Add a Green Screen for $100

Maker Spaces: Add a Green Screen for $100 - No Experience Necessary!

Adding a Maker Space to a school media center can be an easy addition with a big payoff. Students enjoy having a specified area where they can use their minds and hands to create something tangible, and this type of learning has many other benefits. According to Lauren Britton on the Library Journal (2012), “Maker spaces promote learning through play; have the potential to demystify science, math, technology, and engineering; and encourage women and under­-represented minorities to seek careers in those fields.” With its many benefits, Maker Spaces sound like they must take a lot of time, effort, and money, but this is not necessarily the case.

Since Maker Spaces can essentially be whatever librarians and students want them to be (as long as something is being created), they can cost a little or a lot and be small or large scale. Librarians do not have to have an abundance of funds to create a space for learning and creating, but they do need to start with an idea. Typically, it is good to begin by looking the needs of the students and by considering what they would like to create, produce, or publish. For example, if students have a strong social media presence, journalism classes available with student interest, student government presence, etc., then adding a green screen might be an affordable and beneficial addition to the school library.

In her blog, Tales from a Loud Librarian (2018, Jan. 19) , Elizabeth Kahn describes her experience with adding a green screen to her library Maker Spaces. With only $100, Kahn was able to purchase the materials from Amazon, and adding the screen did not require much background work or additional prep outside of dedicating a space for it in the library. She describes how she set it up and did not say anything to the students, and the students immediately began posing in front of it and snapping pics using their phones without any help from her. Without her prompting they downloaded an app called Stickbot on their phones to use, but there are many other apps available as well that include making videos in addition to taking pictures. Kahn was inspired to create a Green Screen Club in order to play around with the screen more and explore all the things students can do with it.

Green screens can make a fun, inexpensive, an educational addition to a library Maker Space. With it, students can use school issued iPads or Chromebooks, their own devices, or devices checked out from the school library in order to create media in ways that they are unable to do on their own. It will allow teachers to incorporate the screens into English classes for literature projects or speeches, math classes to create tangible stop motion examples of geometry or algebra, or history classes in order to recreate scenes from history; there are endless possibilities for their use in education. The use of it may inspire some to explore journalism or other media-based fields. Adding a green screen is an affordable and beneficial way to create a Maker Space without devoting a large amount of time or energy, yet it provides so many opportunities for students and teachers alike.

References

Britton, L. (2012, Oct 1). The makings of maker spaces, part 1: Space for creation, not just consumption. Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/10/public-services/the-makings-of-maker-spaces-part-1-space-for-creation-not-just-consumption/

Kahn, Elizabeth (2018, Jan. 19). If you build a green screen, they will come. Tales from a Loud Librarian. Retrieved from http://www.talesfromaloudlibrarian.com/2018/01/if-you-build-green-screen-they-will-come.html

Kalman, Paul (2018, July 26). Top 5 best green screen apps for 2019. Make a Video Hub. Retrieved from https://makeavideohub.com/green-screen/best-green-screen-apps.html

Zing Studio 1.0. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zing-stikbot-studio/id995870996#?platform=ipad