Screen Recording an iOS device

I have had a few questions about how to screen record of an iPad. With the new OS X Yosemite upgrade it is really simple.

1. First screen share your iPad or iPhone with either Airplay, Reflector or Apple TV.

2. Open QuickTime and select New Screen Recording.

3. You can either select the whole screen or highlight a part of the screen.

4. Start record.

5. When completed click close QuickTime and it will allow you to save your screen record to the desktop.

6. You can now import to iMovie, edit the clip and add audio and titles.

Students Creating their Homework

In our second Smack Down the brief was ‘share an App or Program or Website that assists you with your home learning’. One of the websites that was shared was a French website called Apprendre Memoriser that that was made up of  short clips of cartoons or animations that told a story of each time table with the goal of helping children remember difficult times tables. While most students thought it was just a funny cartoon, I could see real connections with helping dyslexic students learn their timetables.

One of the kids said “Can we make some?”

“We just don’t have the time this week”

“It could be our homework”, said another.

So I replied, “Sure, but it is an optional homework task and you can choose how you want to present your stories”.

So far we have had two movies, a poster, a story and a picture book all telling the tale of a times table. It has been great to see the class challenge themselves to make improve animations, apply their creativity and to drive their own home learning.

The story below is…

Two cars were traveling too fast and lost control. The first car hit the 3 squashing it into a 2 and the second car hit the 7 causing it to break off and form a 1, thus 3X7 is 21.

Green Screen App

I just downloaded Green Screen App and I am in love. Chroma Key / Green Screen / Blue Screen programs have always been not that good or really expensive, but this is easy to use and will only cost you a few dollars in the App Store.

Here is a quick 20 second video that I made by taping a piece of green paper to the wall and grabbing a bit of Lego. I got the background image from Google and I added the lasers with Gun Movie FX (Another great special effects app).

The interface is really easy to use and you are able to layer three videos/images. Classroom applications are limited only by a students imagination. I can already see students adding themselves to historical footage in a history presentation.

Watch the video, download the app and give it a go 🙂

Animating Poetry

As the class walked in today I was greeted with 1/3 less than normal due to a flu that is doing the rounds, so the lesson that was planned needed a bit of tweaking and I thought it was the right time to try a lesson that I had been planning but not had the chance to try. I have used iStopmotion a lot and used it to assess students understanding of the water cycle (Click link to article I wrote about it for the iStopmotion Blog), but I have wanted the opportunity to see how students would react to adding visuals to their poetry and making their poems into a performance piece or a short video clip. There were several ways we could have done this, but I thought that by starting in iStopmotion then finishing in iMovie we could have a lot of fun.

So with a slight twist, my 5 minute paired warmup on emotions became the focus for the lesson and the lesson that was planned was pushed back to tomorrow and we went with the Emotions vs Feelings short poem, but added the need to add some visuals.

As per usual, after a quick brainstorm of ideas, a look at a writing model and a student generated set of intentions I let the kids get on with it. As per usual i answered many questions with “I’m not sure?” or “Go ask them, I think they are doing something like that…” and off the kids went. I have to admit that I am blessed with a focused and creative bunch and it was a joy to see them create and problem solve and do things in ways that I just do not think of. Below is the example created by my Student Teacher, which I thought was a good model of what it could look like if you wanted to do this in you class and below that is one of the kids creations (Year 5) and a good example of what a 9 year old boy associates with the emotion of discusted.

All in all a lot of fun and great way to integrate ICT in a Literacy lesson.

1:25 iPad Classroom – A Creative Model

There are so many truly lucky classes out there in the world of education where every child walks in with a device of their own. It may be that the school is BYOD, runs a 1:1 iPad or laptop programme or just well resourced.

Once the network upgrade reaches the school that I am at and we have ultra fast broadband we will look into BYOD as the majority of our students have devices of their own. My class is well resourced with an Interactive Whiteboard, desktop PC, 8 Netbooks, cameras, Flip-cameras, microphones and 1 iPad.

