Very soon after I had just sent a message out to my Digital Storytelling students alerting them to a good sale on editing software for PC’s, I sat down next to Steve Dembo to hear a keynote speaker at Iowa’s edtech conference. Within minutes Steve showed me a free, web-based alternative to the late (temporarily, [...]
This Sunday night on the Discovery Channel, Mythbusters Jamie and Adam spend an hour looking at the contributions and creative genius of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs: http://dsc.discovery.com/show-news/mythbusters-to-honor-steve-jobs.html
Step aside, American Idol! Hundreds applied. Ten finalists were picked. Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for– the final challenge! Join Discovery Education and 3M today as the 10 finalists compete for the prestigious title of America’s Top Young Scientist. In just a few hours the 10 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge [...]
California Bay Area teens were challenged to make a PSA promoting a program to cut poverty in half by 2020. You can watch the two finalists, cast your vote for the winner to be aired on local television, and watch a behind the scenes documentary to get some ideas about how your students can make [...]
As I feverishly prepare to miss my first ISTE/NECC in almost two decades, I want to offer some pointers to attendees and non-attendees alike. I’m feeling just a little remorse as my new hip and I sit this one out in anticipation of a lot of walking and standing in Disney World with my grandkids [...]
Cisco’s recent announcement discontinuing the popular Flip camera caught everyone, especially the education community, by surprise. I have always enjoyed walking into a school to do a “Makin’ Movies” workshop and finding a number of those handy little cameras ready for participants. I personally have always favored and recommended Kodak’s Zi line, especially for Mac [...]
I’ve said it before, one of the great rewards of teaching is getting to watch kids learn and grow up. And to take that a step further, seeing those “kids” as grown-ups can be just as rewarding. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching and coaching with a few former students. A few have managed to [...]
As I begin my third year teaching Digital Storytelling in the Discovery Education/Wilkes U. instructional media program, I find myself in a god Janus kind of mood: looking forward and backward at the same time. I feel confident that the almost three hundred students I have had contact with have taken away something they can [...]
The Hub, Discovery’s new children’s channel for kids and families has a digital storytelling contest for K-5 students that will be judged in 2 divisions: K-2 & 3-5. The December 18th deadline is rapidly approaching, but The Hub is providing a framework and resources to get you started. This could be a great way to [...]
Sorry for having avoided blogging for a time. We’ve been slowly updating our blog engine and I didn’t want to tempt fate until all the pieces were working properly. I’m going to hope enough of them are in place to share this contest with you. Once again, I know it’s short notice, but even if [...]
It’s probably too late for you to formally join this project but you might find a lot of inspiration in it for your classes. The One Day on Earth project is a great way to raise your students’ global awareness. They even have a page of resources specifically tailored for education. What could students learns [...]
The 10 finalists for the coveted Discovery Education/3M America’s Top Young Scientist title have been named. They will gather this fall to see who will wear the crown and how the many prizes will be distributed. In the mean time you can see how creative they all were in their video applications. The focus this [...]
Most of you are just about ready to start school (if you haven’t already). And, as the days are obviously getting shorter, I bet all of you are reflecting (mourning?) as much on another quickly passed summer as you are planning for this school year. Though I’m “retired,” I’m no different. On Monday I’m off [...]
ISTE 2010.1 I always start the national conference telling myself I’ll do a blog a day on what and who I’ve seen. It’s already the closing day and I’m just getting around to it but this might be hard to top (if I ever coalesce my thinking on all that I’ve seen and heard on [...]
In this time of global connectedness and emphasis on not just digital citizenship, but responsible, global citizenship in general, Challenge Based Learning would seem to go hand in hand with challenge based living. And I can’t think of a better tool to express and share solutions to those challenges than digital storytelling. I believe it [...]
Here are a few things your students could get involved in to keep the energy up through the end of the school year. 11 days left for Jr. Hi students to enter the Discovery/3M Young Scientist Challenge. Our past winners have some solid advice for putting together an entry video (or any video for that [...]
I am not a photographer nor do I play one on TV (or DV). I do know how to tell people how to compose video shots for effective visual storytelling. But if it weren’t for my two younger sisters and some neighbors, I’d hardly have any pictures of my own kids when they were growing [...]
I got to kick off Discovery Education’s 4 week series of webinars for the NetGenEd Project yesterday. Hall Davidson and I will be taking turns every Wednesday in April talking about various aspects of student video making. My webinar on writing and good preparation through storyboarding is already archived on their site. I know it [...]
Sounds like the “Odd Couple,” doesn’t it? Well, I’m writing about Jay because he featured some student films done with Flip cameras the other night and one was done by a girl who graduated from a local high school here in the northwest burbs of Chicago. The students had to film and turn out a [...]
I almost missed mentioning this year’s Shortie Awards. The deadline for videos is April 9th. There are three age groups for 7 to 18 old year students and one K-12 teacher category. “The Shortie Awards focuses on nurturing imagination and choice making in students” according to their website and is a rich source of inspiration [...]
It’s been two weeks since I presented at our late winter Illinois edtech conference and I promised to post some updated tips on creating simple special effects with your students for their videos. Since I’m still trying to organize and condense my thoughts, I thought I’d offer up this very creative effect from elementary art [...]
“Editing is sometime called a story’s final re-write,” so says good buddy and fellow Wilkes instructor, Frank Guttler. He has some insightful thoughts and examples on what creative editing can do on his blog. “Mary Poppins” as a horror flick? Check out his most recent post over at “lights, camera, learn!“
I just found out that the annual AFI/Discovery Channel SilverDocs Documentary Festival is accepting 13-19 year olds’ work. The entry has to be in by April 1st, under 10 minutes and posted on YouTube. TeenDocs will show the top three entries at the festival this June at the AFI SilverDocs Theatre (right down the street [...]
Just where did all those words at the beginning of “Star Wars” movies go? Do they spend eternity scrolling through space? What if they eventually hit earth? Local area student and movie fan, Bill Parker, has his own answer to that and it has caught the eye of more than 500,000 YouTube viewers (HD + [...]
No, not the Julius Caesar kind. Nor that old Chicago rock band. I’m talking about how much time your students have to make a short video illustrating the meaning of one of the words on the ACT/SAT vocabulary list for the latest round of BrainyFlix fun. The best video will win $600 for their middle [...]
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