Oh the Places You'll Go: Using Green Screens in the Classroom

One of my technology goals for the year was to try and use green screens in my classroom. I was blessed to watch David Tchozewski present a session on green screens at MACUL last year. I was both excited to try this fairly simple technology, and I was, admittedly, a little confused how something like this could fit into the year. Was it just a novelty or could it have a purposeful role in the classroom? Let me first show you what I have tried and then follow it up with some reflections.

Willy Wonka Goes High Tech

Each year, I have hosted a Willy Wonka themed Summer Reading Incentive. Students reading 20 minutes each day throughout the summer, fill in "Wonka Bars" and earn their chance to attend a special event at the end of August at school. Part of this event has historically included a photo booth. This year, I decided to do the photo booth with a green screen. 

My goal was to have every kid stand in front of the green screen so that I could superimpose a picture of each of them standing in front of a retro photo of the original cast of the first Wonka Movie. The results were great. Here are some pictures from the day:

Here is a Dollar Store tablecloth taped to the wall. The kids took turns standing in front of it and smiling.

A Sweet Celebration for a Super Reader

"Who invited you?"

A Super Hero Welcome to the Year

This year I decided on a super hero theme for the start of the year. I thought this would be the perfect time to try out using the video features of this app. I started by setting up a green screen "booth" in my backyard for the flying scene.

Getting ready for me to fly. My patient wife was likely wondering what I had gotten myself into this time.

I taped two Dollar Store tablecloths to the fence in my backyard and draped one over a bench.

I shot a few different flying angles because I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. Later  I took some footage at school and then went home and compiled all of the clips together. Here is the end result.

Hello from Mr. Helder from Brandon Helder on Vimeo.

Admittedly, this video is ridiculous. It is not educational. However, I believe that it had an important purpose. More than any other video I have created in the past, there was an outpouring of excitement surrounding this clip. The response from kids and parents alike was very positive, and it was clear that students were even more excited about the year ahead. 

2nd Grade Super Powers

Continuing our theme of super heroes, I decided to take a picture of each kid every day for the first week of school. While we were eating lunch in our room, I had the students come up one at a time and pose for a photo. Each one displayed a super power - super speed, super strength, and the ability to fly. We decided to keep these pictures a secret and shared them with the parents on the last day of the week. They turned out great, and it was so fun to see pictures being shared between friends and family on social media. Check some of them out by clicking the thumbnails below.

Tips and Tricks

 As I worked with the app, I learned a few things that I think will be helpful to you:

• The tighter the green screen is, the better it works. If there are lots of folds in the fabric, they show up in the picture.
• If kids wear green, some really funny things happen. I had a couple t-shirts on hand that were of a different color so that we didn't have any floating heads.
• While the Dollar Store tablecloths worked great, I don't think they are going to last forever. If I am going to do this with regularity, I would invest in a nicer piece of cloth or even paint one of my bulletin boards green. I've seen that some teachers have had a lot of success with green shower curtains as they are all ready to hang. There are many nicer and more expensive green screen solutions online as well.

Going Further

So far, I have only really scratched the surface of what this app can do. While I'm curious to see where this will pop up in the year ahead, I do have a few ideas for how you might take this a step further:

• News Reports: There are some great "picture in picture" and "on the scene" camera tricks you can accomplish with this app. I could see kids live at a famous historical event, a scene from a book or a Bible story. 
• Tour Guide: This could be a great way to give parents and students a tour of your website. With your website in the background, you could point to where they can find various announcements, documents or schedules.
• Weather Report: If you are studying the weather, using this app seems like a no brainer.
• Say Cheese: For older students, you could leave this out as a photo booth during a classroom party. Kids could get their picture in the north pole or in front of a cheesy Christmas card scene.
• Art Comes Alive: There are some great pictures of kids screaming in Edvard Munch's "Scream" or standing with a shovel in their own "American Gothic." This could be a really fun, really techy addition to an upper elementary or middle school art curriculum.

Getting Started: Simple Guides for Using Green Screens

The people at DoInk are awesome. I strongly encourage you to follow them on Twitter @DoInkTweets. They post lots of great ideas each day.  Feel free to connect with them in the way that works the best for you.

Link to App in AppStore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/green-screen-by-do-ink/id730091131?mt=8
Link to their website: http://www.doink.com
Link to their blog:  http://blog.doink.com/
Link to their demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekX1mDt6QNY
Link to their Pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.com/doink0040/

They were also very generous in sharing some great resources for how to make the most of their app. Also, check out these great tutorials. It's everything you need to know to get started:

How to Use Two Videos to make a Green Screen movie + Save to Camera Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izVwOxSV5BA&feature=youtu.be
Change image size, position and orientation: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLtFZeWewko&feature=youtu.be
Crop images, videos and live camera 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UopiTOoA_7s
Masking tool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQUUNmd3aco&feature=youtu.be
How to Use all Three Layers 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4YVqbaWoDU