As I wind up my last trip of the summer, my third to California in just over a month, I marvel at what a great and appropriate end to a season of learning and sharing that this one has been. It has stretched me differently than the others (waistline and intellectually).
It started out Sunday night with an exceptional visit and dinner with a high school classmate who settled out here in San Diego more than twenty years ago. When I spent a week at his house last year during NECC, I came in just in time for his annual 4th of July cookout extravaganza. This year, by sheer dumb luck, I hit a “cook-off” they have a few times a year with several other couples. Each household prepares a dish for every course. This round’s menu theme was Asian. Everybody was assigned a couple of countries to find recipes from and away they went - four plus chefs cooking in the same kitchen at the same time. Good thing I was there to supervise and maintain order! Exotic beverages, fresh herbs and tomatoes from our hosts’ garden, “squid’s knees,” satay, several variations on shrimp and pork, and I won’t even get started with the desserts. I almost forgot that I came out here to work.
And “work” I did, though it was more like Christmas in August for this old A.V. guy. The DEN brought me out to do a digital storytelling day with the San Diego Unified School District who won this year’s $250,000 grant from Best Buy. Yes, you read that right - a quarter of a million dollars! And knowing it’s not just about the stuff, the core group of teachers is meeting for the next few days to engage in some professional development and project preparation. Santa Claus, in the form of district edtech resource teacher Dennis Cowick, started unpacking his bag of goodies just as I began setting up before the first teachers came in: MacBooks, DV camcorders, still cameras with spare batteries, tripods, headsets, and a plan to document the unsung heroes in this community.
And that’s where the stretch came for me. We compressed the AFI “Lights! Camera! Education!” door scene into just a morning activity so we could spend the afternoon working on interviewing and making a documentary type visual story. Where we usually demand a storyboard and script before filming, these San Diego students will tape an interview and have to extract the story from that. Since the students will be using iMovie, we spent some time on the “Paste over at playhead” feature under the “Advanced” menu. This essentially gives you a second video track. While the interviewee is talking underneath, a still picture or another video is playing on top to illustrate his words.
This can also be an effective technique when taping a concert with two different cameras or on two different nights. The first camera is the base track: a medium to wide shot taking in most to all of the stage and maintaining the continuity of the music. The second camera (or same camera at the next performance) gets close ups or tighter group shots of the performers. Highlight a tight shot, SILENCE it, copy it, then drag the play head to an appropriate spot, and paste it in. For a play on the other hand, you’d probably want to cut the close ups right in, sound and all.
I’m looking forward to these students’ final videos and their stories honoring the unsung heroes in their community.
School’s in and so is the first video contest I’ve run across for this academic year. Our good friends over at Technology & Learning, NewBay Media are offering a Lenovo laptop and Adobe Digital School Collection to first place winners in each of the three age groups (elementary, middle school, and high school) and three second place prizes of Adobe Digital School Collection for each grade group. Plus, you can get your principal out of the building for a few days! “Student’s principal will win airfare, accommodations, and admission to an upcoming 21st Century Connections event.” All you have to do is submit a 2-3 minute PSA (public service announcement) on why digital technology is important in today’s schools. Check in at the 21st Century Connections website for all the details. Deadline is October 19, 2007.
Watch for our own DEN media competition coming this fall. We’re in the final process of firming up the details before our official announcement and invitation to join.
The National School Board Association had a similar contest for their T+L Conference a couple of years ago and one of their winning entries is up on TeacherTube:
Well as it turns out I had some extra time to run from Midway to O’Hare for the webinar. And though I was probably foolishly tempting the traffic and presentation gods, I made it home with half an hour to spare. The only problem was my home cable Internet connection which winked out once, most likely due to all the rain we’ve had here in the Chicago area.
So here’s the laundry list of resources that answer most of the questions I heard. there may be some additions after Steve sends me the chat transcript.
***Breaking news… the $6.99 wireless microphone kit is back in stock at Geeks.com!
First the PowerPoint. Not quite the same without actually seeing the videos run:
Log on to unitedstreaming to see the American Film Institute video clips (2+ hours worth). Just search on “afi” and take your pick. The students’ historical clips can be found in the first episode of the nine. Go to the “video segments” tab and choose “Production/Filming.” Lighting and the rule of thirds is in full video 5 of 9 (wasn’t that a Star Trek character?) as the “Using the Camera, Lighting, and Art Direction” segment. The 88 page PDF manual also is available from any window that displays the videos. It’s “Teacher’s Guide.” Don’t forget your code to join the AFI education community on page 42 of the manual.
The student videos from the San Fernando Education Technology Team:
“Protection” girl and boyfriend in car (close-ups and two-shots).
