Green screens, Mozilla, and Copyright Morsel

Are your students creating video projects to demonstrate their learning?  A great way to spice up their video production is to use a green screen which allows them to change the background behind them.  The easiest way to think of this is to imagine a weather forecast where the screen behind the meteorologist changes to depict the maps or weather images needed.  

Bring the green screen to your room for little or next to nothing by simply tacking up green butcher paper.  Instructions are available here.  Then get your students started making your their own dynamic movies using the directions in the video!

In an earlier blog post, I discussed the arrival of makerspaces at the Middle School Media center.  Students have been making origami projects, constructing cranes, monster trucks, and airplanes, and making a puzzle.

The intent is to offer new projects and makerspaces every 3 to 4 weeks. 

A great resource for students to practice more technology related "making" is the Mozilla Webmaker site.  Create your own account and become a mentor.  Have students make their own account to explore and save all of the many wonderful web projects available to either remix or create from scratch.

I was able to get my feet wet to explore a beginning project called Meme Maker and created the following remix of a poster.  The original poster looked like this.

Copyright Morsel by Diane Konjura

Teaching Copyright is an excellent resource for teaching about copyright to teens.  It includes curriculum that covers copyright law, fair use, and public domain.  It offers help in teens understanding their legal rights and responsibilities with respect to copyright and technology use.  In addition to the curriculum, it also includes many resources.  Consider including copyright as an integral part of teaching.