There a couple of apps produced by Optimum drama presumably as a fun way to use photos that can be utilized for project work in the mlearning classroom. They are InAWorld…Drama and InAWorld....Comedy. Both cost £1.49.
Both apps turn a chosen set of four photos into a spoof movie trailer. The app give you a set of sentence structures that you can choose from in order to create your dialogue for the trailer and sat at various points you choose a photo to accompany your work.
It's very easy to use. Once you have chosen to create a trailer, the first step is to give it a title and choose the typeface. You then have to choose your opening line. As you can see from the photo below there is quite the choice, simply tap the one you want to use.
After that simply choose your music and then review. It's a definite positive that there is a review screen that let's you see all the lines used and photos which allows you to change anyone thing if you want, rather than have to go back and start again.
Once the review is complete you can watch the trailer. One slightly annoying thing is that in order to get the video to use on your own site you have to upload it to inaworldonline.com and this means making an account. However the whole process is easy and you could also share by facebook or twitter.
So given it provides all the language, how is this of use in the English classroom? Well clearly students could simply use it as part of a ‘film’ lesson. However like many apps, perhaps it’s best use comes as part of a project. Put the class into groups and ask each group to come up a trailer. You could set the genre or leave it up to the class. They then work together in English to decide their trailer – they’d need to decide on the photos to use and the story arc of their trailer. When all groups have done then they share and decide on which fulfils the brief best.
Such a task brings in language work and allows students to consider how a piece of writing is constructed. The students can use the sentences to analyse areas such as linkers and other discourse markers. In such cases the app acts as a stepping-stone to freer work, with the students using a recording app to record their own trailer voices afterwards.
Four photos are needed so the students need to collaborate on taking four or finding four. If they are going to use the Internet to find photos then bear in mind copyright. I used pictures from #eltpics on flickr as these have been uploaded for teachers to use.
Pictures used are from eltpics and taken by @aClilToClimb, @ Raquel_EFL, @ pysproblem8, @ dan64pell