Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Web 2.0: Kidblog

Okay, so I made a movie.  It won't been receiving an Academy award, but I plan on showing at least 30 students getting ready to use the Kidblog website.  This instructional video was created to introduce students to the concept of blogging.

I created a few scenes, screencasts, and wandering journals to engage students.  The video is a little longer than normal because their is a parallel story to the screencast.  In general, students are introduced to:
  1. Navigating through the Kidblog control panel, 
  2. Creating a Post,
  3. Uploading Media (Pictures and Video),
  4. Creating Hyperlinks,
  5. Publishing Posts, and
  6. Making Comments on other posts.
Before filming, I started with a plan.  I created a storyboard and then a script.  The storyboard was created with a Power Point template, and the script was written in the comments section.

I also created a brief teacher's guide for using the video and working with blogs in the classroom. You can view this document below.


Attack of the Zombie Journal

This is the whole video with acting.  It's in black and white to give that old-Zombie-Movie feel.  Additionally, it shows the separation between the two mediums for writing.  Then, the screencasts are in color, which makes the instructional portions standout.  Take a peek and tell me what you think.



Zombie Journal Screencasts

Now, this one is the same movie as the one above.  However, the "fat" have been trimmed, and students could use this one to re-watch the instructional video.  Just in case they forgot how-to complete a basic blogging task.  Again, let me know what you think with the  comments section.  Would you use this for your students using Kidblogs?