Teacher Review for Green Screen by Do Ink

Students get Creative Across the Curriculum

Emily S.
Technology coordinator
Holly Hills Elementary School
Denver, United States
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My Subjects English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies
My Rating
Learning Scores
My Students Liked It Yes
My Students Learned Yes
I Would Recommend It Yes
Setup Time 5-15 minutes
Great for Creation
Further application
Small group
Student-driven work
Great with Advanced learners
How I Use It
This is a creation app that truly has no limits but the imagination! It is hard to give it a pedagogy rating because it all depends on how you use it. It can be used across the curriculum to allow students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the content. For example, a group of advanced second graders used the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears to write opinion pieces. They had to pretend they were defending either Goldilocks or the three bears in court. After they wrote their script, they recorded themselves in front of the green screen so it looked like they were in a courtroom defending their client. Fourth graders wrote a an ebook about famous explorers using the book creator app. They added videos in their ebook using the green screen app. They pretended that they were news reporters live on the scene with breaking news as the explorer made his/her discovery. Fifth graders went on a field trip to the state capitol. They took pictures and collected information while they were on the field trip. When they got back, they used the green screen app to share what they learned and put the pictures in the background that they were talking about. This would also be a great idea for a virtual field trip! Second graders were studying weather, and they pretended to be news anchors and meteorologists. They had some scenes where they were live on scene in pouring rain or snow. The green screen app was perfect for this! You could even have a video background so the rain actually looks like it is falling! First graders wrote book reviews on their favorite books. Using the green screen app to add pictures of their favorite scenes or the setting, students read their book reviews. We turned those videos into QR codes and added that code on the cover of the book in the library so other students could scan it, listen to the review, and decide if they wanted to read the book too.
My Take
This is a must-have app to add to your creativity tool box. In any subject area there is a great application for its use. It is extremely easy to use for kindergarten students and up. Because they can use this app independently, the technology does not get in the way of the content, which is important, especially in an elementary classroom. There are some limitations the app has that using green screen in iMovie on the computer does not. For instance, you can add more than one picture or video as the background, but you cannot add it after you record, so you have to guess at the timing of the pictures in the background. There are some more robust and advanced settings in iMovie (on a computer only), but in the elementary classroom, we have found the advanced features are not worth trading the simplicity of using this app. Even if you have computers with iMovie, this app is still worth purchasing and using. There are far less steps needed to create a great movie with any background that you can imagine!