It is that one iPad that has been the focus of my learning the past 6 months. At first I played, then I let the students play, then I researched, then we played some more. I gave a workshop at a conference in Invercargill in the holiday on the topic (Slides Below) and still I am redefining my understanding of its best use, but I have come to one constant across the whole learning journey – if you can do it on a computer or on paper with the same ease and effect, then you should.  There are too many amazing things to do with an iPad to be working at the Substitution level.  Ok, if you are 1:1 and going paperless, then kudos to you and some of what you do will be at all levels of the SAMR spectrum, but if you have 1 or 2 or even 10 iPads and they are being used predominantly for maths and spelling games (and it might not be you, but many are) then you need to rethink your approach.

So 1:25 iPads to students…

• Gorilla Blogging- Capturing events as they happen and through Wifi share them with your parents, community and whanau. (Blogger, WordPress, KidBlog)
• Movies – Your ipad is a one stop camera, audio, editing and publishing device.  It could be for getting the students to share a visit or a trip, explain their learning, create a documentary, a news article, your own TV station or just having the opportunity to create a movie for the sake of a movie.
• Share the learning – Using Explain everything or Screen Chomp or Show me or Notability as a mini white board that records the students learning visually and their spoken word so that they can show their understanding or share with another or upload to their blog.
• Spice up a School Journal Play and have the opportunity to share it with Grandma in Germany – Puppet Pals, Toontastic or Sock Puppets with any School Journal or play book.
• Things that can be embedded – Create then share on your Blog, Wiki or Website with quick embed codes. (YouTube, Vimeo, Haiku Deck, SoundCloud, AudioBoo, Explain Everything)
• SOCIAL MEDIA! Ok, you can do this through computers as well, but on an iPad there is no need for the constant passwords and the such. It is Imperative that we introduce our students to social media in a safe, scaffold environment.  Our Students are digital natives who use devices intuitively, but do not have the cognitive development to understand the consequences of their actions – most teachers are digital immigrants who have had huge learning curves around technology, but do understand what the reaction will be of our actions.

In conclusion, I view an iPad as the ultimate creation device within a classroom, but not the only; we must remember that not a single iPad App was created on an iPad.  I pose that  if Bill Gates was provided with an iPad at school, not a second hand Teletype 33, we might not have the computers that we have today.

1to25 i pads in the classroom from dukelyer

Technology – Create, not stagnate

On the news last week there was a fantastic sensationalist piece on the 7pm curent affairs news bagging technology and our children’s addiction to it.  It was the holidays, it was a high interest topic and there were some key points, but their solution of take away the technology irked me, as it did nothing to address the issue of children sitting all day long with eyes glued to screens and just brushed it under the carpet.

Do not get me wrong, I feel that there is a place for Angry Birds and Temple Run and other such games, but iPods, iPads and Android devices offer so much more. Hence my new catch phrase with mobile technology…

Create, not Stagnate.

In my class of 25 seven and eight year olds over 75% have an iPod or iPad of their own at home, so I simply thought “What would a bored Peter Jackson have done in the school holidays if his first camera was an iPod not a Super 8?”.

Using a couple of Apps that cost me less than $10NZ I set out to see how much fun I could have with Lego, 20 minutes and an iPad (since discovered that all of it could be created on an iPod or iPhone as well).

1.  In Action Movie, choose the effect and Film, then save to camera roll.

2.  Open Gun Movie FX and import previous clip from the camera roll. Add Laser or Gun effects to the clip and then, once again, save to Camera Roll.

3.  Open iMove and, surprise, import from Camera Roll. Edit clip, add sound track, dub in voices, clip and move all the files around until you have it just right.

4.  Finally, upload your final product to Vimeo or YouTube.

Now is that not a better way for you or your child to spend an hour.  Do not take away the technology, just use it in a creative and collaborative way.

In 5 minutes I had this uploaded to Vimeo…

7 second Tutu from Dukelyer on Vimeo.

And in 25 Minutes I had this uploaded to Vimeo…

Should Be Working from Dukelyer on Vimeo.

So what could your children come up with in an afternoon?