Twitter’s Vine: Five Classroom Activities

Vine, an app for smartphones and tablets, allows users to record and post short (six-second) video clips, which can be shared on Twitter (make good use of hashtags) and Facebook. It’s available for both Apple and Android devices.

Record videos through the in-app camera—press the screen of your device to capture both video and audio. Many teachers have experimented with Vine in the classroom, and the following activities will help you use this tool to spice up lessons.

1. Inside Group Lab

Doing something cool in science lab? Have a student in each group document each step of the classroom experiment and take the group learning experience to the next level. This student should also narrate the process. Think of a class-wide hashtag, and then ask students to use it on each recorded step. Make sure each group identifies itself, and the step of the experiment, in the video’s accompanying text. When they’re done, kids can search the hashtag, look at the different lab groups’ videos, and offer peer review and comments.

2. Video Pen Pals

Hook up with another class using Vine and send daily greeting cards to one another. This should be done on a daily or weekly basis. The activity is especially great for younger students who are learning how to express themselves quickly and assertively. Foreign language teachers can find a class in another country and use this activity to teach words and phrases.

3. Mini Stop-Motion Theater

Get your students’ creative juices flowing by having them make a stop-motion movie with puppets and/or toys. What type of story can they tell in six seconds? Find out together! Require them to include at least one character, a conflict and a resolution. New to stop-motion capture? Click here to learn more.

4. Capture the World

Take students outside, where they can record the best of what the natural scenery around your school has to offer. Have students record in a science journal by giving them a pre-made checklist of various plants, animals, minerals and other things they could capture. English teachers can have students film a poetic moment from outside and then write a poem based on what they’ve recorded in six seconds.

5. Finish the Story

Begin this fun, improvised creative writing experience by assigning each student a number. Come up with a loose story arc as a class, and then have kids fill in the blanks by recording themselves as they figure out where the story goes next. Use a class-wide hashtag, and make sure each student identifies his or her part of the story in the video’s accompanying text, so that the videos can be watched in order.

Article by Jason Cunningham, EducationWorld Social Media Editor
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