Digital Storytelling

A few years ago I introduced Marco Torres at our Illinois conference as a fellow Spanish-speaking Irishman and have resurrected that joke on occasion. This week it just so happens that Marco and some of his former students are out here in Boston presenting at and documenting the Building Learning Communities Conference. I almost referred to his alumni as “kids” because I’ve kind of seen them grow up on film, but after watching them present and handle interviews I can see why they are now his partners at Alas Media. Anyhow, I sat down at their table after lunch to finish off a cup of coffee and visit a little. A couple of minutes after pleasantries were exchanged one of the young men looked at me and then asked Marco, “Is this Joe the O’Torres Joe?” Looks like my old play on his name (Mark O’Torres) has come full circle right back at me. As usual, Marco had some great technical tips and insights into storyboarding. But what really sets him and his alumni apart is their emphasis on empowering students to help shape their world and those of their families and community.

And talk about changing the world - the founder of kiva.org closed yesterday’s sessions with her inspiring story (even made Oprah) of getting loans into the hands of third world entrepeneurs by accepting backer investments as low as $25. More than a million dollars is dispersed through their organization every two weeks. Here’s a pre-Oprah interview. Check it out and maybe even write out a check.

Just in case you weren’t able to meet the door scene guy (AFI’s Frank Guttler) in person  at the DEN reception in San Antonio, you can see him in action on a NECC webcast. Look for “AFI Screen Education Center: Digital Filmmaking in the Core Curriculum,” Wednesday at 1:30. Due to copyright concerns for this webcast, Frank had to leave out his usual Hollywood illustrations of movie points that we all easily recognize, but he still builds a compelling case for visual grammar and using video with students in the core curriculum. Use the manual and video clips available on ‘streaming for just minutes or hours to get across some movie making basics and then build on the writing process to concentrate on your particular subject matter.
Research backs it up: students take charge of their own learning, make use of 21st skills they already have, and they tend to retain material at a deeper level. You’ll see interviews with students, teachers, an administrator and Hollywood professionals, a preview of upcoming challenges with the stars (just 5 days left to get in on this first one), and a tour of ScreenNation (including a couple of extra features). Frank also highlights a few videos in different genres posted by students on the ScreenNation site in his AFI blog.

Couldn’t make it to San Antonio? Use these webcasts to bring NECC 2008 to you - especially Hall’s “It’s in Your Pocket: Teaching Spectacularly with Cell Phones.” Humor, hard facts, audience participation, fair warning, it’s all there!

As NECC 2008 gets smaller in my rear view mirror and I read others’ reflections on their days down there, I am reminded that there is so much more to San Antonio and its surroundings than the Alamo. From the hunter-gatherer tribes who were continually victimized by their more warlike neighbors to the German immigrants who left their mark and names everywhere, there’s a richly layered history to the region.

And I bet that your own town has an interesting story to tell too. Your middle and high school students have just nine more days to share that information with the world via the American Film Institute’s ScreenNation Home Town Challenge. Do it not just for the Sony camcorder kit and the eternal fame of being the first ever ScreenNation challenge winner, but also to hold up what’s good and interesting about your alma domus for the world to see. Look over the current entries and learn from all the other videos in many categories on ScreenNation.

Photo through Creative Commons from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomhaymes/

Started the day with Arnie Abrams’ Digital Storytelling for All Ages. A kindred soul when it comes to the scope of digital storytelling! Movie trailers, commercials, book reports…

Who Can Make a Video in 10 Minutes? You!  Went back for more with Rushton Hurley. I’ll be signing up for his newsletter after this one.  Gems from this session http://www.piclens.com/ for sharing/presenting pictures and  http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/ for free sound effects.

Then lunch with Frank Guttler, a quick preview of his presentation, and off to set up for his session  AFI Screen Education Center: Digital Filmmaking in the Core Curriculum. It was great to see all the educators present nodding in agreement with Frank and the students, teachers, and administrators who appeared in the videos. I goaded Frank into showing his Google Teachers Academy application video at the end and then he turned the tables on me by showing an interview AFI did with me last year. His is a milestone in simplicity combined with a strong message. Mine is a testament to good editing when you’ve got a talking head hemming and hawing for twenty minutes. Some great new features are available on ScreenNation that will get their own post very soon. You can see Frank’s presentation at the NECC webcast site as well as all the keynotes, at least one of Hall’s sessions, and many others.

