Annually, our library hosts Maker Days for several days during the holiday season where we promote craft and tech activities in our high school library. We always have a small upcycling/craft section available to students, and by holding maker events, students become more aware of the materials we have in the library. Additionally, students who typically do not come to the library for study hall find their way here and discover that we are more than just books!Traditionally, I provide materials for upcycling books into beautiful ornaments and gift tags, and I set out card stock and stickers for students to make holiday cards. This year, in an effort to promote the use of technology in the library, I also set up a digital holiday card section that is easy to set up and tear down and most importantly is inexpensive!
For the green screen, I purchased two plastic tablecloths from a local dollar store. I layered them, as I had to hang the tablecloths over our book shelves because we do not have enough wall space. If you have a blank, light-colored wall, you most likely would only need one tablecloth. Note that these are not very durable, but they are inexpensive. If you wish to have a green screen that lasts for many years, I would recommend purchasing a more durable fabric for your screen.
For the app, I purchased Do Ink for just a couple dollars. I chose this app for ease of use - there are other apps for more complicated green screen work, but for simple digital holiday cards, Do Ink works great! Since I only have one screen set up, I really only needed to purchase the app to use on one device.
Do Ink has some great tutorials that you can use with students; however, I wanted some written instructions that I could hand to students as they walked through the door. Here are the instructions I made in Slides. I printed six to a page. I made the instructions fairly general so I would be able to use them anytime, even if it wasn't the holidays.
I created a few holiday card backgrounds and saved them to our iPad photos that students could choose from, or the app has pre-loaded backgrounds that students could use, as well. Most students chose to find their own backgrounds. I recommend using Creative Commons for free, copyright free photos.
At the holidays especially, high school kids are just big little kids - their eyes light up when I tell them that they can take green screen photos in the library and make crafts! And the best part is that when we are done, it will only take a few minutes to tear down our temporary green screen (unlike the craft projects I set out for students...those take quite a while to clean up...). Have a happy holiday break, and happy making!
