Green Screenin' in the media center

Our 7th grade science students have recently been working within a weather unit where there is an emphasis to produce a video segment using green screen.  Since the first group we've managed to successfully determine the correct amount time needed to complete said project in which the students have put together information about a weather phenomena, presented the information on camera and added in footage of the weather event  behind them.

We've managed to discover a slew of issues, 90% of them stemming from the fact that we are working on equipment that is 9 years old and extremely sluggish. Our first teacher, @meyersroom, has managed to persevere and discover all the issues so that we can correct them for our next 2 teachers who are doing the project starting Tuesday, December 6th.

The project does a nice job of providing exposure to production and multimedia tools but does not allow for every student to have full access to explore a media rich product from start to finish. It seems that little time is available for teaching/sharing/showing/allowing time to explore the software the students are using, which I contribute to the fact that this is the only project in science that the students do where they would use these tools or software. If this was the first of a series of projects then the students and teachers could give time to learning/understanding the tools. Currently we are expecting the students to produce something which may be the first time they've ever even filmed/edited/etc.

I've spent the day working in the classroom helping to guide the students into importing their footage and trouble shooting through how to edit their footage and have had the opportunity to discuss possible ideas for  development of future video productions in science and allowing the student in future endeavors to choose a video production for a future project instead of mandating that every student do the same thing.

Tomorrow we start on our next batch of green screen video projects with a new set of students.