Using Adobe Voice to Create Food Chain Videos

What I like about the iPad is the ability to work without connecting to the Internet.  This is especially true when you work with field study groups up in the wilderness.

At Outdoor School, 5th or 6th grade students spend 2-4 days experiencing the outdoors.  They get to sleep, eat, and learn up in the wilderness.  Part of their experience is rotating through hour long field study groups which could include learning about weather, creating survival shelters, or identifying plants.

In this hour long field study we start with a review of the food chain including producers, consumers, and decomposers.

The students then take an iPad on a scavenger hunt snapping photos of producers, consumers, and decomposers.  Since consumers don't stand and wait for a photo, we instruct them to take photos of evidence a consumer was here, like a nest or track.

After all the photos are taken, the students storyboard their movie choosing which photos to use and how to tell about the food chain they found.  We ask they include a scenery photo as the title slide and a selfie photo as their credits.

The finished product is created with Adobe Voice, usually 5-10 photos, a narration that tells the story, and background music provided by the app.

At the end of the hour we save the videos to the camera roll and repeat the study for the next set of students.  Then back in town we upload the videos to Youtube.  Here is an example from a group of 6th graders in North East Oregon and their food chain video.




NOTE: If you use Adobe Voice, be sure to login to the app while in wifi, then turn the iPad to Airplane mode.  As a backup iPad app we will use 30Hands in case Adobe Voice logs out.

YouTube for Kids

YouTube Kids App released this morning.  This free app, available for iPhone or iPad, provides younger children full access to Youtube content appropriate for their age.  You will see Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, and Fireman Sam as examples.

Viewers have a few ways to find content within the app.  They can choose to search shows, music, learning, or the explore button.  Or they can click the magnifying glass and type their search.

While kids are watching a video, they have access to simple controls, or can navigate to other episodes within a particular channel.

When starting the app, by default background music and sound effects are auto enabled.  As a parent you can click into the settings and turn them off.  You can also set a time limit so the app auto turns off after a specific amount of time.




Youtube Kids App is a great resource if you want to allow free exploration of videos for any young child.  

Yooukids - Monitor Youtube Playlists for Kids

Yooukids is a nice free iPhone and iPad app allowing you to create playlists of videos to younger children keeping them from surfing Youtube for anything and everything. 


Once the app is installed, the default mode is "kid" mode, where they have access to playlists.

 

In order to put on additional playlists, you set up a 4 digit PIN, login to your own Youtube account for personal playlists, or search for public playlists.  After you find the playlist, you can either sync the entire set or sync individual videos.

 
Yooukids would work great in Primary classrooms with iPods or iPads.  A teacher could sync playlists of a variety of books read online, like Storyline Online, and students could watch or listen on their own without the teacher in fear of kids wandering into Youtube cyber space.

Givit - take a video and make it awesome!

So a request from a student for a way to speed up video footage on the iPad quickly led me to this free video app.  Givit Video Editor is a free video editing app that allows you to use multiple clips, add effects, titles, photos, music, and filters.  And there is also NO length restriction!

The effects is what I was drawn to.  There is the ability to slow or speed up the video as well as many other effects.  It's exactly what this student needed for her video.

By signing up with a Givit account, you are also given 5 GB of online storage on their website, with the ability to share publicly or privately.  From your iPhone or iPad you can also save to your photos or post to a social media account.  There is a tie in to social media via the givit account, much like instagram, which will allow others to find the user name and follow the videos.  I have not seen anything inappropriate, with the majority of the videos being sports clips, etc.

Privacy is always a concern and it is the option to make all videos and posts private, or as I did in a practice video, just save to the camera roll and not upload it to the givit account.  Because of the automatic tie in to a social network, this app is best with older students (13+) with permission, or as an app to go to on the teacher device to work on special projects.

Chatterpix : Make In-Animate Objects Come To Life

Chatterpix is a very simple to use free iPad or iPhone app where you to take a picture of an object,
Draw on a mouth,

Add a recording, up to 30 seconds max,

Place on some bling, like glasses, hats, or a tie,

Then share the final video.

One nice feature that makes this app appealing with a classroom of students is you can share to your camera roll, or via email, thus no social media accounts necessary.

There are two versions of Chatterpix.  The original version contains bling choices that include a martini glass or a beer mug.  There is a Chatterpix Kids option with slight differences, like no alcoholic drink blings, and only allows sharing into your camera roll.

