Many teachers here at Piedmont have used student-created movies to teach their content. Above are just two examples - a stop motion film of an scene from Seedfolks for Language arts and a video of a student created Minecraft Pyramid from Mrs. Kay's social studies Ancient Egypt unit. 

Try these lesson plans to get started 

• Example of Instructions to Students: Coach Ashley's Dance Movie Assignment
• http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/vocabulary-learning-filmmaking-vocabulary-30683.html?tab=4#session7
  
• http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/movie-making-classroom
  

Our School Resources:

1. Student BYOT devices with a camera and free or paid video editing app 
   
2. our iPads have Movie Maker, Action Movie HD, and iMotionHD loaded
   
3. Our Makerspace's Video SteamCart http://piratesteamship.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/STEAMshipCarts Tech Theater: Photography and Videography STEAMcart Contains:
   

• Greenscreen
• Video slapboard

• How to Book and How to Videos http://video.klutz.com/animation/
• Various cameras- video and still (students may also use their phones and BYOT devices)
• Paper and markers for paper slide videos
• 37 beanie babies for puppet theater or stop motion videos
• lego bricks and figures for stop motion videos
• How to Make RSA animate Style Videos
• Goal Setting, Goal Achieving, and Bulldog puppets

Recommended BYOT apps for movie making :

1. iMovie  Videolicious if students cannot get iMovie
   
2. Action Movie HD
   
3. Lego Movie
   
4. Do Ink App - (costs $2.99) Do Ink  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/green-screen-by-do-ink/id730091131?mt=8
   

If using a shared ipad, you can upload and download the video as needed from Google Drive:
(Sorry I ironically broke the cardinal rule of movie making - NEVER HOLD  YOUR DEVICE LONGWAYS Learn from my mistake!)

This video shows how to upload and share from your device

This video shows how to turn in a video link for an assigment on Google Classroom

Modern life is caught up in media. We receive both and good and bad messages from many different mediums: TV Movies, Social Media and other internet sources.

One job of 21st century schooling is to teach students to be media savvy both in critically assessing what comes to them ("Fight the media!") and in being able to share their own clear positive message across different platforms  for their "digital footprint" ("Don't fight the media!") With that in mind here are a few ways to integrate media messages into your content:

Old School Meets New School
Google Docs Newspaper Templates- Super easy now with Google Drive-- All students do to make a realistic newspaper is choose one of these templates while signed into google docs, then replace the "boilerplate" text and images with their own. done!
More here http://www.scoop.it/t/creating-newspapers-in-the-classroom

New School Gets Even More Fresh:

Social Media and Movie Making
Mrs. Stevenson is chock full of amazing ideas to freshen up content. Her history classes are full of modern life. Steal the following ideas from her like I did:

• Make an emoji sentence to express today's lesson
  
• Make a meme to express today's lesson
  
• Write a Tweet or a hashtag to summarize today's content.
  

Basically any content you cover in class can be used by students to create humorous, moving and informational Vines, movies, gifs...allow students to create their own messages and then share what makes the best ones work. Let students know that all art is deriviative and you can "steal" the best ideas and make them your own and even better!  That is what is considered growth.  Not only are they motivated to learn when they are creating, they will also learn important lessons about visual literacy and persuasion that will serve them in any career they choose!

Related:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/intro-to-digital-citizenship-swim-theme
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/credible-sources-lesson
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/have-students-make-a-movie