Thing 25: Green Screen Fun

Wow, was this one challenging and rewarding all at the same time. When I went to ISTE this summer, I acquired an idea for creating book talks using a green screen, from a very creative librarian (I wish I wrote down her name). In addition to losing her name, I also lost all my information on it. So, that left me dragging my feet to get started. Thankfully this assignment energized me to try and explore it on my own.

We recently received a new order of books into the library and I wanted to let students know to stop down and check them out. I thought that it would be helpful to create a short video where I would interact with a popular book character and briefly discuss some of the high interest books that came in the book order. I easily arrived at the decision to use "Pigeon" as my character because both the younger and older students love him. I started by taking a picture of pigeon from a poster I had hanging in the library (although you could use the book as well to capture a picture). I then inserted that picture into an app called, Chatterbox to make a short video of pigeon talking. You could also use ChatterPix if you prefer. This step was simple and took less than a minute.

The next steps were what would prove to be challenging, simply because I wasn't savvy with the app I chose to use. I anticipate it will continue to get easier in the future. I ended up using the app, DoInk, which I have used before, but not to create a video with the amount of layers I needed. Adding the video of pigeon was simple, but the challenge lied in getting me in the video with pigeon. Here are the steps that I followed in case anyone is interested in trying it on their own:

• I  started by taking a picture for the backdrop. In this case took a picture of a bookshelf in my library. I added this picture to the bottom layer in DoInk (which has three layers). 
• I then added the video I made of pigeon (in ChatterBox) to the top layer in DoInk. 
• I needed to then edit the picture of pigeon so that I could make the background of the picture transparent. I clicked on the mask tool on the toolbar, selected the magic wand tool and touched on the part of the picture I wanted to make opaque. For anything it made opaque that I  didn't not want to be opaque, I had to fill in with the paint brush tool. This takes only a few minutes. 

• Then I took a picture of pigeon, the same picture I used for the pigeon video I made in ChatterBox, and added it to the top layer in DoInk, right after the video. This would allow the video to transition from Pigeon talking to me talking. 
• I repeated the same steps as above to make the background around pigeon opaque. 
• After I had the backdrop and image of pigeon set, I needed to record a video of me where it looked like I was talking to pigeon. 
• This is the part that proved to be a challenge. You need be positioned just right in front of the green screen and you need a patient person recording who is willing to record and record until you get it right. 
• This section needs to go in the middle layer- which took me several attempts to learn.  
• The timing of it can be tricky, my best suggestion is to wait at least 2 seconds after the countdown on the screen is done before starting to record, otherwise it seems to cut off the beginning to your sentence. 
• After you're done, it gives you the option to save it. At this point you need to save it to your camera roll. 

Although this process is a little challenging and tedious it does appeal to the students. They really LOVE it! Since I was so excited to get their reaction and feedback, I immediately shared my video with the Kindergarteners. They kept asking me to show it again and again. I posted the video on all my social media feeds and can't wait to see if anyone leaves feedback. 

The next step is to have our sixth graders do their next books this way. Although, I think I am just going to have them have their characters talk the first time they attempt to make them, and not have the back and forth dialogue. I will be sure to share their final products!

Thing 26: Media Skills

I love this kind of stuff! I truly think that the creative use of media can be one of the most effective ways to market your library program and the wonderful things that happen in and out of your library space. When I first started reading through the introduction of this "thing" and the "photos in education" ideas that followed, I was set on how I would apply this activity to student learning. However, once I got to the learning activity ideas, I became self-indulged in the new tools and how I can use them to help market programs and activities that are happening in the library.

I started off by playing with Collage Maker in BeFunky. It was interesting because it didn't not require me to login and allowed me to quickly build media for a variety of templates using my own photos or photos from Pixabay or Upsplash (which I had never heard of). This tool was easy to use and much like Canva, although it had fewer free options and designs. It was simple to drag and drop, edit text, font, and save to a variety of options, including Google Drive 

I was excited to try out the template that allowed me to add a header to my YouTube channel. I made my original header in less than 5 minutes and was super excited about the ease of it. Then I quickly
ran into trouble. When I tried to upload my header to my channel, it cut off half the image. This was extremely frustrating since the template was designed specifically for YouTube headers. I ended up spending another 30 minutes trying to find an image that would work for the small layout the was actually being featured in the header and working it so that it was just right. So this simple task turned into a much longer task than it needed to be.

I decided to experiment with a different feature and see how the ease of that was. I used the collage template as a way to build a graphic with photos, so that I could highlight all the students who had already finished their January Reading Resolution Challenge (featured in my last "thing."). Again this was fairly easy to use, but did lack a lot of cool options that were only available in the paid version. I became frustrated at first because the templates didn't have the amount of boxes that I needed and it seemed that only the paid version would shuffle them to work for the number of photos I had. After much exploring though, I discovered that I could start with more boxes and just delete the ones I didn't use. I played with all the features and tried to add banners and icons, but they were extremely limited in options. I decided to try and use the "photo editor" tool, but besides allowing me to alter the brightness, shadows, etc. I didn't have many options. As a result, I ended up with a basic collage, which looked good, but I didn't feel was as "eye-captivating" as I would have liked. Nonetheless, I was able to create a collage that I put on my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

I will definitely use this tool again to highlight my readers who reach their goals for the "Reading Resolution." It is a quick way to build a collage and post immediately. For anything that I want to look a little more professional though, I will stick with Canva. I can also see myself using it with my primary age students to build graphics and introduce basic media skills with.