A Better World 2017

Each year our 6th grade students take part in the A Better World Project, an ABCICT global initiative.

During the project, students explore global issues, learn about the UN SDGs and engage in research activities, while fine-tuning their research skills. They learn search strategies, evaluate websites and learn how to take notes.

As the project progresses, the students apply their learning in a variety of creative ways.
They choose one global issue per pair and collaboratively write rap songs. Later, they mix music tracks on the iPads and record themselves singing using Garageband.  They create music videos using singing avatars created in Tellagami, Chatterpix and CrazyTalk,  and also record a few live shots, usually in front of a green screen. All of this footage is finally compiled in student produced, music videos. They use both DoInk's Green Screen App and iMovie on the school iPads to edit and render their videos.

All of this work is uploaded at certain stages,  throughout the process,  to student Google Sites and reflected upon.

The project is now winding down for the year, the plan being to have students finish off their sites and reflect this week.

Here is a preview of two student rap songs that we are quite proud of.

Do check back in a few weeks, to view the final project list for 2017.

Our New Animation Stations-Part 2

We have just finished up our first carousel with the 7s using the new animation stations.

The painting wasn't quite done when we began, so we didn't maximise their complete potential this time around. That said the new tripods provided more versatility and much needed stability, while the green surface gave the kids a chance to experiment with using DoInk's Chromakey tools  when applying different images to their animations.

For more on the tripods and the apps we used, checkout our previous post on the new animation stations.

During the next carousel,  we will be able to make full use of all of the chromakey options, thereby eliminating the need for printed backdrops.

Here are two examples of finished videos from this first carousel, in which the students used printed backdrops, combined with the images  they added using DoInk's GreenScreen app for iPads.

Our New Animation Stations-Part One!

We decided last school year that our current tripod, nootle and ipad combination for shooting animation footage were just not working out.

It was then that we discovered the G7 Pro iPad Tripod. It turns out it was the best choice we could have made.


Today, while the new animation workspace was being painted chromakey green, we moved the students out of the studio and set them up with their G7s and iPads.  They had a wonderful time as they worked at provisional stations, filming the initial animation sequences for the stories they had written.

Both teachers and students were thrilled with the flexibility and sturdiness of the G7s. This  combined with the use of iStopMotion and Green Screen by DoInk has really helped us to streamline the animation process and keep frustration levels low.  Having a more stable setup this time around will pay off nicely in the end, as student productions will be much smoother than they have been in the past.

Creating Magically Moving Newspapers with DoInk's GreenScreen and Tellagami

A while back I found an inspiring idea from EdTechTeacher, on how to use DoInk's Green Screen App to create a moving Harry Potter like newspaper. Ironically this came through just a few days prior to a meeting I was meant to have with the Humanities department.

We do a joint ICT/Humanities project with them at the end of each school year and I was looking to spice things up and revamp the project.  EdTech Teacher's post couldn't have arrived at a better time.

Our project involves the kids researching both the eruption of Pompeii as well as that of a local eruption at Joya de Ceren. They then report on it using narration and video. It struck me that a moving newspaper would be a perfect fit.

I put together  a unit that took the kids from point A, through the research process, learning about reporting, writing articles and producing a video report using the resources they created in Docs, Tellagami,  and DoInk's GreenScreen App.

This was written up in a Google Document with all of the relevant links and tutorials that students and teachers would need.

I then went on to find  a few newspaper templates online that were licensed for reuse and modification and found a few videos that showed various volcanoes erupting. 

I added all of these to Google Drive and shared the teachers and students in to the folders.

Our biggest challenge when planning this activity was that we would be working on Android tablets and then iPads and there were some issues regarding workflow. We sorted these out, by doing the research, written work and Tellagami recording on the Androids and DoInk on the iPads. In this way we were able to run the entire project on tablets from start to finish. 

Finally shared folders were created for students from each class to upload their final work to, again in Google Drive.

This was a very exciting project and the fact that we could run it exclusively on tablets, both iOS and Android, while working across departments was brilliant. As a result, we no longer had to deal with the restrictions of timetabling the ICT Lab around regular ICT lessons, the kids were mobile, and audio quality was greatly improved (mobile kids=less background noise). 

Here are a few of final projects to demonstrate what these looked like when done.

Finally, there are many exciting ways to incorporate DoInk's Green Screen App into lessons, in ways that really empower kids in creative digital storytelling endeavours.

Here is another example from EdTechTeacher's the History 2.0 Classroom. That incorporates time lapse photography using the free Hyperlapse app.

Lessons learned during the project:

• Spelling and Grammatical errors still slip through, triple check templates with departments prior to moving on to DoInk.
• Resolution matters more than you think. Export videos at high resolution or the text in the templates becomes very difficult to read. Also consider font sizes for templates.
• Make sure that students have fit their three tracks with care prior to exporting as they may not have noticed these issues themselves.