Why didn't I know about this free app sooner. This morning, I downloaded it to my iPad, went through the screen shots of how to use the app, and within a minute, I was up and running.
For my first attempt, just grabbed from my iPad camera roll some photos I had left over from a conference on campus at the University of Saint Joseph. Some were blurry, but as I was just experimenting and wanted to find out how seamless using the app was, I just used what I could find quickly that related to a single event.
So, uploaded a few of the pics right into the app. Then just audio recorded whatever came to mind for each photo, and saved the final product. Wanted to see what the share options were from there. For simplicity sake, selected share to email, and sent the video to my own email and to a colleague who helped plan the event captured in the video. She emailed back to say, "Love It."
Mind, you this was a first attempt, and when I opened the video from email, I could see it could use lots of improvement, but also wanted to find out from there if I could upload to a site like YouTube or Vimeo. The options were several. First, I selected from the emailed video to download, which I did on my Mac, and then I selected the option to share the video on YouTube. Worked like a breeze.
Feeling confident, decided to try my hand on a second video. Went back to the iPad, and made another one, this time also including a quick video I had in the camera roll. Found out the free version of Shadow Puppet allows for uploading 10 photos or videos, but was content with that. Went through the same process as outlined above, audio recording a quick narrative, sending the saved video to my email, accessing it from there, downloading it my Mac and then sending it out to YouTube.
Here are the two videos, but mind you, these were done quickly. As soon as I free up more space on my iPad to store more photos and videos, I plan to play with Shadow Puppet further.
First Attempt:
Second Attempt: Tried to find clearer pics on camera roll and selected one of the videos in the camera roll.
Do you have a favorite app for making quick videos? How do you envision using an app like Shadow Puppet in the classroom?
Update: I tweeted out how much I enjoyed the ease of using Shadow Puppet and got a reply from the company, pointing to a page on its site with some samples. I am including a link to find the example of how the app was used by one teacher for students to tell about their art projects. Take a look and listen to what the students had to say: "Stories, Reflecting on Art Projects." While on the site, also notice the other examples, lesson plan ideas, and information about using the app to meet Common Core Standards.
So who could ask for anymore? Sure you need an iPad or iPhone, but grab one from a neighbor if you don't have one, and try out Shadow Puppet.
If you explored around the Shadow Puppet site, let us know what you found of interest.
