3 Basic Steps For Using Brickflow In The Classroom

smartphone-landscape3 Basic Steps For Using Brickflow In The Classroom

by The Brickflow Team

We recently talked about Brickflow–basically gave a general overview of what hashtag-based storytelling was, and how teachers could use it. This post is more of a how-to.

Let’s start with the basics. Instagram can help students understand the main building blocks of a film through recording the scenes one after the other. If they are shot in chronological order, Brickflow can automatically assemble them into a movie.

Pretty simple.

Step 1: Plan & Script

Pick a well-known story, draft a simple script, then pick an unused hashtag.

It’s up to the educator how big emphasis to place on this step. For simplicity, stick to something no longer than 1-2 minutes at first. That is 4-8 Instagram videos to record. It’s important to choose a hashtag that will be specific to the assignment, and not used by others elsewhere (or you can imagine the confusion).

You can also have students put together the final story manually. You could split the class into small groups to record different parts of the story, let students remix the story and come up with different versions, and/or open the process to outside contributions and involve the whole school if desired.

Social storytelling should be social!

brickflow-overviewStep 2: Record the Material

This will be the fun part. It’s film shooting in the traditional sense, except that you will use a single smartphone to record the scenes. With the help of Instagram, we can do cuts directly while recording. We don’t have to worry about technical details either. Consistent visual outcome can be achieved simply by using the same filter on all the shots.

In order to simplify the process and save some further steps, we need to make sure the scenes are recorded in chronological order. Don’t forget to add the hashtag when publishing the videos.

Step 3: Watch the movie

This is where the magic of Brickflow comes in: the movie is already done! Just log in to Brickflow, choose the hashtag option on your dashboard, and type in your hashtag.

Boom! You’ve got your movie. Put it on full screen, press play and enjoy.

Image attribution flickr user mrtindc; 3 Basic Steps For Using Brickflow In The Classroom