Green Screen-It takes a Village

In attempt to introduce my students to what winter is like in other parts of the country we read books and reached out to ask for help. That help came from a student in O’Neill, Nebraska, Emily Morrow. She, with her family’s help, took the time to create a podcast that showed us what a winter in Nebraska was really like. For her podcast she used a green screen effect and it inspired us to attempt to do the exact same thing. I had played a little bit with the green screen feature in PhotoBooth, but had never spent any real time creating anything with it. My thoughts entering this project were a bit naive and I realized about five minutes into it that I should have done a little bit of research before starting. After attempting the effect in different places in the room and different random lighting set ups I realized I needed serious help. Which meant it was time to throw the questions out on Twitter. There I received (as I have several times before) some much needed guidance from Michelle Bourgeois in Colorado and she sent me to Wonder How Website. She and that website really got me headed in the right direction. After that, I head to a local hardware store for some inexpensive lighting equipment. I hit the jackpot at the hardware store too, Greg, who waited on me was a photographer and Mac user. Which was wonderful, because he not only understood what we were trying to do he knew how to do it. So based on all the advice I had received, I bought three clamp lamps and three true color-light bulbs. From there, all that was left for us to do was set things up and we were good to go.

Overall, the activity was a big success with my students and got great reviews from parents. In fact, several of the parents sent our link to relatives around the country, which of course made the kids feel like they were celebrities. I have heard it said,"that it takes a village to raise a child," and that statement is most likely true. However, through this experience, I was once again reminded, that it takes a village to educate the students that enter my classroom.
So thanks again Emily Morrow (and family), Michelle Bourgeois, Wonder How Website, Greg- from the hardware store and of course Apple.


Students' Project
Winter In Florida 2010