moviemaking class or feel confident in their skills. The idea would be to spend the entire time working on a lesson or unit plan incorporating movie making. We would do everything from the initial idea to rubrics and 5-point lesson plans. I would also be able to incorporate the inventories I am working on of what each school has. This will help the teachers make a plan that uses what they already have.

I'm off to pitch this idea to a few teachers and see what they think.

Update

Whoops, a few days late on the entry. Things have been busy.

I've been to a few schools and I've started to inventory their moviemaking tools.

I've also done some planning for my introductory movie but I haven't gotten time to do any filming with kids. I can hopefully start this this week or next.

On a very positive note, I found out that I have access to some powerful moviemaking tools. My tech director and I were trying to convert a movie from quicktime to WMV and called ITS. They let us know that our CTE department had purchased 500 licesnses to Adobe CS4 creative suite. This is a huge package including premiere pro movie editing software and aftereffects post production software. Best yet, we have 50 teacher at-home licenses. I've already installed it and started teaching myself to use it. I am more familiar with the elements version which is simpler, so it's a bit of a stretch, but it is working out well.

Finally, I am beginning to plan a three-day movie making workshop for March with elementary teachers. More on that next time.

Celluloid Evangalism

Okay, here's an idea.

One of the problems I have had getting overworked teachers to integrate moviemaking into their curriculum is that they have a hard time justifying such an involved and (seemingly) complex project into their busy class schedules. What I need is an attention getter. Since I am arguing that film is a good attention getter, I should really make a film.

So one part of this project is now going to be putting together a short documentary-style film about how kids are learn from movies. I'm thinking of it as mainly students telling about their favorite movies and what they learned by watching them I can also get some interview clips of kids who have made movies and find out what they learned.

In other project news I have started working on my inventory of availiable equipment. More on that later.

Changes and first thoughts

Okay, so we have a big change already. My county's big Interactive White Board project is dead for the year due to budget problems. So the whiteboard training project is off.

Instead, I'll be doing a digtial studio project. Some basic ideas.

- create a training program for teachers to teach them:
- how to take and edit video themselves
- how to manage student video projects

- take a county-wide inventory of digtial video resources, including
- video cameras
- acessories (tripods, lights, ect.)
- stand alone editing machines
- software other than windows movie maker

- create a "digital studio," managed by myself or other tech facilitator, that can be taken to schools around the county to help students make movies. The studio will include:
- a laptop (or two) with editing software and storage space
- special effects software
- green screens
- lighting
- generic props?

More later on. I want to specifically work on the training for teacher. Video editing has a steep learning curve at the very beginning but later becomes much easier with practice. I want to specifically design the training to fit this.

Welcome!

This will be the blog for my ITC 5900 Internship. I will be working on a training program to help Lincoln County Schools implement Interactive White Boards.