“Grilled” a little girl gives us a look at her idea of what she thinks she should look like. And while you’re at it check “Sweatshops.”
Google the IKEA lamp commercial, Letterman & Oprah superbowl, and the National Car Rental “quickest” commercials: “Charades” and “The Quickest Internship.” They are probably all on YouTube.
You can make a rating screen in KidPix, PowerPoint or any other program that lets you create a transparent table over a green background. Choose a simple sans serif (no little footies on the letters) font for the text and rating box text. Then export/save your slide as a BMP for MovieMaker or as a PICT for Macs. Import that image into your editing software to kick off your movie.
Here’s a podcast interview I did with Frank Guttler, associate director of AFI’s ScreenEd program, talking about visual grammar.
And just to maintain Steve’s credibility, one more shot of the granddaughter.
The end of the month/beginning of school has snuck up on me (like it probably has for you) and it’s my turn to do a “summer” webinar on Tuesday. Those sneaky time zones have also caught up to me and when I thought I had 2 hours to get from a school by Midway airport (where I’m facilitating a unitedstreaming inservice) to my home by O’Hare, I’ll have just an hour. Not quite possible under the best of circumstances. So I’ll be pulling a “Hall Davidson any Panera in a storm” and trying my webinar from that mobile location near Midway. It’s been raining here in Chicago about as hard as it snowed in Hershey last February when Hall had to improvise, but I shouldn’t have to pull out my official Jannita “backscratcher” to clear away the precipitation. So tune in Tuesday afternoon/evening (4:00 pm Central) for my first webinar from the road. And unlike the Dembo hype, see how much less I know “about making movies than Lucas, Spielberg and Scorsese combined!”
Click here to register for this webinar.
And as far as “incorporating video of his grandchild in EVERY example,” methinks he doth exaggerate too much!
Well, I’ve chuckled as I’ve seen friends "tagged" with a meme. I figured/hoped I was just low enough on the radar not to get named, but Heather from Joisey got me. She also tagged a lot of my usual suspects, but I managed to come up with 8 folks you might enjoy looking in on. It was a little harder coming up with 8 "facts." (Why 8 ?)
First the rules:
Post these rules before you give your facts.
List 8 random facts about yourself.
At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.
My eight facts:
1. Life has been good to me. I have enjoyed each and every stage, but I am just loving being a grandpa!
2. Latin was my first "second" language.
3. I’m going to learn bluegrass banjo one of these days.
4. I have coached soccer, basketball, track, football, and hockey (drove the Zamboni mostly).
5. The first new car I ever bought was a Gremlin. Should never have sold that Beetle!
6. While running the scoreboard for Chicago’s indoor pro soccer team, I dropped my pen just as the second half was about to start. I ducked down under the control panel to retrieve it and when I popped back up the game had started without me and the clock. The ref had to start the half all over again - on ESPN!
7. When people ask me if I golf, I tell them I’m a defensive specialist.
8. My fantasy job was to play pro basketball in Spain and work on a degree in linguistics. While studying in Spain, a "connected" fellow was going to get me a try out with the Real Madrid basketball team because he and his buddies were disappointed that their American big man was fading. Never got the try out and as it turned out "their American" eventually became a Spanish citizen, played and coached for Spain’s national team, and is generally still a legend in European pro basketball. I did get that M.A. in linguistics, in Illinois.
So now I’m tagging
Ken Wiseman
Howard and Dave Shepherd
Paviter Singh (in Singapore!)
Bernajean Porter
Sarah Lieberman Weisz
Gary Stager
Lori Twiss
The Louisiana DEN (Brad Fountain?)
Yesterday, as I finished off the last of the candy from my Florida “excursion” goody bag and tried to organize all the stuff I’ve collected during the summer and as I prepare to present at my first professional development days of the new school year later this week, I found myself feeling very grateful. Though I have been retired for a full academic year now, I had the busiest and most rewarding summer of learning in my life.
I got to help stuff all three of our DEN summer institute goody bags and am intimately aware of all the thought and care that went into sharing mementoes of each participants’ geographic area and educational duties. From clever poems and hand-made souvenirs, to post cards, bookmarks, and all matter of rocks and shells that tell a story, each bag was quite a lesson in history and geography. And on top of that there were those great projects and “cruising with the stars” tidbits. Thank you for taking the extra time in your already busy professional life to be an active member in a vibrant network of learners who help to make education come alive for so many students.
But the biggest thanks has to go out to our institute queen and chief organizer, Jannita Demian. Most of you know what it’s like to put together a staff development day in your district and I bet many of you are involved in preparing and supporting your local and state conferences. You can imagine what it’s like taking your one week show and all it’s equipment on the road to share in three states! As Darcy White put it, “Bezerkeley!” So a big “WHOO-HOO!” and the coveted finger of appreciation to Jannita for pulling and holding us all together this summer.
