Using Flip Camera in the Classroom – ‘How to’ Videos

The idea behind the students creating there own ‘How to’ videos was to:

1. Give them the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding

2. Produce a resource that could be used by students developing their life skills.

In groups, the students went about deciding what skill they were going to showcase. Once decided they had to list the steps in a sequence that was needed to complete the task which in hand gave them the scenes they needed to record. Once this was done they went about filming the clips for the videos. For this round of videos students chose to concentrate on equipment that would use at home. In addition we discussed that some of these skills would be needed when it comes to running their cafe which they do for 2 weeks of the year as part of their enterprise week. The videos were based around using a kettle, dishwasher and coffee machine.

The great thing about the flip camera is its ease of use. Simple point and click with the record button that all students were able to access including those with physical difficulties.  Also the simple interface for watching videos back meant the students were able to quickly decide if they needed to re-record sections.

Once filming was complete, students then uploaded their videos into Windows Movie Maker and went about editing their videos adding music and captions to go with it.

The students really enjoyed the task and it was great to see SLD students show thier understanding and produce some excellent pieces of work that can be used to teach other students.

Below is an example of one of the videos the students created:

Po-Motion Interactive Wall in the Sensory Room

This post will focus how we have used some software called Po-Motion to create an interactive wall display in our Sensory Room.  Po-Motion is a piece of software that was available for free, however they have stopped this and there is a small charge around £20 to purchase the software ( though you can trial the software for 30 days). It allows you to create an interactive wall or floor display by just using a web-cam, projector and computer.

The plus points for us was the cost – many items for the sensory room cost hundreds even thousands of pounds and companies are able to charge these amounts of money because it is classed as specialist equipment (though many of these items are actually a fraction of the cost to make and provide students with Profound and Multiple Learning difficulties to engage with sensory stimulations, which I find a little frustrating but enough said on that).  In addition, it allowed us to install an excellent sensory tool which many could access without having to redesign our sensory room.

Anyway rather than me write about it I have made a video showing how we have set up Po-Motion and some of the scenes you can use with this.

When we first installed the system, we thought it would be a standalone tool, but have since found that it interacts with what else is going on in the room. For instance, when changing the colour of the lights, this has an effect on what was shown on the wall. So we have now got a bit of equipment that not only works well on its own but also in conjunction with other pieces of equipment.

Areas for thought –

• Positioning of camera – From installing the system, we found the positioning of the camera was very important in getting the best reaction from the display. Rather than pointing the camera at the wall, it needs to be positioned where the student will be standing or sitting so that it can detect the movement.  Also in our setup we have the camera facing the display – another setup would be to have the camera facing the student. This is something we might change after we have gone through testing with the students.
• Lighting – for the camera to pick up movement there needs to be a little bit of light. In the dark, it is very difficult to pick up movement unless using an infra-red camera. (Po-Motion also do a version of the software that works with IR cameras)
• Web camera vs Kinect – something which we are thinking about is getting a Microsoft Kinect for the sensory room.  The Kinect is more sophisticated camera and would allow us to have different pieces of software running for one bit of equipment. Also in the dark environment of a sensory room it would pick up movement far better especially when using the IR version of the software.   This is something we are looking to set in the near future so will keep you posted on this.

Anyway now we have the system installed it will be interesting to see how the students react to it. Also I would be very interested to hear from others who have installed the system themselves and what scenes they felt worked particularly well.