Digital Storytelling

Thanks to a tweet from Heather Hurley, I can tell you the finalists in ProjectSafetyNETVA are up for your voting pleasure. Check out their site and let them know which of the three is your favorite. Viewing and making videos like this is a great way to raise and maintain awareness with your students.

Hopefully by now, you have noticed our Young Scientist Challenge for 5th through 8th graders open until June 15th. But maybe you don’t know that there is also an “Old” Scientist Challenge going on at the same time for science teachers who are DEN members. Forget the students! Put your own 1 to 2 minute video together describing one of five scientific topics and compete for an all expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. and a chance to be named the DEN’s Science Teacher of the Year.
OK, so don’t forget the students, but take their inspiration and editing savvy and apply it to your own set of video topics. Creativity and overall presentation make up half of the point scale! Graduates of the AFI’s Door Scene exercise should be familiar with my following advice.
-Plan to shoot your video as if it were a classroom demonstration, though it definitely does not have to be set in a classroom or lab. This is your foundation.
-Now, storyboard to think your illustrations through.
-Establishing shot(s)/introduction: tell us which topic you’ve chosen and maybe why.
-Have some footage showing this in everyday life.
-Grab a frame or shoot a still that you can add arrows or highlights to.
-Get some close-ups, maybe even extreme close ups.
-Find another angle that gives a different point of view.
-Would a wider angle establish some context or give an overall look at what happens?
-Don’t get carried away with transitions. None is always better than too many or ones that distract from the story. They should always have a reason - like the passage of time perhaps.
-Keep text to a minimum. This is not a term paper.
-Be safe. Follow the rules.
In my next installment we’ll look at the sample videos that are posted. Now these were shot on the fly. They are one take, one shot demonstrations, probably part of the finals competition last year. There was no opportunity for editing. Taking them as submission videos instead, we will look at how different shots and angles could be used to augment the message and give a better look at what actually is going on.

It’s spring and many a teacher’s fancy turns to video projects once the standardized testing marathon and break are over. Discovery Education streaming is loaded with ideas and tutorials. So let’s take a look and find what’s lurking in the Professional Development area in the Trainer’s Toolkit. You will need to be logged in to your ‘streaming account to follow the links.
Digital Storytelling is a logical place to start.

Make the editing software as easy and transparent as possible in order to focus on the content.
iMovie

MovieMaker

PhotoStory

Adobe Premiere Elements and a detailed walk through In Professional Development-> Project Demonstrations under Digital Editing
Interviewing Reagan is NOT just for Premiere Elements! That project encourages students to edit their questions into a President Reagan clip. You can mimic an interview or press conference with any historical figure by using archival footage or even still pictures with student voice over.

Nor is visiting Paris just for iMovie! Make a commercial for visiting a foreign country or even a planet with editable video and/or still pictures from ‘streaming resources. Follow the sun around the moon as you play 18 holes of golf and drive the ball six times further than you can can earth.

None of which is Commandment, so take them for what they are: a way to group and generalize the ten student productions I saw last night at the Schaumburg Screen Test Student Fest.
CELEBRATE I think is a must and celebrate we did. The performing arts center NEVER allows food and drink in its theater except for the popcorn and soda it sells during the fest. The student film makers also got to introduce their work and answer questions after it showed. A great way to share! You may not always be able to share with the community at large, but don’t be shy when you think your students’ projects warrant it. See the great coverage in our local paper.
CREATIVITY The works loosely fell into comedy, experimental and drama. Only two were under the 3 minute limit I strongly suggest for class projects. That said, they all kept us engaged with strong stories that were supported with great shot selection. One drew a clever analogy between a school without mirrors and how we are reflected in our friends. Two other students sent cameras and school t-shirts around the world asking teenagers to record their thoughts on peace. And another got all their footage using a digital still camera because they didn’t have an actual camcorder.
CHARACTER I always encourage teachers to not focus on their students’ acting beyond basic public speaking and good preparation. Last night’s casts were very poised and many had performed in their schools’ productions. One young student interacted amazingly well with a Burger King bobble head. His hilarious reactions along with great shot composition and editing made the innocuous toy come alive and even seem sinister.
COLOR Students made good use of black and white and other color manipulations for dream sequences and memory flashbacks. The most striking use, however, was a story about the lives of three runners preparing for a big race. The most focused (almost fanatical) and dedicated runner always had a white shirt on. The least focused, the “dark” character, wore black. And the third one, who best balanced training and school work, wore gray shirts and sweatsuits. A few more points for creativity - after shooting two runners practicing outdoors, a big snowstorm hit our area and there was no chance of the snow melting anytime before the deadline. So, the third runner had to do all his working out on a treadmill and with weights - indoors.
Next year’s fest promises to be even bigger, spanning two nights. The first will be the standard viewing evening and the second will be a celebrity workshop. The celebrity’s identity is still a secret, though…

