New Summer Toy: GoPro Hero 3

My husband surprised me for my birthday with a very COOL present: the GoPro Hero 3 Black edition camera.  I'm very excited to play with it this summer and later throughout the school year and swim season. Keep checking back for new posts on using the GoPro Camera as I learn more tips/tricks.

Since I did not get the GoPro remote, I downloaded the GoPro app for my Samsung Galaxy SIII phone which serves as a remote, connecting to the camera's wifi network. This is great for simple remote-controlling  of the camera: turning it on, starting.stopping record, and previewing what is being captured.  I haven't tested how far the phone and camera can be separated, and it can still have a signal when on the surface of a pool, but the phone app immediately lost the signal when the camera was placed further underwater.  Even though the phone lost the signal, the camera continued to record, as seen in the video below. You can also spot me on the pool deck playing with the app while my daughters and nieces play with the camera in the pool.

The next video showcases my youngest daughter underwater. I am very impressed with underwater filming capabilities and I can't wait to capture my winter swimmers' strokes from an underwater vantage point.

For both videos, I compiled the footage in Windows Movie Maker, trimming the clips as needed. With my daughter's guidance, we also picked out a song to use as the soundtrack for her featured film.

I haven't yet purchased a slew of attachments and accessories for the GoPro camera itself.  I will gladly accept recommendations for mounts and tricks/tips on filming. Please share what you know and check back as I share what I have learned.

Film & the Back Channel

My classes are wrapping up the year reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet which includes viewing the 1968 Zeffirelli film version.  While the acting leaves much to be desired, there is merit in showing this version because it provides students with a view of the time period and it is used in various critical thinking activities.

We compare and contrast the cinematography of Zeffirelli's R&J (1968) with West Side Story (1961) in the opening brawl sequence--there really is no comparison, WSS is amazing-- and focus on how the filmmakers used the source material of Shakespeare's play, meeting Common Core Standard 9-10.9. Students point out similarities in camera shots and staging of the opening brawl sequence.  They notice the use of high angle shots to showcase the chaos of the fighting, as well as the use of close-up shots to highlight specific characters. They even recognized the actor who played Tybalt as the same one who played Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series. 

After the opening sequence and the Prince's yelling at all parities about having started another civil brawl, the next scenes in the 1968 film that correspond with Act I of the play are rather boring for modern teenage audiences.  Whereas I stopped and replayed all the scenes of WSS ad nausem to point out the cinematography and framing, I refuse to stop the 1968 version--like ripping off a band-aid, the quicker we view it, the quicker we will be done. To keep them enthralled, students participate in a class back channel discussion using TodaysMeet.com. 

On our class set of Chromebooks, students join the TodaysMeet room that I created and I go over the ground rules for the period:

1. Students must use their real names. I give students a participation score for the period, so no name equals no credit.
2. Students must demonstrate digital citizenship and use school appropriate language.  I don't mind if they misspell or abbreviate, but no profanity or sexually explicit posting is allowed.
3. Students are to comment on what they see AND answer the questions as they are posted to the room.
4. Students type in all lower-case letters, while the teacher types in all caps.

I don't follow a Q1/A1 format for posting questions during this activity, instead I post using all caps.  Since the conversation is very fast paced, I keep my caps-lock on for faster typing and so students can differentiate my questions and comments from the rest of the group. There is always a bit of silliness that occurs, but I remind the students about the purpose of this activity: to have a scholarly discussion.  There is a time and place for comedic conversations and blurt-out posting, but this is not it. 

To archive each period's chat session, I make a quick screencast using Screencastomatic.  I turn off the microphone and record scrolling through the chat so that the video archive is about 5 minutes long, as opposed to a full 43 minute period.  After uploading the screencast directly to YouTube, I use YouTube's edit features and add music.  I then post each period's video to our Edmodo group where students can compare and contrast the conversations from the various periods. 

Take a look at the archives from Friday's back channel discussion of the 1968 Zeffirelli version of Act 1, scenes 1-5 of Romeo and Juliet.