Technology: Stop Motion

I have been thinking about way's that I have integrated technology into the classroom that would be interesting for all ages. I was thinking about my method courses and then thinking about what I did during student teaching. DUH! Stop motion, the kids love it! I did it during my methods and did it with my jr. high students. I'm telling ya now, this made a turning point in my student teaching on how those jr. high students viewed me. One: they get to use their cell phones (I did this because it wasn't a one to one school, meaning they don't have their own technology) two: you can have them create it over anything. In my methods course we did a story and created each of the characters, thought out what each character would say, do, the setting. We did it as a class effort and then used our professors iPad. That is the collaborative way. You can have individual ones, teams, or a whole class. It depends on your classroom establishment and what you expect them to do.

This is an example one I created in my methods:

This video was created using the app pic pac on an android phone (it is free!). It is a great app for the android for this project. This app allows you to have an onion filter. An onion filter is where it allows you to have a ghost image of the previous picture taken so that you know exactly where you were in the prior photo.  

 Here is an example of a student that was very excited about the project:

 

This video was created using an iPhone with the stop motion studio app. Different than the onion filter you can have a grid that will help you  keep track of where you want the photo to go. I advise to use a stand/tripod with this one though because it is so hard to keep still with every picture.

Now what if you don't have a phone, tablet, etc. you can still create a stop motion. You will have to use a camera and a video editing system. This is much harder than using the app. One it'll take twice the amount of time, if not longer, and two you would have to have access to computers with editing systems. I am sure there is a website you can use for free too, I just do not know of them. If you don't trust your students to use one tablet you can take the pictures and have them move the pieces. OR you can apply for a grant. Grants are amazing and help teachers with bettering their classroom. Donor choose is a huge grant system that I know of. It may be a lot of work but hey teaching isn't easy.

Last thoughts:

1) Great for any and all subjects

2) Can easily be done with the advancement of technology

3) Your students will LOVE you and the project

**Shout out to Marshall McLuhan on what would be 106th birthday. This post goes right along with what his studies were about.