Many of the summer’s sharings can be found in Hall’s “Keynote Sharing” posting and on the ‘07 Institute wiki: http://dni07.editme.com/Berkeley.
Group picture credit - thanks to Anne Truger via Flickr
My summer of learning and sharing at institutes came to a screeching halt yesterday as I waved good-bye to a few van loads of DEN attendees bound for a day in San Francisco. My cab for the Oakland airport arrived just a half an hour later to begin my journey back to the heat and humidity of the Chicago area. Visiting California’s Berkeley campus these last few days was truly moving (and it wasn’t just because they assured me on check-in that I was staying in one of the new, quake proof dorms).
First, there was the “history.” Hall and I were so excited in our reminiscing about Berkeley’s role in the social activism of the 60’s that it drove one of our younger colleagues to Wikipedia to check our facts. We were glad to see that community awareness is still alive in the form of several agencies and national institutes that we passed by or saw advertised around campus.
Then there was the movie making project the ten teams of DEN educators took on. After a quick intro to the AFI ScreenEd manual and clips on unitedstreaming, we dove right into the basic door scene and the extended “not in Kansas anymore” follow-up. I am just amazed at how well and how enthusiastically educators have accepted the challenge and run, stumbled, fallen, and jumped right through the door and into another world. From keeping your heart healthy, to a teacher eating vacuum and clothes dryer, and right down to a “psycho” talking toilet, creativity and fun brought learning to a whole new level. And those #$!@%& dorm keys came back to haunt me when I found mine in my pocket as I went through airport security. I had to leave the gate area to get to a mailbox and then go through #$!@%& security again.
Here’s a PDF version of the Makin’ Movies presentation that I shared and the Sean Astin overview of the ScreenEd program and video clips is here on the AFI site.
So as my very full summer of sharing and learning draws to a close, I hope I can keep track of all of the wonderful tips and sites I picked up as well as stay in touch with Steve Dembo, my institute roomie through three states and two countries.
And I’m not just referring to the company I kept. The DEN was well represented at last week’s Apple Institute on the Monterey Peninsula. STAR’s from Pennsylvania to California and Alabama to Wisconsin joined almost two hundred other Apple Distinguished Educators from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia for a week of learning and sharing. Though dorm living was the norm, the real bonding came as we chose from ten off-campus trips and then broke into almost forty teams to create lessons to share and build on through the coming school year. The groups have the next few weeks to put the finishing touches on their projects before they go public on the Apple Learning Interchange. Since the lessons are relevant to educators regardless of platform, I will highlight many as they become ready for prime time. There were so many teams we only got to see the previews from half of them, but I know that there will be more than a few on photography, using and identifying shapes, poetry and storytelling, and, of course, my group’s take on honoring world languages.
In addition to the eight of us who enjoy membership in both these learning/sharing communities, our friend Frank Guttler from the American Film Institute was among forty hand picked vendor and service booths displaying their wares in a “fair” on the first night. Though it seems like most of the Apple Distinguished Educators come from districts with unitedstreaming subscriptions, Frank had a steady stream of visitors around the AFI table grateful for either a reminder about or an introduction to the ScreenEd program. By the way, the podcast Brad Fountain (welcome back, Brad!) made introducing the AFI videos and the one I did with Frank discussing the visual grammar of film are both still available.
Got to spend a couple of hours sharing my “Makin’ Movies” take on digital storytelling with the Illinois Golden Apple Teachers digital storytelling workshop at the University of Chicago Lab School yesterday and I think I missed a golden opportunity. One of the facilitators was Syd Lieberman, a noted storyteller. He was hard at work assisting people with their narratives when I came in and set up. And he was just as busy helping folks as I was packing up to leave and the teachers were breaking for lunch. I did find some stories at his website and on iTunes. You might want to give him a listen.
Back to the workshop and regrets aside, I did enjoy getting to know the Golden Apple program a little better. I’ve watched the honorees’ ceremony every year on the local PBS station and been delighted to see good, dedicated and creative teachers recognized. I also met a lady who was from my old south side Chicago parish and was working on a story about a little nun who terrified us all (God bless her soul!) What great memories recalling lining up without a sound for everything and moving two by two to our assigned destinations. Though we were a few years apart, all it took was the mention of a couple of infamous trouble makers’ names to bring us both back to the “blacktop,” the “wall,” and the park that defined the property and our world for eight grades.
The workshop is also connected to the Teaching Excellence Network and you might enjoy exploring some of the digital storytelling resources listed in their July 30th blog post.
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