Tag: video

Mar 24 2010 March 24, 2010 May 10, 2010 NoComment by David

Social Studies Workshop

Posted in Social Studies, Staff Development

This week my fellow ITRTs, Frank, Brad, and I have been teaching the social studies contacts and your principals about how to improve social studies performance using technology. Today’s students, called Millennials, are also known as the digital generation because they have grown up with technology. Some are even creating YouTube videos and keeping blogs of their own, like the girl in the cartoon. Using technology in your classroom is a great way to tap into their natural abilities and interests. I created a website in GoogleDocs that I’d like to share with you because it has links to many valuable resources. First there’s an online poll using a site called PollEverywhere that you might like to use in your classroom. It provides a live updated graph as your students vote or respond to whatever topic you post… and it’s free! After trying the poll, you can take the Millennials Quiz to see how well you relate to today’s generation of students. Next, get inspired by projects that students are working on in Henrico and across the country by clicking the video links. Finally, you can learn how to use some of the programs I’ve mentioned in this blog by clicking the tutorial links. I hope the site is helpful, and let me know if you have any questions.


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Mar 23 2010 March 23, 2010 May 10, 2010 NoComment by David

Kindergarten Coins Video

Posted in Kindergarten, Math

Today kindergarten students at Holladay created videos about coins (K.7) using Photo Booth. I gave them an animated video created in Keynote that they had to drag into the PhotoBooth background. Then they recorded themselves identifying the coins and telling how much each was worth as it appeared behind them. You can see a student sample by clicking here. You can download the files I used by clicking here. Included in the folder is another Keynote where your students can identify the coins without using Photo Booth. I’ve also included the link to a website I created with more money games I found online. Take a look at it by clicking here, and let me know if you find any more you’d like me to add.


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Mar 01 2010 March 1, 2010 March 9, 2010 NoComment by David

4th Grade Civil War iMovies

Posted in 5th Grade, Social Studies

The Civil War is a new SOL for 4th grade this year, and I’d be happy to help you with ideas and resources. One 4th grade class made Civil War iMovies. Using the same folder of pictures that you can download on this post, students selected a topic and created an iMovie by combining the pictures with a video they recorded of themselves introducing the topic. Then they added transitions and text, and finally they selected a soundtrack to go along with it from the media tab. I exported them as QuickTime videos so they could be posted online. We did all of this in just one hour! Take a look at a couple of student samples: Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln. One of the problems with iMovie is that the projects are saved to the computer’s hard drive instead of to the students’ folders. So that exporting step is important if you want to save them to the students’ folders. Otherwise, you could avoid this problem by doing a similar project in GarageBand. It wouldn’t have the video, but it would still have the pictures, voice, and soundtrack. You can download a GarageBand template to use by clicking here.


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Feb 24 2010 February 24, 2010 March 9, 2010 NoComment by David

4th Grade Puppet Interviews

Posted in 4th Grade, Social Studies

Fourth graders in Ms. Norris’ class at Laburnum Elementary have been working hard creating puppets and scripts for some very cool videos we created today. They had everything ready ahead of time, so when I arrived we got right to work on the movies. Each student recorded his or her own video in iMovie (just click the video camera button on the far left side of the window and press “Capture”). They asked their puppet a series of questions just like an interviewer on a news show. Then their puppet replied! After they had recorded the video, they added text using the T button over on the right side of the window. Finally we exported them as QuickTime videos for posting online. Take a look at some student samples:
1. Sherman interviews Arthur Ashe
2. Dehvon interviews Benjamin Franklin
3. Destiny interviews Rosa Parks
4. Dante interviews Robert E. Lee (and gets attacked by him!)


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Feb 23 2010 February 23, 2010 March 8, 2010 NoComment by David

3rd Grade Explorers Animated Maps

Posted in 3rd Grade, Social Studies

Keynote is an incredible program. You’ve already seen in past projects how you can add cool transitions and builds and record your voice and even export your projects as QuickTime videos. But did you know that you can also create paths for animations to follow? It’s in the Inspector under Builds (the yellow diamond) and you choose the Actions tab. Third grade students used this feature to create animated maps showing the routes the explorers took from their home countries to the New World. I gave them a template to get them started which you can download by clicking here. On each slide they had to move the red dots to the start and ending places on the map and label them. Then we moved the ship to the starting place and added a path with the Inspector. You can make the path curved to show how they followed the trade winds and stopped at islands along the way for supplies. You can also control how long the motion lasts by changing the Duration number. Finally the students used the record feature (in the Document Inspector under Audio) to record their voiceover explaining the routes and the goals of the different explorers. You can take a look at a finished project by clicking here.


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Nov 17 2009 November 17, 2009 November 19, 2009 NoComment by David

3rd Grade Habitat Movies

Posted in 3rd Grade, Science

habitatmovieThird graders at Holladay are learning all about habitats (SOL 3.5), and they are sharing their knowledge with videos that look like they are actually IN the habitat they are talking about. They are doing this with the special “green screen” feature on PhotoBooth. I’ve used this before with fourth and fifth grades, and it seems like students at any grade level love doing it. I gave the students a folder of habitat pictures to use as backgrounds. You can download the folder by clicking here. They were instructed to make two videos, one about a land habitat and one about a water habitat. After they made their videos, they brought them into iMovie and added text. They could also add music. We are still in the process of editing them, but you can take a look at one student’s finished video by clicking here.


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Nov 16 2009 November 16, 2009 November 19, 2009 2Comments by David

1st Grade Push & Pull Pixie

Posted in 1st Grade, Science

PushPullPixieFirst graders are currently studying force and motion, especially pushing and pulling (SOL1.2c). So one class made Pixie animations. You may not know this hidden trick of Pixie’s, but if you copy and paste the same picture to multiple Pixie pages, move the picture a little bit in each document, and then Share it as a QuickTime movie, you can make some pretty cool animations. I gave the class a Pixie template with a hill on it to help them get started. They had to decide whether they wanted to push or pull an object up the hill and they wrote that word in the sentence. Then they went to Stickers and chose one to be the object. Next the took a picture of their face using the built-in webcam and painted their body using the Paintbrush tool. I did the final conversions for them and added the music. Take a look at their push and pull animation by clicking here. You can download the template with directions by clicking here.


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Oct 21 2009 October 21, 2009 October 23, 2009 1Comment by David

Green Screen Effect in Photo Booth

Posted in 4th Grade, Social Studies

PhotoBoothFourth grade students at Holladay and Laburnum have been working on creating movies about the regions of Virginia. They are using the Backgrounds in Photo Booth to create a green screen effect that makes it look like they are right there in the region! You can download all the photos for this project by clicking the link on my earlier post about Virginia Regions. If you’d like to do this project with your class, open up Photo Booth, click on the Effects tab, and take them to the last set of effects which just look like grey squares that say “Drag Backdrop Here.” Drag the photos onto the squares and when you click on them, you will see yourself with the photo behind you! Take a look at these students’ videos where they take you to the Appalachian Plateau, Jamestown, and Blue Ridge Mountains.


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