All your completed Pix are stored in the gallery, which will allow you to go in and edit any previously saved Pix.  This is perfect if you want to create a conversation between two objects. Go into a saved Pix and re-record a new message into another short video clip, saving time from remaking the character all over again.  Then use a video editor to stitch all your video clips into a conversation.

A great creativity app for all students, and adults, as I'm hooked.

Digital Storytelling and Movie Making Workshop

Agenda for July 16, 2013

Exploring with Camera and obtaining pictures

• Take them
• Photo booth
• Save from Internet
• Screen shot
• Draw them with drawing apps like doodle buddy, P.aint, Skitch

 Modifying Pictures

• Pic Collage  Allows for multiple photos and text
• Phonto  Allows for text on pictures
• Lifelike Cards  Allows for creating cards and send by email
• Vizualize Free Allows for layering, freehand cropping (advanced)

Still photo Digital Story Tools

• Scribble My Story - Good choice for primary students
• Tellagami - Make an avatar speak and save the movie
• 30 Hands  - Put together a series of pictures and voice over each one
• Book Magic - Create an ebook and save/email as PDF
• Haiku Deck - A nice presentation tool, focused on the visual you choose
• StoryKit - Create an online story using picture, text, voice

 Creating a Video

• Action Movie - Create action movies, very fun with middle school boys
• Videolicious - Create movies using a wizard, 60 sec max
• VideoFX Live - Different effects when shooting video
• Animoto - Put pictures to music for your video
• Loopster - Full featured video editing (advanced)

Educreations Update

Educreations, a great screen casting app, came out with an update earlier this week.  This update includes an eraser, with the nice option of erasing various items.  For instance, you can use the eraser for annotations, clear the page, clear all annotations, and even clear recording.

In the past, a person would set their pages the way they wanted for the screencast with images and annotations.  If the recording contained too many glitches, the entire project had to be a re-do, including all the graphics. 

Now the question, when will educreations allow us to work on multiple screen casts at the same time?

iPad vs Paper

Can the iPad replace everything?

Of course not!

 There is a time and place for manipulatives, paper, paint, clay, etc...

 it's about the learning and not the tool. 

 So don't throw all the paper out!

Loopster - a Free Video Editing App

iMovie is a great video editing app, and one many iPad users navigate to.  Pinnacle Studio came out a while back and is comparable.  Yet some people ask if there is a free version that would work nearly as well, since they are only creating one project.

Loopster might be an answer, and as today it is free.  Hurry and install this app while the price is right.

Features Loopster has are the following:

• You can put in transitions between video clips
• You can use video and still pictures
• You can modify the audio of existing video tracks
• You can add an audio track
• You can split video into segments
• You can add text overlay
• You can alter a segment to play under slow motion
• I haven't seen any ads running on the screen, nor watermarks on your video.
• You can save to camera roll or share online to youtube, facebook, and more
• You work on multiple video projects

A great option with a perfect price for those that want to tinker with digital video.

For those with students using iMovie, download and have students create videos using both apps and provide you with an academic evaluation comparison between the two products.

30hands Presentation App a Digital Storytelling Tool!

A great simple app just recently was released by 30hands Learning for easy presentations or digital storytelling.  This app gives yet another opportunity for some fun digital storytelling or project creation for students using images and audio.  You can use their app without creating or having a 30 hands account.  If you do want your presentations to work with the 30hands online learning platform, creating an account would make the moving of files between mobile device and website seamless.  But for this blog post, and use as an awesome storytelling app with students, an account is not needed!

No Account Needed! 

Students can choose to take photos, pull from their Camera Roll, or from their dropbox for their project.    Don't forget that photos can be created, modified, or typed on in many other apps like Skitch, Pic Collage, etc...

Record and Rerecord on each slide.

Photos can be deleted and moved around by tap and holding on a photo until they begin to move (like an app on an iPad).  Each photo can be recorded on, previewed and rerecorded, until the audio is how the student likes.  No fancy transitions or background music, it is a simple as it can get!

More slides can be added at any time.

When finished the final project can be saved to the Photo Album or to a 30hands account.  The project plays as one continuous movie, which makes it a simple way for students to create an online presentation.


For more information about 30hands Learning and their online platform for the classroom visit their website:  http://ipresentonline.com/

Tellagami - Another Fun Digital Storytelling Tool!

I just came across another free tool for a way to create digital storytelling with your students, Tellagami.  This app is a simplified Xtranormal (check out that website if you haven't before!).

Tellagami allows one character, that can be moderately adapted; male or female, hair, eye color, a few clothing selections. Choose their emotion and then either record audio or type in what you want the character to say.

