My KS4 students have been looking at trends in the periodic table.  I thought that a visualiser would be perfect for showing the reactions of the alkali metals, and for recording them to show absent students.  I tried to get the camera head into a suitable position but where it wouldn’t be at risk of jumping potassium which was easier said than done (I didn’t want to risk damaging it).  Let’s say I wasn’t very impressed.

This is typical of the still images I collected

This is typical of the video I recorded (I’ve removed the sound since it was captured using the microphone on my laptop and wasn’t much use).

I wasn’t impressed with the quality of the recorded video, and having the flexible neck on the camera didn’t allow the range of usable viewing angles that you would imagine.  My advice?  I’ve seen fellow bloggers talk about building a low cost visualiser (e.g. GlenGilchrist).  My advice is build your own – the quality of video from a home built visualiser will at worse be equal to the quality of the video I captured and would likely be much better.  As well as saving money you are more likely to be adventurous with a camera costing under £50.

BTW I’ll stick to recording my demonstrations with my Flipcam and mini-tripod!

More and more teachers are hearing about Filmclub now they have been distributing promotional material in the TES and Teachers magazine.  I found out about it by chance and can thoroughly recommend it to others.

As part of the sign-up process you are asked to attend a short induction session.  Whilst the content of this session could easily be distributed on a DVD, I came away from the session feeling enthused and motivated to introduce Filmclub in my own school and make it work.  As well as discussing the technical details of the club (ordering films, registering on the website etc.) we discussed our favourite films and the effects they have had on our lives.  Whilst I didn’t appreciate the importance of this session straight away, it soon became apparent when Filmclub was up and running in my school and students were being asked to review movies they had seen.

So what does being a member of Filmclub involve?

• Filmclub cover the cost of licensing movies to show in your school, and also provide you with a selection of films that you can order into school (distributed through Lovefilm).
• You are expected to show a film a week out of school hours (evenings work best, lunchtimes aren’t long enough)
• Students are asked to reflect on the film and write a short review (with a star rating) which appears on their website (see below)
• Filmclub provide an excellent and pupil/school friendly website which both leaders and students can use.  Leaders order films through the sites, can see movie requests and reviews from their students, and can put up announcements about upcoming films.  Students can read about upcoming screenings at the school, they can leave reviews (either just a star rating or a full review) and can request movies they would like to see (although the requests tend to be movies that they have seen before rather than something different).

• Filmclub provide promotional materials (wipe-clean advertising posters, lanyards and ID tags) to use in your own school.
• The possibility of receiving funding to support your film club, and possible speakers/visitors into your school.

My experience to date.

I initially launched film club through a school assembly and instantly grabbed the attention of both staff and students, all of whom were eager to share their favourite movies together with a reason.  The Filmclub-supplied “Power of Film” montage was enjoyed by all, and many students were eager to participate.

Students were keen to be part of the Filmclub and the website helps keep the interest between sessions (login reminders are written on member’s ID cards and clipped onto their lanyards).  Students have watched two films after school so far and interest keeps growing as word gets around.  After each film we have a discussion about the film, what we liked about it and why.  We also meet one lunchtime a week where we can watch the ends of films (when we ran out of time) and also review films shown (and upload some of these onto the website).

Less able students enjoy filming video reviews (using flip video cameras or similar), recording audio reviews (using TTS Easi-speak recorders) or simply photographing each other holding up comment cards.  These are shown on our school-wide TV system.

I’ve tried to choose movies that students wouldn’t have seen before, and have let myself be guided by the “Filmclub recommends” section on the website.  It is also possible to search for films by theme (e.g. bullying), by age range or by other criteria.

Students have been very positive about our film club and I get asked questions about upcoming films several times a week.  There are films suitable for all ages (even some with a 15 certificate) and I would imagine students from primary, secondary and special education being equally enthused by this scheme.

What next?

As well as showing movies to students, we have a few ideas of what else we can do with our film club.

• Joint parent/student screenings – to get parents into school and talking to staff
• Induction of new students – getting year 6 students in from our feeder school for a shared screening, helping familiarise them with some of students and premises.
• Oscars event – complete with red carpet and paparazzi outside, as part of an awards or celebration event.
• Linking films to special events at school – e.g. book day, poetry day, anti-bullying week

Do you run a film club at your school?  Do you have any ideas of how we can expand film club to a wider audience or involve parents?

VLC

I managed to grab several clips using VLC following these steps.  First of all enable advanced options

Then play back your video/DVD.  Click on the red button to start and stop recording.  The recorded file is saved in your documents folder.  It is possible to change the output video format, however the defaults worked fine with movie maker. [Mac users – I believe you press Shift & Command & R instead]

Unfortunately I had problems with one of the DVDs so I had to use a different method.

Handbrake and K-Lite pack.

I installed the K-Lite pack to give me codecs I would need later on.  (Without the codecs from this pack windows movie maker was not able to use the audio on captured files in AAC format).

Handbrake is simple to use, but the files it generates will probably need some editing/trimming unless you need the whole DVD.

(You can also use handbrake to convert DVDs into a format suitable for an iPod/iPhone just by changing the preset at stage 2).

That’s all there is to it.  If you are grabbing clips from DVD make sure you own the copyright or else you could get into bother!

In the past week three different groups have made use of video recording in their lessons.  Two of the groups videoed themselves – in the format of a news report on climate change, and an anti-drugs video.  Unfortunately I’m not able to show these videos outside of school but the third group however decided to video their experiments so that they could watch them again, and show them to pupils who were absent from the lesson.

This is the video they recorded (I just did the editing).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a thousand pictures.  Learners who have special needs respond well to this medium, and it can be a tremendous motivator and confidence booster.

Staff in my school have finally become confident at using digital photography, but we spend a fortune printing out photographs to put in folders that no-body looks at.   Staff members who want to keep digital copies of photographs have to pass them to our technician who stores them on an encrypted drive (as per our data protection policy).  It’s taken 10 years to get staff members using email and digital photographs, so videos may require a few more years of training before adoption!

I’d be interested to hear from anyone, especially in the special education field, who uses digital media with their classes for any purpose.  Contact me or leave a comment below.

It’s our Christmas concert this week.  My class wanted to contribute but they fall to pieces when they have to perform.  We also lack any kind of musical talent and usually end up doing some kind of acrostic or other verse.

I asked them this year if they would like to record a Christmas tune on Wii music (I was given this for my birthday earlier in the year).  The pupils jumped at the chance and between them chose the people who were going to play.

It took an afternoon of serious playing before they were able to play a tune that was recognisable.  It was also a lot of fun (you could argue that they were also developing their hand/eye coordination skills).  We saved the video in game and captured it later (we used a camcorder since it was quicker than recording to DVD and ripping off the video).

I had recorded footage of the pupils playing Wii music, and selected pupils recorded an introduction to the video.  30 minutes of transfer and editing saw the video completed ready to be played back in church.

Unfortunately this video is a special edit for YouTube with footage of the pupils removed.

I haven’t used the camera with pupils yet (many aren’t up to the task) but I’ll post again if/when I do.

Unfortunately Youtube is blocked across my educational institutions across the UK, but it is a massive video archive of popular culture and well worth a look. Youtube isn’t just for silly clips recorded on mobile phones!