STOP MOTION: Our Educational Message

As our blog suggests, we are totally into ICT-Supported EFL teaching. So, last weekend I messaged Brentson and suggested we do some Stop-Motion activity. He loved the idea, so we went to work on our creative process.  We felt that a message or messages from the students about their year in prep-for-high school would make a great start.  We wanted to help them out by honing in on what is passionate for them and in that respect we chose: ICT, Learning English & Education in general.

I have wanted to do some Stop-Motion activities for two years now, and I knew this was the right time to introduce it. Here is what we came up with:

Step ONE

Download to your iphone or ipad the free (incredibly so) app: iMotion HD

Get accustomed to the very simple interface.  Press "New Movie", give the movie a name, press "Manual" and start shotting your stop-motion short

Here is an introduction to the activity using another app, TOUCHCAST, that we have written about before. This one though utilizes the GREEN SCREEN function (only on iphone 5s and ipadAIR), and allows you to put anything you want in the background.

STEP TWO

We decided to have the students consider the THREE categories: ICT-Education; EDUCATION in general; LEARNING English. In order to get the students properly excited about the content as well as the quirky tech and possible outcome with the Stop-Motion videos, we felt it best to come up with the statements for two of the categories, and let them do the third.  Since Learning English is the primary objective this year, Brentson and I thought this would be the easiest for them to come up with a statement.

Here are some examples of these videos.  They are extremely short, around 5-7 secs each, but you can get the idea of how cool the activity is.  This took up most of the day and that meant, 7 periods!!!!  Brentson and I were exhausted by the end, since technology and activities like this brings out the best and the worst in teenagers.  Even though we gave them something to do while they waited to do the work, they couldn't help themselves misbehaving, making too much noise and basically moving off task.  It meant a lot of policing from us, which, as you know, is extremely exhausting. I was in bed last night by 9.30!!

We have twenty short videos that have been made into one long video with music.  This is what we can do, as teachers, using iMotion software and ICT-in-ELT...

We know that these are not the best efforts our students (and us) could have done.  But, as teachers, we are playing into the "practice makes perfect" and "never give up" philosophies.  This form of scaffolding allows students to see how they can do better next time, and we have instructed them that now they have the basics for growth, they can do their own projects for other department teachers and perhaps their own English Portfolio at the end of the year.