The character is then placed into any of your own photos, from preloaded photos, or take a picture with the camera.  This is a key for classroom use.  Have students describe a location from a field trip,  put their character in the historic place they are studying, make a video explaining hall way behavior, and so on.

There is no account needed to create and no ads (other than a Tellagami ad at the end of the video).

Finished product, called a "Gami", can be up to 30 seconds in length.  It then can be emailed (as a link to view on tellagami.com), saved to photo roll (email from your photo roll as an .MOV file), texted to a phone, or sent out to a social network.


Here's a sample using the text feature to create the audio.

Stop Motion Video Making with iDevices

We are always looking for new tools to give more ways for students to create with their mobile devices.  Recently I started playing with a quick 5 second video iPhone app called Vine.

Tap the screen to record until the bar at the top is full!

Geared towards social networking and creating short videos to share on twitter, facebook, etc... the ease of the app and the fact that the video can be sent to your photo album on the mobile device and not shared makes this an app that could be used for some great classroom projects!

Turn OFF the "Share on Vine" 

With Vine, you record only when you have your finger on your screen.  The longer you hold your finger down, the longer you record.  It will stop you when you have reached the max length.  By tapping in intervals, it is easy to create the stop motion effect to the video.  Since it does save as a MOV file in your album, pull it into another video editing app or site to add music, titles, or adjust as needed!

Another app for stop motion video recording is OSnap.  OSnap alows you to use a series of photos from your iPad to create a stop motion video or time lapse video.  There are some great features in this app such as setting the camera on a timer, or snapping picture by making a loud noise.   The paid version of this app ($2.99) will allow students to pull photos from their photo album, which for time lapse projects in science would be handy.

iPad Apps for School did a nice write up on OSnap that you can find here.


Short Video made with Vine - starring MY FEET!

Uses for stop motion or time lapse videos in the classroom:

• recording science projects of a set amount of time
• explain a math problem with manipulatives
• claymation or drawings retelling of a story (book report alternatives)
• writing project (storyboarding and scripting are great ways to trick students into writing)
• Collaboration and Creativity! Perfect project for group work. 

If You Give a Kid a Camera

What happens when you give students and camera?  They create. They are engaged. They experience.

Here are some examples of what students have done while using a camera.  These examples are the videos of screen shots presented during Swoiree of Slides 2 at IntergratED PDX.

Visit ALTV at USEducation TV. (featured school of the month for February 2013)

Read how two classrooms connect; one from Pendleton, OR the second from Uganda

Kids using Green Screen Create Music Video to Green Eggs and Ham:





North Hills Productions sledding adventures.


PSA productions from Cove


Kids create movie trailers to understand constitutional ammendments



One students "I Am" video where she states she is curious.

Turn Your iPad into a Document Camera

I visited with a teacher last week, and her document camera isn't working well.  Not sure what was wrong with it, but the first thing that came to mind was "use your iPad".  This teacher already had been using her iPad that way.

Then later in the week I come across the app called Stage.  This free app is designed to turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard or document camera.


You have the ability to annotate over the top of the iPad camera, live, without taking the picture.  Tools include a Pen, an eraser, several colors, and sticky notes.  The only tool missing is a highlighter pen.  The app is only a couple months old, so I'm hoping an update will provide enhancements.

If you are using Apple TV or Reflection, you don't need to be tethered to  your document camera, as Stage will let you take your document camera with you.

 A few possibilities include

• annotating on top of a worksheet without importing the image into another app
• annotating on top of student work
• annotating on top of a student science lab experiment
• annotating on top of math manipulatives constructed by a student
• annotating on top of a student's art project 

Watching Videos in Class

iPads can bring a shift in the way teachers facilitate the classroom.  From a teacher directed setting there are many more opportunities to shift into student directed environments.  Here is a guest writers thoughts on how his students view short video clips, rather than show the one video to all students. 



"I'm finding that the iPads are a very useful tool for showing video clips as part of a lesson.  In my health class, I wanted the kids to view some video clips from Discovery Education as part of a lesson

Using my account with Discovery, I created a "lesson" that accessed several short clips.  This process in Discovery creates a student access code and a private URL link for each video clip that I can share with my students through an Edmodo assignment.  The students all have headsets (or they can bring their own) that allow them to quietly watch the videos on the iPads without disturbing others plus they can work at their own pace.  They can review the video as many times as necessary to complete an accompanying assignment, either on paper or on Edmodo.  It has been quite interesting observing a class of 30 students doing their lesson this way.

