Alternatives to Book Reports – A Post Inspired By My Daughter
My five-year-old daughter has a healthy obsession with the According to Humphrey the Hamster series of books. She got one of the books for Christmas and we’ve been reading through the entire series since then. Last week I came home from a bike ride and she couldn’t wait to show me her latest art project! […]
Three Ideas for Green Screen Video Projects
Making green screen videos can be a good way to engage students in researching and planning. That research and planning is fundamental to making a good video. The video is the reward at the end of the process. There are many things that students can do with green screen video production tools. Here are three […]
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival – Videos Based on Newbery Winning Books
Thanks to one of the great teachers that I am working with at Sigsbee Charter School I learned about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. The festival is really a contest that is organized by YA author James Kennedy. The purpose of the contest is to encourage students to create short videos based on Newbery-winning books. […]
Four Things Students Need to Create Book Trailer Videos
This is an update of a blog post that I published about 16 months ago. The concepts are the same, but some of the resources have been updated. Creating book trailer videos is a great alternative to a traditional written book report assignment. In a book trailer video students highlight their favorite elements of a […]
Typito – Simple, But Not Too Simple, Video Editing
Typito is a good tool for creating simple videos. Typito is designed for making audio slideshows like those you might have made in the old YouTube photo slideshow tool or with Animoto. Typito offers a bit more control over the editing process than Animoto does. To get started on Typito you upload a picture or […]
Two Ways to Create Book Trailers on Chromebooks – Video Demonstration
A book trailer is a short video designed to entice someone else to read a book that you enjoyed. Having your students create book trailer videos is a nice alternative to the typical book report assignment. I’ve previously shared an outline of the elements needed to create a book trailer video. Earlier this week someone […]
The Four Things Students Need to Create Good Book Trailers
Creating book trailer videos is a great alternative to a traditional written book report assignment. In a book trailer video students highlight their favorite elements of a story and try to entice viewers to read the book themselves. Much like a movie trailer that tries to get viewers to watch the full movie, a book […]
How to Create a Book Trailer Video
Creating a book trailer video can be a great alternative to writing a book report. To create a good book trailer video students will have to make a list of highlights of a book and arrange them into proper sequence. Students should also include commentary on why they liked a book and why someone else […]