Since I am that kind of a teacher who really believes in his students, and I truly believe that children are the future of our civilization (You can read more on this on my previous posts: Motivation for Children, Children are suffering and more) I feel obligated to Explain to my readers why I think so, and why is teaching those young minds to research. 

We live in an android, iOS and an internet based society, which is allowing us to have blogs and exchange experiences from our line of work, so it is crucial to show the alternative to video games and social media for their free time. How do we do this? 

There are a couple of apps that kids would love to use. For instance, you as a teacher need your children to engage in the matter of the Subject, instead of doing quizzes and giving them pressure on it, creating a stressful environment in your classroom, I suggest that you explain to them how to use their apps to gain knowledge and reward their use of cell phones for research and creative ways of telling a story.

Recently I found and amazing app for creating video content that is easy to use and free to use, so I will  be speaking of this here. Of course, you need to do your own research for your classes and subject, but the method of creating short films for the subject by them for their classmates is absolutely amazing. I will leave a link to the app at the bottom of the post for you to download and check how it works. 

So, you have a subject matter to teach, instead of getting them to learn from you, you get them to learn how to create videos by using this app. So, you give them the basics of filmmaking. 

Step one is your understanding of filmmaking basics, all of this can be found on YouTube, and basics are very easy to understand and explain to them. 

I strongly suggest you go through Peter McKinnon’s channel on YouTube, he has a lot of content, he is very hands on kind of guy, and you will definitely understand everything since he is really motivated to teaching through his videos. To get to his channel click here.

Step two is giving them the knowledge, but not by explaining, but by doing. Say your actual subject is the cosmos, get them to make a short film with you on the class about what they are supposed to do. 

Get them in some sort of order, get everyone to say a couple of sentences, to video them with your phone, through this use the rule of thirds, and frame composition by creating a depth of field ( all of these might sound complicated to you, but if you go through Peters channel, you will see it is an easy task to use these rules), then using the app splice it all together and create an assignment video that will give them an idea how to create their videos. Then, create groups, explain to them that they need to practice their lines, explain that they need to sound good, but give them the freedom to be creative.

Step three, wait for the next class and make the class a film festival kind of thing, make them vote for the films they see, so they have to be engaged in the watching of the movies of their friends. 

Step four, get them to analyse the movies. How much of the information the movies gave to them, how interesting were some of them to watch and what did they learn from each and every one of them. Create a debate kind of environment, and this will get them to understand what they are speaking of.

The app that I use is called  Power Director and it is found in the app store, it is free to use, it does leave a watermark in the right bottom corner, but a small one, and it exports in 720p which can be used on a projector so it gives some more seriousness to you festival class.

To get the Power Director app, click here.

Enjoy your future classes, and watch your students excel any subject by using this interesting way of learning that can teach both your students and you.