Searching for ways to spice up your lesson plan and add excitement to your classroom? Or to inspire more creativity and interaction amongst your students? How about a fresh and modern way to enrich a lesson and make it more interesting and engaging for your students?
Digistars makes it easy for parents or teachers to add movie making to the school curriculum!
Each Digistars program comes complete with lesson plans, instructional videos, guided lectures, and handouts, as well as sample videos to view and analyze together with the class. There are even teacher training courses available, to get teachers up to speed before they step into the classroom, or direct-to-student video “camps” that don’t even need a teacher to participate.
Why not add moviemaking to your teaching toolkit?
Moviemaking, or digital storytelling, offers an easy-to-follow scaffolding to support the study of any topic. Envision your students making short documentaries about famous scientists, or live action films where they are archaeologists exploring King Tut’s tomb using the magic of green screen technology, or even stop motion animations showing marine life. Almost any topic can be studied and presented through the movie production process.
What equipment do you need to make movies with your classes?
Thanks to rapid technological advances, making movies with students couldn’t be easier or more accessible. Much of this equipment you may already have in your school, and since movies may be made collaboratively in small groups, you may not even need a one-to-one match for every student. Movies may also be made individually at home in a virtual learning environment.
Video Recording Device and Editing Software
This can be anything from a Smart Phone or Tablet to a PowerBook, Laptop or ChromeBook. At Digistars® Make-a-Movie Workshop, we run all of our programs on iPads, because they can handle all the tasks from pre-production to filming to editing in an intuitive, easy-to-use interface with apps like iMovie, Stop Motion Studio Pro, and DoInk Green Screen. For laptop or Chromebook users, Google offers a suite of moviemaking applications online, and you may want a separate webcam for filming.
Depending on the type of movies you choose to make, there may be a few other items you may want or need:
Green Screen
Consider making live action movies using a green screen which allows students to unleash their imaginations and creativity by setting their movies anywhere. Green screens are inexpensive and can even simply be a wall painted the right shade of green.
Tripods/Stands
When filming a live action movie you may want a tripod with an attachment to hold the recording device. Using a smartphone, iPad or tablet to film a stop motion animation demands a stand to immobilize the camera during filming.
Microphone
While most video recording devices will also record audio, using a separate microphone or even just using earbuds can drastically improve sound quality.
Check out our full range of modern STEAM teaching and learning courses at Digistars and register today to embark on a journey to modernize the classroom!