We made an interactive poster and a video about children’s hygiene. We used the Little People again because they were fun and interesting for children to look at and spot them in pictures. We used iMovie for the first time to create a short film. With iMovie, a really good point was that there were add-ons that we could put into our own film. We chose a news report theme to do an educational report on germs. It included some facts about germs, as well as how germs are spread, where germs generally are and also how to prevent becoming ill from touching germs. The add-ons that we took from iMovie were: a news report introduction with text that we changed; a text slider across the bottom of the page; a news report-style closing feature. An aspect of iMovie that I found difficult was editing a film; We found it confusing when adding on opening and closing frames to an existing strip of film. When using iMovie, the user has the option of filming using iMovie, or filming using their basic camera function and then uploading the film to iMovie. We opted to film our report ourselves and then upload it because we were new to iMovie and felt more familiar using our own camera function. An improvement to iMovie would be if it was possible to upload a soundtrack separately from a visual film. This might be possible but is not obvious to a new user. During our iMovie film, we used the little people as news reporters. We filmed an introduction, then in several germ-filled locations, and ended with a conclusion back in the ‘news room’. We found it fun to speak the voices of the news reporters. We would definitely use iMovie again.
With children in a school, iMovie would be absolutely ideal to use with KS2 children. We think that children would need to spend at least one lesson exploring the App first because it does take some time to learn about what it is possible to do. After an introductory lesson, children would definitely be able to use iMovie to create their own films. This is totally cross-curricular because children could make a film for any subject. My own film is Science-based, but children could create films to explain concepts in Maths, English, History, Art, etc. The films can then be saved onto the devices they were made on, then uploaded to a resource bank, or even YouTube.