Closing keynote with Idit Harel Caperton had some great footage of Elliott Solloway. Loved his “good ideas come from the soul” line.

Dinner with Brad and Laura, Hall, Lance and Martha, Ann Truger et al. Barbecue, River Walk, mariachis… as my buddy Larry Anderson says, “It’s awlll gooood!” (And if you’d like to get an idea of how Larry would actually say that, watch Podcasting & Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner on the NECC webcast page.)

Now the only thing between me and Disney World with the grandbabies are conferences in Boston, Silver Spring, and Lincolnshire, IL. Looking forward to all of ‘em.

Here’s what I saw/did on Tuesday -

Great keynote done talk show style with NBC’s Lester Holt.

Special Effects: Creating Movie Magic in Student Projects www.cpsb.org/presentations. In addition to showing some easy ways to get special effects, he really drove home giving students as many assets as possible to help them build their stories. He was able to run teams of students through to a finished project with only 7.5 hours of contact time.

Seeing Is Learning: Integrate Digital Pictures and Sound into Lessons I was especially interested in fixmymovie.com here.

Wish I had seen Soundtracks that Sing: Getting Beyond the Surface in GarageBand

It’s in Your Pocket: Teaching Spectacularly with Cell Phones finished the session portion of the day off with a bang. Our own Hall Davidson had the huge theater he was in in his pocket after his first few slides and especially when he started accepting text messages for stories and real time polling. Presentation should be up on his blog or the Discovery speakers’ bureau page soon.

Relaxed at night by reconnecting with old friends at the IL Computing Educators reception, catching up with the AFI’s Frank Guttler (the door scene guy!), singing happy birthday to the DEN, and finally ended up listening to great music and enjoying fireworks at the Atomic Learning get together. Relaxing wore me out!

Day 2, actually, because we spent Sunday out at Enchanted Springs Ranch with a great bunch of STARS. (Thanks for the post and Animoto, Martha)

Rushton Hurley packed ‘em in for his Very Cool Tricks for Using and Making Videos. I couldn’t get into the filled to capacity room, but I was at least able to stand in the back and hear and watch.

Would love to have seen Charlene Chausis do Off Task: Web Sites and Web Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed. The door guard was completely unimpressed with my close Illinois ties to Charlene and would not relent to even opening the door to the closed presentation room. Had to console myself by sitting on the floor outside and sharing her presentation wiki with the plethora of other people who couldn’t get in.

Sat in on Roger Wagner’s HyperStudio 5 presentation. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the announcement of HyperStudio’s (re)birth a year ago was premature. He was “chagrined” that they had promised a fall delivery after LAST year’s NECC and may still be months away at this point. We did get thumb drives with a good beta version on them, however, and I can’t wait to give it a try.

Wes Fryer did a great job on Digital Storytelling With Minimal Clicks: Improving Reading and Writing Skills. Did you know a typical video project takes 3-400 clicks of the mouse button? Students can tell great stories with pictures and their voice in just a few clicks.

Never Lecture in Class Again with Video Podcasting had a novel approach to teaching chemistry. Students watched the lesson at home and then did the “homework” in class along with their peers and with the teacher’s help as needed.

The digital storytelling Special Interest Group got off to a great start. Microphone was passed around and many people shared ideas. Stop in over at http://digitalstorytelling.iste.wikispaces.net, catch up, and maybe add your voice or story to the conversation.

Stopped in at the Tech & Learning magazine reception (formerly Technology & Learning) to toast Jo-Ann McDevitt as she moves on in her career. She will still be a force to be reckoned within the edtech publishing industry in her new role.

Got to reconnect with many friends from around the country and the world at the Apple reception. Gary Atkins, my roommate from last year’s Apple Institute, gave me a great tip on music software to get my granddaughter started on her piano. Will be checking that out at the Sibelius booth. Spent a little time talking with this year’s ISTE Outstanding Teacher, Carol Anne McGuire. Congratulations and good luck in your new job, CA! Big announcement from Apple was iTunes U. for K-12. Go to the iTunes store, click on iTunes U, and look for the K-12 resources at the bottom. (Remember it’s PC and Mac) Is your state sharing there?

And then to end the day, I had a quick preview of Hall Davidson’s Tuesday spotlight presentation (It’s in Your Pocket: Teaching Spectacularly with Cell Phones) while he was taking a “break” at 10 p.m. I didn’t know cell phones could do all THAT! Good thing we ban them in schools (grin). Stop by the Cockrell theater at 3:30 to catch it. Better get there early, I hear there are only a few thousand seats.

Finally getting around to thinking about packing for NECC San Antonio. Looks like plenty of digital storytelling sessions for us to be inspired at (including the American Film Institute, of course). Wes Fryer over on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” has put together a Ning and a Wiki for people interested in projects and tools. There’s also a birds of a feather gathering to get an ISTE Storytelling Corps special interest group started. As Bernajean Porter puts it in her announcement email:

This summer’s Birds-of-a-Feather session at NECC (Monday 4:45 PM Rm 103B) will be organizing the future ISTE SIG group for digital storytelling. This group will be actively launching an ISTE Storytelling Corps as their first community service project for engaging and leading others in becoming StoryKeepers™ for NECC’s 2009 Exhibition of how technology has made a difference for our world-wide kids over the last thirty years. Join us in shaping the logistics and timelines; developing the story prompts to craft storytelling rather than digital stories; identifying resources including vendor support; gathering examples of 2-4 minute videos, enhanced podcasts and other digital storytelling modes to be posted at TeacherTube.com. And there is a wiki where you can share your thoughts -  http://digitalstorytelling.iste.wikispaces.net

Hasta el Alamo!

I know, I know. I said I was going to run through the last school year’s contests and festivals, but we still have two open.

AFI’s ScreenNation Hometown Challenge has just a week left to get your middle or senior high school students’ 3-5 minute story in. Surely, there is something worth saying about your town. Old or new? Interesting name or one of many (just how many Lincolns and Columbus’s are there?) Beautiful locale or at the “crossroads?” Hit the books, talk to the mayor, get at least three interviews, you’re in!

And the Set to Screen contest comes in waves. This wave, however, doesn’t have a creative challenge. Since most of our school videos are “on location,” there’s a lot to take away here for even the simplest education learning story. Whether it’s mountains or the cinderblock wall in the cafeteria, an eye to background and controlling what the camera sees can make a big difference in your stories.

On location in San Antonio next week. Great memories of the last NECC there: first stay in a B&B, the River Walk, Hall Davidson’s keynote. Among many other things, I’m also looking forward to a digital storytellers’ birds of a feather gathering on Monday afternoon.

…And their teachers too. Three announcements here. Two for older students and one for you power Discovery Education streaming users.

First, it looks like ScreenNation is just about ready for its public beta debut on the always auspicious April 15th. Though only middle school and high school students can upload, ANY grade level can learn from the videos, lessons and challenges that will be available. More details available on AFI’s ScreenEd blog.

Second, Adobe is sponsoring a “My Community — My Planet — My 21st Century” awards competition to honor the creative work of students in Canada and the U.S. Prizes include a trip to NECC in San Antonio at the end of June. Entries in three categories: web, video and graphics design will receive prizes as well as one grand prize for best over all project. High school only - the deadline is May 12th.
And finally, just for you educators who really want to become masters of Discovery Education streaming, there will be an intense professional development workshop at Discovery’s headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. This National Training Academy will be June 1-3 and each participant is responsible for travel, lodging and the $750 registration fee. Get more details and the agenda from the NTA site. There will, of course, be a session on using DE streaming resources for digital storytelling projects. And if we can locate Hall in time, he’ll be there to keynote, cajole and add overall comic relief.

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.