Going Mobile with the iMovie App for iPad

I am continually looking for ways to make public the content students create on their iPads via student blogs.   I love the iMovie App for iPad but it takes a bit of maneuvering to make it "mobile" in order to develop a sweet student/teacher relationship.  The iMovie App for iPad is amazing in that anyone can easily create digital stories, tutorials, book trailers, etc... within a short period of time.  However, sharing that movie with others is easier said than done.  Once a movie is longer than a minute, (pretty easy to do,) the movie cannot be emailed to another user in it's entirety.   This presents problems for teachers who are hoping to easily access student created content, including iMovie.

Our students are too young to have their own YouTube account.  And, even though we are a Google Apps for Education school, the user agreements for YouTube do not fall under the Google Apps for Education umbrella.  So, to get around this dilemma, teachers have created an additional google account to be used specifically for the uploading of video content to YouTube.  The username and password of this account are shared with the student and when these students finish an iMovie they send their movies to this account via the action icon in iMovie.

The teacher is in charge of monitoring the site, making sure posts to the site are appropriate and fall within acceptable guidelines.  Each teacher has their own account for this purpose.

The nice thing about hosting YouTube accounts in this matter is that the teacher can then use the video manager on YouTube to stitch together student created videos into a longer movie.  Recently, a teacher had each student create an iMovie detailing a specific chapter to a novel the class had finished reading.  The teacher pieced the clips together and created a ten minute retelling of the book and shared that on their blog site.

In addition, YouTube also provides each account with an email for mobile uploads.  When a user has this email, they can easily email video content from their media library directly to the YouTube account.  Students can then access the URL of the video from YouTube and post the video to their blog.

Finally, using various blogging apps (we use BlogPress) the student can share their newly created iMovie to their camera roll.  Once the teacher created YouTube account is connected to the BlogPress App (in Blogpress Settings) the student can directly post the movie to their blog post and it will upload the iMovie to both to YouTube and to their blog.   Once on a student blog, anyone can easily access the video content.

Here's an "unrelated" iMovie about Diigo I made using this method.

Communication and Mobile Technologies - Sekai Camera App

Sekai Camera App is a social AR (augmented reality) application that enables users to interact in social communication through digital contents attached to the real world.
By holding up your iPhone and looking through the camera view (just as if you were taking a photo), you will see location-based information (just like digital “post-its”) floating in mid air. These are called “Air Tags”.
Air Tags could be either text, pictures, or voice messages, and users can view, post and also comment on other users’ Air Tags.
We've just started using this app in school in science classes.  Teachers/students are able to post questions with pictures in the air for others to respond.  A few ways a teacher might use Sekai is

• Warm-Ups
• Interacting with multiple classes
• Writing prompts
• Posting classroom responses to essential questions
• Alternative ways to provide agendas
• Field Trips

Users must create an account before using.  Comments on tags may be made by all users in the network and students need to understand the significance of this fact.  Tags can be shared to Twitter and Facebook.