Green Screen Activities

A green screen was recently set up in our library. The use of green screens in television and movies is everywhere and allows all kinds of neat special effects. One of the most common uses of green screen technology in television involves the local weather report. The meteorologists are filmed in front of a green screen and the color is keyed out, making it transparent. Then, an image, like a weather map, is added. This technology allows people to appear in front of virtual backgrounds.

Now, why was this up in the library and what does it have to do with education? We are always looking for fun ways for students to share their learning and integrate technology into the curriculum. Rather than simply write a report or make a poster about something they've learned, the green screen allows students to be transformed to new places, share their ideas, or simply have fun talking about a favorite book. So far, the green screen has been used with kindergarten students all the way up to 4th graders. Below are some of the projects involving our green screen and Ixonia students.

The first thing that's needed is a green backdrop. There are fancy, expensive green screen kits, but in our library, we simply have a piece of green cloth, found at a local fabric shop, attached to a wall where there is good lighting. Two different applications were used when created the videos below. For the kindergarten videos, the students were recorded in front of the green screen using in iPad. In addition, pictures were taken of the pages of the books. Then, the pictures and videos were imported into iMovie, video editing software available on a Mac, and edited together for the final product.

For the other videos, everything was done on an iPad. The app, Green Screen by Do Ink, was used. This $2.99 app is very easy to use and allows students to create individual videos by adding their own images or video as the backdrop. Only images were used so far, but students can record themselves with a video clip playing in the background. Perhaps, that's something students will choose to do in the future. The first grade book recommendation videos were completed as individual videos and combined into a longer video using the free iMovie app on the iPad.

Mrs. Muroni's first graders recently wrote book recommendations. As a way to share those recommendations, the students shared their thoughts about their favorite books on the videos below.

The third graders are studying countries and are sharing their information in a variety of ways. Some of the students chose to create a video with images from their country as the backdrop. In the video below, students used a picture of the capital building as their background while they shared information about the country.

The fourth graders wrapped up their unit of study on immigration and shared out their learning a couple of weeks ago. Russel, one of the students, wrote his own rap song about immigration and made a video using the green screen. Check out his video below.