Talking Sock Puppets
July 16, 2011A while back, I was introduced to the iPad app Sock Puppets. The very day I downloaded it, my eighth grade daughter found it and fell in love with it. She enjoyed how she could choose different sock puppets, backgrounds, and props, then create a movie.
To give you some background, I have spent many years avoiding the lens side of cameras. I recently received an assignment to create a commercial for a children’s book. Since I avoid cameras, I needed to find an option to record a commercial without being recorded. Thank goodness for Sock Puppets. Did I mention you can also modify your voice with the app too?
This project gave me the opportunity to try out an iPad trick I heard about. The built-in microphone on the iPad is pretty good, but I was recording in an environment with background noise. So I finally opened the camera connection kit for the iPad I purchased almost a year ago. I used the USB connector to attach my Blue Snowball microphone to my iPad.
The Sock Puppet app is free and is very functional in its free state. My commercial was longer than the maximum 30 second recording limit, so I bought the $0.99 in-app purchase to extend recording time to 90 seconds. While I was at it, I also purchased the extra puppet content packages and the import your own background option. Let me mention again, that app is great in its free state. I chose to spend the extra $7 because I wanted to.
I wrote the script, chose the puppets and background, and recorded the commercial. To share the video you have the option to save to the iPad or upload to Facebook or YouTube. I chose to upload to my YouTube channel. Once there you can share or embed the video as I have done in this blog entry. If you don’t want to leave the video on YouTube, you can use a video download tool or option to harvest the video then delete it from YouTube.
I’m thinking that with the add background feature students could use this app to demonstrate their learning for a variety of content areas. They could use an image of a Civil War battle field and share information about the battle that occurred there. Another opportunity is in science and report on the contributions of a scientist. In language arts they could narrate a short story or poem they wrote.
If you would like to use the custom background feature or need more than 30 seconds of recording time, there are other options other than spending $0.99 for each add-on. One of the backgrounds in the free version is solid green. You can record your video using the background and download it. Using iMovie I was able to use the green screen feature to put in my own background and also stitch together several clips into a longer video.
Download this app, I am sure it will provide many opportunities for fun and learning for you and your students/children.