Got to reconnect briefly with Jason Ohler at MACUL last week and sat in on his “Web 2.1 and the World Beyond Essays: Kids, Art the 4th R, and the World of Multimedia Collage” spotlight. I have always enjoyed Jason’s insights and especially like his big picture perspective on “media narrative and the Web 2.1 mediascape.” Out of all the great thoughts and stories he shared in that hour, “well intentioned paperwork” is still echoing in my brain. In the age of AYP remediation and especially in this season of standardized testing, this PhD college professor fondly remembered his 2nd grade teacher and a music teacher for setting him on a path of life long learning.

     So what will your students remember and keep close for the rest of their lives? A project that flipped on a light that rarely goes out? A story that made a point that resonates again and again? “Well intentioned paperwork?” I have also promised myself (a good intention no doubt) to finish reading at least one of Jason’s two books before I see him again.

Contest alert: Great Minds challenge videos are due by March 25th. Check the site to see what students have done to promote this year’s challenge on healthy living.

MHz Education and The Documentary Center at the George Washington University’s international Shortie Awards Student Film & News Festival deadline is now April 11th. There are three age categories: 7-10 Years (2nd – 5th Grade), 11-14 Years (6th – 8th Grade), 15-18 Years (9th-12thGrade), and what makes this celebration a bit different - a Teacher-Created Category (K-12 teachers only). The genres are fairly flexible for live action and animation, and can be up to ten minutes in length.

As is usual when I mention a contest or festival, there is something to be gained whether you enter or not. In this instance, I direct your attention to the rules and guidelines PDF. There is a very nice rubric at the bottom looking at about a dozen different elements, carefully weighing them in the overall telling of the story.

Up next - Adobe’s “My Community — My Planet — My 21st Century” high school Innovation Awards with a May 12th deadline.

It’s been a year exactly since I did my first workshop using the American Film Institute’s “Lights! Camera! Education!” program and I marked that milestone by facilitating 4 full day sessions and 2 breakouts over the last week. From Kankakee to Bucks County, PA and back to Illinois for our own IL-TCE, educators were doing everything they could to get through that stubborn door. And for as many times as I’ve seen people through the exercise, I am continually amazed at the creativity educators bring to shot angles, the sound, and the relief. The Kankakee group took advantage of an empty building on a Saturday. The folks in PA managed to build their tension in a busy county ed center. And back in IL, both days’ film crews found plenty of inspiration in our convention center, hotel, and Mario Tricocci salon. A special thanks to those salon folks - they were great sports!
We are still searching for a solution to importing video from a hard drive camera into Windows Movie Maker. I’ve seen it done once, but still can’t determine what the enchanted codec is. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
So, I’m home for a few days before heading to the MACUL conference to share some more movie makin’ magic and spend an evening with the Michigan DEN. Here’s to another year of sharing Hollywood tips! And get ready for the AFI debut of ScreenNation in the next few weeks. It will be a great site for learning and sharing.