Monday, 27 July 2009

Writing Around a Video Clip

My Movie Moment is a tool designed for Father's day, though I'm not sure I would want one of these clips for a Father's Day gift! It enable you to put yourself into one of six famous film clips, simply by uploading an image of yourself. Here's one of me talking about my working day!



My Movie Moment is simple to use. You just select the clip you want to use and watch it, then click on 'Star in this Clip' and upload your photo.

Then size it so that your face fills the field using the tools on the right.

Once you have done this more the markers over the parts of the face. Click on 'Continue' and the movie should be ready.


To save your movie you click on 'Share' then either get the URL, or click 'Grab' to get an embed code.


How do we use this with students?
Much as I don't think these are great Father's day gifts or appropriate for younger learners you could use them with your students as prompts for creative writing.

Get your students to create a clip using their own image. Then they should write a story of the context surrounding the clip, i.e.
  • What's happening?
  • Who are the people?
  • Why are they there?
  • What happened before the clip?
  • What happens next?
  • etc
This is a good way to get students using contrasting time structures and tenses in a reasonably creative and imaginative way. This is likely to work better if they haven't seen the films as they won't try to rely on the film story.

They could upload their writing to a blog and add the the clip by embedding it in the blog or website page. As I said I think some of the clips could be a bit inappropriate for younger learners, so have a look at them all and check them for suitability before you get your students on the site.

I hope you find this useful and you and your students enjoy it.

Related links:
Best

Nik Peachey

No comments: