Don’t even start! Easy advice, right? It was easy for my two sisters, three brothers and I to follow. We watched dad cough and wheeze through two packs a day until he died of lung cancer before he reached 60.
Those couple of sentences may have touched you but I doubt they would be any more effective reaching our students than the “Just Say No” campaign of the Reagan years. The Great Minds Foundation has a great idea though. Let students share that message with each other . This year’s competition invites 14-22 year old students to make a PSA encouraging their peers not to smoke. There are five cash prizes ranging from $2,000 to $250 as further incentive. But hurry, the deadline is January 15, 2009.
Wait! There’s more! They also have an open category for “Most Powerful Video - Any Inspirational Topic.” There are three prizes in this category from $1,000 to $250.
And as always, you can win just by visiting the site and watching some of the powerful work on a variety of real world topics that students have made.
So here’s a little holiday present for you courtesy of our buddy, former AFI ScreenEd guru, Frank Guttler and his Lights, Camera, Learn! blog. I think Frank has found his true calling now and is teaching. As a matter of fact, he is dodging that frigid January L.A. chill to go and be part of the Flat Classroom conference is Qatar early next year. Anyhow, Frank shares a great lesson and some student samples about “reading” a photograph in his latest post “A Thousand Words - Storytelling and Editing.” And here’s Frank’s take on the set of historical pictures he chose:
In this season of so many stories and traditions it seems only appropriate to raise up Jason Ohler’sStories of Culture and Place as an example of the power of digital storytelling. Recently named one of the 9 recipients of WCET’s 2008 WOW award “that recognizes the innovative uses of educational technologies in higher education,” SOCAP stresses an approach to DST that honors the culture and experience of community and its traditions. In the words of Barbara Cadiente Nelson, a K-12 native student success coordinator from Juneau, “It’s been my privilege to witness SOCAP’s profound impact on a diverse high school student population. The rebellious, the isolate, the emotionally impaired, and the naturally talented discovered the hero within through the art of digital storytelling. The Story of Culture and Place program bridges the achievement gap.”
Jason’s site is chock full of resources to help you on the path to “storytelling first, technology second” among which are the twenty revelations about DST in education that are in his book. He also makes the 57 slide PPT presentation that enumerates them and outlines many of the book’s principles available for viewing and downloading. Two good illustrations of the product of his approach are “Learning to Speak Tlingit” which is just stills and narration and “Fox Becomes a Better Person” which uses a green screen/chroma key effect. They are just a couple of the many examples listed there.
For some great ideas and success stories, you should take a look at all of WCET’s award recipients who hail from both the U.S. and Canada.
Last March I used that quote from Dr. Jason Ohler to sum up his presentation at MACUL. Believe me, there was plenty to quote, but that one really resonated with me. Think back on your own education and you will probably remember teachers and projects that sparked your imagination and tickled your creativity a lot more than the fine tests and good grades you got. That’s why we think digital storytelling is such a good tool to employ with students. Of course, you don’t have to just take my word for it. Jason is this month’s featured EdTech Connect speaker at 7p.m. EST on Wednesday, Dec. 17th. Drop in and hear Jason tell his own story in his own words.
And if science is your thing, the Science Channel’s Dr. Michio Kaku is the featured speaker on this Wednesday’s Discovery Connect at noon EST. This is a great way to connect your students to the real world of science and scientific thinking. Michio is a down to earth scholar who can make even the most difficult theories accessible to the rest of us. And, he is a pretty good figure skater also. Come to think of it, Jason skates, too. I’ll have to try to get this pair o’ docs (yes, I admit to toying with using “paradox” somehow in this post’s title) in an ice rink together some time.
As the days get shorter here in the northern hemisphere, our memories seem to get longer. Flying back from Minneapolis after two days presenting at the TIES conference with some Apple friends, I found myself thinking back to my first time attending and presenting at an out of state conference almost twenty years ago. I had opened my mouth one too many times at a national Apple Users’ Group gathering in Chicago and the Apple Ed folks there recruited me to be part of the Education Users’ Group Panel. Our first trip was to MECC in Minneapolis. Little did I know then that it was the beginning of the end of me as a Spanish teacher and the beginning of my multimedia career. I was delighted to see almost exactly half of the audience standing when they asked for a show of classroom teachers before Dan Pink’s keynote. “Way back when,” a Spanish teaching coach, like many other subject areas, was an oddity.
It was great to be able to share some tricks with the built in webcam and Photo Booth. No matter what their subject or grade level, they saw plenty of possibilities for on the spot picture taking and movie making (even using the chroma key feature in Leopard). It was also great to watch my colleagues share what can be done with iPods, Garage Band, podcasting, and easy web authoring. (Click the names on http://web.me.com/thinkahead/TIES2008/Welcome.html to see their “handouts”)
And just to keep all of our tech memory synapses firing, ISTE is soliciting your stories to celebrate the 30th NECC this summer. More on that later.
As in Australia, actually. After following director Baz Luhrman’s “Set to Screen” learning series on Apple’s education site since the spring, we finally saw the movie last weekend. Sweeping epic is the first simplistic description that comes to mind. The movie is huge and long, spanning “just” a few years from the beginning of WWII to the U.S. getting involved after Pearl Harbor.
It’s a western, a love story, a war story, and a human rights study with some clever allusions to the “Wizard of Oz” movie. But this is not intended to be a review. This post is about student engagement in creating their own learning stories with the simple video tools available to them.
Baz generously shared his thoughts and his staff through 10 podcasts over seven months. We can’t expect our students to match the talent and technical expertise that come together in a Hollywood blockbuster, but we can help them become more discerning viewers and understand the elements of crafting a good visual story. Tune in to the “Set to Screen” podcasts or just cast your “third eye” on the movies, TV shows, and commercials you see for good storytelling angles.
Here are the winners in the AFI ScreenNation Ghost Story Challenge.
Not that you should fear the upcoming holidays…
1st place winner “Ribbon” uses dramatic shot angles and quick cuts to put a blasé big brother into a twilight zone of dead teens when he ignores his little sister’s pretty dolly. Great production values and a full team in front of and behind the camera on this one.
The #2 finisher takes on more of a news documentary/recreation telling the story of a fallen football player at North Little Rock H.S. Again, good filming, creative lighting, and eerie sound make this a first rate production.
Seems like the 3rd place entry, “The Mark,” had some technical difficulties and had to “make do” with what he had. But he still manages to create a creepy feeling with quick cuts, a range of shot angles, and an eerie rendition of an innocent children’s song.
“Mountain Mystery” takes on the classic staying overnight in a spooky house story line. With some “Blair Witch” style filming and the panicked dialogue of the characters, you get a feel for their fear and helplessness.
Production Tips I like making inanimate objects like the doll into active players in student videos or to have student actors take on the persona of things like letters, numbers, books, etc. If you don’t have an advanced software editing program like Final Cut or Premiere, you can approximate the nearly transparent specter effect with a slow cross dissolve. Make sure your camera is locked down with a tripod and the lighting doesn’t change as you slip your ghost into the scene.
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And if science is your thing, the Science Channel’s Dr. Michio Kaku is the featured speaker on this Wednesday’s 
