App of the week

Green Screen by Do Ink 

You know how I always talk about my favourite app...well this one really is my favourite........at this moment in time!

This app allows you to create special effects that make your movie's more exciting.

There's a little bit of prep work and some other resources you will need before you can start making your movie using the Green Screen App, but don't worry I will walk you through it.

Resources

• iPad obviously!
• Green Screen by Do Ink App
• Keynotes App
• Camera function or Safari
• Green Cloth (Sellotape to stick it to the wall)
• Chair
• Book

Prep Work 

I stuck the green piece of cloth on a flat wall in a room that was well lit.

I then took a movie of Corleen, our librarian talking about one of her favourite books from the school library using the camera function on my iPad. I made sure that she was sitting on the right hand side of the green screen, so that when I put my images up on the left hand side she would not be blocking them.

Note! if you are using your iPad to film, then make sure the person you are filming is talking quite loudly as the speakers on the iPad are not great at picking up sound from even shortest of distances.

Your next step will be to prepare your backgrounds. I've created these by taking pictures of some of the images from the book Corleen is reading or I could even search for them using safari and save them directly to my camera roll.

How to create your backgrounds 

Im going to give you 3 options to choose from

Option 1

1. Open up the Keynotes app (I use keynotes because it gives you the perfect background size) 
2. Insert your image, I have chosen a pale blue background for the slide, you can choose any except for Green. 
3. I have placed the image to the left because I want my movie of Corleen to sit on the right hand side. 
4. You can create as many backgrounds as you want or need (see image below)

    5.  Once you have created all your backgrounds press the play button to see the slides in          full size, take a screen print of all the slides, your screen print should look like this.                These screen prints will automatically save themselves onto your camera roll.

Option 2

You can insert images from your camera roll directly into the Green Screen app and resize it to fit the frame. But sometimes the images can get distorted, so be aware of that when using this option to create backgrounds.

Making your Special Effects Movie using Green Screen.

This is the fun bit! watch the movie tutorial to see how to use the Green Screen App and create special effects.

See below for the finished movie

Option 3

You can also insert a movie into the background too. To create my iMovie, I saved images to my camera roll opened up the iMovie App and inserted the images and added some audio from the sound effects option, you are free to use all the different options within the iMovie App to jazz up your movie as much as you want....but I've kept mine simple. Once your happy with the finished movie, export it to your camera roll and voila! you are free to insert it as a background in the Green Screen App.

Some examples of Green Screen Movies made for Grade 2 students talking about the explorers they had researched.

Have a go, its super easy!

PYP

Using QR Codes in Maths

Students in Grade 2 were asked to create some maths problems. Once the problems were created the teacher Ms Javaid created QR Codes that gave the correct answer to the problem.

The QR Codes were cut out and placed into each individual math problem booklet. The booklets were handed out based on ability to students who would then go on to solve the problem.

To check if they got the answer correct the students had to scan the bar-code using their iPad and QR Code Scanner App.

Watch the movie to see the activity in action.

If you would like to try this out for yourself, please refer to the lesson plan below for guidance.

Maths Lesson 1

LO: To be able to write word problems with addition and subtraction and use technology to check understanding

Lesson: Students will begin by drafting a number story on lined A-5 paper. Each story must have either an addition or subtraction element. The students will write their answer on the back side of the draft. For the final draft students are to rewrite their stories using the A-5 template ensuring there are a minimum number or spelling or grammatical errors and the numbers in the stories are clearly written out. Students may illustrate their stories.

Teacher will create QR codes for students to place inside their mini books.

Maths Lesson 2

LO: To be able to write word problems with addition and subtraction and use technology to check understanding

Lesson: Students will try to work out one another's stories and check their answers using their iPads with the QR Code reader app.

Plenary:Discussion about the most difficult or challenge word problem.

Groups: Ability based for Lesson 1 and mixed for lesson 2.

The Inquiry Cycle - Tuning in

Padlet in Grade 2

Using Padlet, students recorded what they think the unit of inquiry, How the World Works, means. This initial tuning in activity will be revisited at the end of the unit to record what they have understood.

Add caption

With so many ways of sharing the content, QR codes is also one of the options. The below code is posted in the classroom for the students to scan and discuss as they move through the inquiry cycle and see how their initial thinking has changed.

QR Code

Here we are once again using QR Codes to engage student's in their own learning journey.

Student prior knowledge was recorded by asking if them if they knew what the composition of the Earth meant. Their responses were captured on post-it notes as well as with iMovie and uploaded to YouTube.

http://youtu.be/E-Q0xSvEDwY

Next, using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

a code was made and then printed using a word processor.

Students scanned the code using Qrafter and then by clicking on the cc for sound on YouTube after pressing play.

There you are, one more way of empowering and scaffolding student understanding!

PYP

Trading Cards

Trading Cards, this is a very unlikely learning tool, but wait till you see its potential. 

Go to PYP to see how this tool was used in a Grade 2 lesson.