iMovie Trailers on the iPads

Digital Storytelling is a pretty hot topic right now and there are so many tools and resources out there for creating Digital Stories. Many are web based and there are lots and lots of apps. Some of the iPads apps we are using include Shadow Puppet EDU, 30 Hands, Videolicious, StoryKit, or Animoto.

One of the other tools teachers and students have used is the iMovie Trailer feature to create digital stories in our 1:1 iPad classrooms. iMovie trailers are much like movie trailers that you would see at a movie theater prior to viewing a movie. They are used to entice you to want to see an upcoming movies.

iMovie's Trailer feature is very similar. These are short videos created using a variety of different available templates. Usually iMovie Trailers showcase an event or happening in someone's life, such as a special vacation, graduation, or birthday. I created a couple of iMovie Trailers as Father's Day presentations for my husband and son!

Teachers could create an iMovie Trailer as a way to build background for students or as a "hook" to spark interest in a topic. Here are a couple of examples:

https://youtu.be/aARZxMywIu0
https://youtu.be/lmcJcFjSlDc

Students can create trailers to showcase their learning or understanding of a topic, as an alternative to a written book repot, biography of a famous person or highlights of an historical event. Trailers can address a wide variety of content areas.

At a recent conference, we shared information about digital storytelling and iMovie Trailers. Attendees at the session also had an opportunity to create one of their own. In order to help facilitate the creation, we came up with a topic and provided photos and video clips for attendees to use. The creations were as varied at the attendees themselves! Here is a model of a Saguaro Cactus iMovie Trailer: https://youtu.be/P8fchEmvf3Y

Here are the resources used for the presentation: https://goo.gl/fTGtac

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Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.

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T. A. G. Strategy

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