When using the iPads in this manner I have found it is more effective to use several short clips (1 to 3 minutes) instead one long video. This makes it easier for the student to replay the parts they missed. Another great thing is that the students can access the Discovery material through Edmodo outside of school if they missed class.  Discovery allows for student accounts, but this isn't necessary with the private URL that can be shared on Edmodo.

The "old way" would have been to show the full video to the entire class at once.  They would see the video only once, there would be the usual classroom distractions, and some students wouldn't be able to see the classroom screen from the back of the room.  They also wouldn't be able to rewind the video for review." - Rob Doherty, Science Teacher at Armand Larive Middle School in Hermiston OR.

Updates on Google Drive, Blogger, and Bump

Over the past few weeks there have been updates to many of the apps we work with often. Here's a recap of a few of the apps that have added some great features or new interfaces which make them more user friendly. 

Notice the added Spreadsheet option! 

Google Drive recently added the ability to do spreadsheets within the app. I know there were many that felt that just editing documents was limiting. With the add of spreadsheets, it gives me hope of seeing Google Presentations and other features added in the future!

Basic Interface and Editing Features 

Also a feature that is often overlooked with Google Drive is the ability to upload video or pictures from the photo album on the iPad or take a photo or video inside the Google Drive app. This feature can make it easier to move video files that are too large to email, yet you do not want to use a secondary site like YouTube. Once the photos or video are in google drive you can share them as you can any document on your Google Drive.

Take Photos or Videos Inside the App

New Blogger Interface 

Ability to Adjust the Image Resolution

Blogger also recently released a whole new updated interface on the iPad. Many teachers use Blogger (blogspot) for classroom blogs. The updated app makes it easy to quickly upload photos with a brief dialogue to post, keeping your blog easily updated in a short amount of time. Other added features include changing photo resolution sizes.

My last "update" on "updates" is Bump.  Bump is a free app that we've looked at for ways of sharing pictures between devices or "bumping" photos to a computer. Their last update has added the ability to bump audio, video, or documents as well. It's an easy way to share items without emailing.   Students do need to create an account in order to bump.  

Augmented Reality: an Alternative to QR Codes?

Over the past year we have seen QR Codes make a mark in the classroom as an easy way to send students to a site, make interactive book talks, share information with parents at Open House, among many other uses.  But what is augmented reality (AR) and how does it match up for classroom use?


From dictionary.com:
augmented reality - noun - an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer-generated data.

String - Free for iPhone and iPad 

Proto - example from String 

My first experience (other than on TV) was seeing a couple of our teachers play with String at our Regional Ed Tech Cadre.  This app works by printing images, called targets, already made by the company from www.poweredbystring.com.  This is a showcase app for the company but is a great way to demonstrate to students what AR is and the possibilities. Of the four examples, the targets demonstrate some of the more advanced features and capabilities that AR can do. Print a few out and try it!

After seeing this, it lead us to spend time experimenting with a free app called Aurasma Lite.  Aurasma allows you to view ARs in a visual browser - including ones you make yourself with the app or ones that appear with their big A on products, newspaper ads, etc.  More information on Aurasma can be found on their website.  

Aurasma Lite - Free for both iPhone and iPad

Making my own was pretty fast and easy.  The app includes some preloaded (and fun) 3D animations,  but for the classroom the biggest tool was being able to make a target show a video that I created.   While practicing, I made the power outlet in my room into a train depot (from the preloaded choices) and the room number on our door be a target for a video that I had created on my ipad.

Advantages to AR was that I could create a target and upload my own video all within the one app and device.  I didn't have to have an external place (like youtube) or print out my QR code.  I just used the pictures in my room.  AR is more limiting than QR Codes for what I can make it display - only videos and slideshows - unless you have time and expertise to create 3D diagrams and animations.  Possibilities though to add a new intractability with the students' surroundings: 
Interactive word walls with video definitions?  View video instructions at classroom centers?  Reading Rainbow book talks with book cover as target?  Any other ideas?

Check out how students and teachers are using AR:
Augmented Reality in Education:  Shaw Wood Primary School  
Bringing Augmented Reality to Life - in the classroom and the workplace

Other AR Experience Apps:
AR Flashcards - Animal Alphabet   For iPhone and iPad  $0.99 (print off 26 animal flashcards to use with app)
The Amazing Spiderman AR - For iPhone and iPad Free (interacts with targets from their website) 
AR Soccer - for iPhone and iPad $1.99  (play with a virtual soccer ball)