Today was my first major failure as a teacher in a longtime. I was gutted. SO what happened? We tried greenscreening with year 5/6.
The idea was simple, last week we found various backgrounds and saved them in a shared area, this week we’d take still photos, then combine them together to transport our children all round the world.
Firstly, the lighting wasn’t very good so the green was different shades so the computer wouldn’t pick it up. Another issue was that we had 4 cameras so the children were in groups of 6 to take pictures, they then didn’t know how to transfer them from the camera to the computer. So we went through a brief session of transferring files.
Then we loaded Wax 2.0 and the children had to right-click and import 2 pictures, their background and their picture of a greenscreen. It quickly became apparent that they had very little experience of browsing through a computer to find files. Maybe I’m running before walking?
Then we had to drag the chroma key plugin onto the box and change the slider to remove the green, unfortunately we were running way over time so only a couple of children got this far.I heard at least three children say ‘fail’ when they didn’t manage to get it to work.
So what were the main issues?
- We took too long taking photos
- Lighting wasn’t great
- Children need some basic skills/refreshers before being able to complete the task
So will I give up? Of course not. Next week, we’ll try again and I’m going to give children a step-by-step guide that they can have to help them if they need it. I’m sure they’ll be fine, but it needs to go well, we start greenscreening with video the week after!!
So have you had a lesson go really badly? What did you learn from it?
Lesson disasters are as necessary as great lessons. Without them teachers would think they were infallible. I see every lesson that goes badly as a lesson that I can still learn greatness from. You have already found what didn’t work and upon reflection you have ascertained what needs to be corrected so that the lesson can run more smoothly the next time. There’s your greatness.
At least you’re still trying the interesting. Better than just exposing the kids to PowerPoint year after year. I’m hopingto buy a set of lights as I found similar when chroma key failed. Shame there is no money around. School has same in entire budget as we once had for ict. Beetlebum
Ultimately you set the bar high and I respect you for that. Expecting a lot of your child != “fail”.
I know, without doubt, that you will get this right the second time around and share the method and best practice with everyone. That to me is the mark of a truly inspiring educator.
Dear Ian, you may have not been happy with it but a least one resident of Waltham Chase thought that it was wonderful that you had transported a child to a jungle scene!
Keep up the good work.
Martin J Clarke
Yeah, Green-screening just didn’t work.
Well, our one did slightly, but when I saved it into .avi I couldn’t open it