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.

Poetry Week 2015

This year, as is the case each year, the Spanish Department and  the LRC organised the school Poetry Week. This year's theme was the Galactic Poets. The Spanish department and students prepared for many weeks through their daily lessons, planning, writing and reciting poems in anticipation of the final event.

A special Lunch on the Lawn was held on Friday May 15th, in which students recited their own poems in Spanish for staff and students. During this event the three first place winners were recognised with an award and certificate of participation.

The quality of the winning poems was outstanding. 

The LRC prepared a display of tongue twisters, riddles, poems to run alongside the event, which were available inside the Learning Resources Centre.  

Congratulations  to I.Vega for writing and submitting the winning poem, My Star.

DVA 2015

Each year in May, the excitement in and around the school begins to build as students and staff prepare to spotlight and reward creative video work done throughout the school year. This is done at a gala event, called the DVA (Digital Video Awards) which is now in its 5th year.

During the year,  students plan and produce videos in lessons and independently, some of which are then submitted as nominees for the Annual DVA. The ABC community of staff and students are then given the opportunity  to vote for their favourite videos  in each category.  The LRC uses YouTube Playlists, and Google Forms for the voting process, both of which work quite nicely. This year however we were asked to maintain certain collections as visible only for the school community. We found that Google Drive folders worked very well for this particular purpose. In fact the system worked seamlessly, even though both YouTube and Google Folders were both in use.


Our school director, Mr. Keslake, did a great job of opening DVA and awarding movie of the year, while the head of Secondary, Mr. Spicer did a wonderful job as MC.  The staff and students involved in the preparations and the actual event did a fantastic job. The Performing Arts Centre looked spectacular. Students were directly involved in running the interviews, the photo booth, filming drone videos, working with light and recordings and giving out trophies on stage. As each of the various categories were called, the nominees took the stage to the epic sounds of Metal Gear Duel and were awarded small participatory trophies, followed by the awarding of trophies for each winning video.

This year we had a great turnout of students and staff. In fact there were 89 students, from Primary to Secondary nominated for their video work.

The best movie of the year award  was for the video "Shift" which also won best IB Film award.

Congratulations to all the winners and all the participants.

Do have a look at our DVA Flickr album for more pictures from the event. 

By Hilda Gomez,  Eu Rivas and Jennifer Garcia

DVA 2015

The ABC Digital Video Awards take place toward the end of each school year. The event is a gala affair, the purpose of which is to spotlight and celebrate excellence in student video production.

This year's DVA is promising to be the best yet, with more categories than ever and plenty of excitement and anticipation building, as we count down the days until May 27th!

This year we have 9 Main categories some of which contain up to 5 sub categories based on grade level and experience. There are a total of 89 nominees drawn from both the Primary and Secondary Schools.  This is an astounding number and reflects the high level of interest students at the ABC invest in video production and the DVA. Their work has been published in playlists, both on Youtube and using Google Drive,  for the ABC Community to view and vote on.

The videos are promoted each morning through short category remixes during  announcements as well as on posters which have been placed at key locations around the school.

Hundreds of votes have poured in since voting opened on Sunday evening and we anticipate many more before voting closes on Friday morning.

We look forward to reporting back in two weeks,  with more details and pictures from the event.

Categories for DVA 2015

Visiting Local Libraries #2

On Wednesday, April 29th, the Club ReciLectura visited Nuevo Cuscatlan’s Library. During the visit the our ABC students shared the activities they had prepared with 4th grade students from the Pedro Pablo Castillo School. The activity was entitled,  "My First Book". The goal of this particular activity was to share in a reading of  "Year of the Jungle"  by Suzanne Collins and and to follow up with a related writing activity. 

Year of the Jungle  is an autobiographical picture book, which focuses on a father and his daughter who are separated when the father is sent off to fight in the Vietnam War. 

The students enjoyed the reading which was followed up by a short writing project. The project had the 4th grade students writing their first recycled book. In doing so they were to use recycled materials and write about something happy that they had lived through, or an activity they enjoyed doing.

For more pictures visit Flickr

Post by: Hilda Gomez

Librarian

This was a very successful activity, which brought students together, encouraged them to express themselves, and brought a certain focus to the important topics of families and the environment. Our ABC students were a bit reluctant to leave at the end of the session and many of the 4th graders felt the same way. They all left feeling a great sense of commitment to their project work.

This is the second in series of library visits our club will be making and we look forward to posting more information about their work, when the time comes. 

Here is a link to our post about the club's first library visit during Earth Week of this year. 

Jennifer Garcia

LRC Coordinator

Working with MakeyMakeys

Today we held our first lesson with our new 8th grade creative carousel group.

This class is made up of students chose to take ICT in the latter part of the school year.

When planning the units for this last carousel of the year, we made the decision to use an exploratory approach within a PBL model of learning.

This week's lessons focus on input devices through the use of MakeyMakeys. The students discussed input devices, watched a short movie about MakeyMakeys and experimented with connecting up the devices to cardboard guitars and potatoes.  They then tested out their devices using a web version of guitar hero and a free download of Whack-a-Potato.

We found that once a few simple instructions were given, the kids were ready to roll. In fact they were extremely excited about using the devices and worked diligently in their groups, on each mini project.

I am including links to our  digital workbook here and a photo gallery from today's work. 

We are working with both Doctopus and Google Classroom. The workbooks were distributed using Doctopus directly to each group, which were also generated through Doctupus. We will be using Classroom to keep the stream going, assign homework and personal tasks to the students as the units progress.

Do check back for more updates as the project progresses.

Brain Week is Back!

The ABC's annual Brain  Awareness Week begins on Monday, March 16th.

During the week ABC staff and students will focus some time on learning more about how the brain works, keeping the brain healthy and trying out various brain related activities.

The LRC is developing some special plans in support of Brain Awareness Week. These will take place in the interactive Brain Week Playground at the back of the LRC.

Here is a quick glimpse of those activities. 

During Brain Awareness Week, students will learn more about the positive effects music can have on the brain. This will happen in the MakeyMakey section through interactions with a large step piano. Students will also get to try out their hand reflexes by playing Whack-a-Potato and Guitar hero. This will again feature MakeyMakey input devices, which will be connected to special LRC guitars and yes, you have it, real potatoes.

I will share a post on the MakeyMakey work later next week. So do check back if you would like to see how we set things up and how we made our large interactive Piano.

The Raspberry Pi computers will be powered up and ready to go with brain puzzles, games and brain teasers and there will be a multitude of other puzzles and code breaking activities available on site, for students to try out.

Watch our short Promo Video



Teachers can book slots for their students through the LRC appointment calendar and interested students can also book a bit of time, with LRC staff members, during break times.

Here is the link to pictures from last year's Brain Awareness Week. Do check back in a week and a half for updates from Brain Awareness Week 2015.