Digital Storytelling

Saturday, October 24, 2009
9 AM to 4 PM ET
Click here to register for the virtual sessions.

10.  College football is overrated.

9.  The digital treats you’ll take away won’t cause cavities.

8.   You can attend in your pajamas (virtually or in-person, we’re flexible).

7.  Two full hours of the soothing sounds of Justin Karkow
Can I Help You With That?  The Student as Collaborator, Creator and Director (9 AM and 3 PM ET)

6.  A chance to win a HD Flip Cam for dressing up as your favorite Discovery personality

5.  Brand new interstitials

4.  Any time Steve Dembo uses the word “bling” in a presentation, watch out!
Putting the Bling in Your Builders (12 PM ET)

3.  The archived sessions just don’t have the same pizazz.

2.  Amazing professional development for the very reasonable price of…FREE.

1. Networking, networking, networking!

For the schedule and more information, visit: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/virtcon09.

Crossposted from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com

Or maybe this should have been entitled “Full Sail ‘09.2/DENNI ‘09.1.” I thought I had posted a few thoughts while trying to switch gears a week ago after taking three planes from the Apple Institute in Orlando to the DEN National Institute near San Francisco (literally in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge). Except for switching oceans and time zones, I felt like I was in the same place: the themes of the institutes and the commitment of the attending educators were very similar. There were project teams and time set aside for individuals to share with the whole group. I am still digesting the Apple stay at Full Sail University and the DEN National Institute  experiences (as well as NECC) and eventually will have lots of sites to share. To get you started, watch this video explaining Challenge Based Learning by the SFETT alums who have grown up to be Alas Media.

Into my second day of learning and sharing here with other Apple Distinguished Educators at Full Sail University in Orlando. So far I have been inspired by two amazing keynote speakers, FSU alum Jayson Whitmore (3 masters degrees and valedictorian each time) and Ray Zahab of Impossible to Possible (for starters he ran across the Sahara!), “branded” by the Improv Lady (Rebecca Stockley), and challenged with a Challenge Based Learning project about using student made videos to personalize learning.

Picture by Digimom13 on Flickr.

Well, I must have gotten a little distracted reading everyone else’s musings on the very last NECC (it will be the ISTE Conference from now on). I can’t believe it’s taken me a week to put together a few thoughts on Hall Davidson’s “8 Things You didn’t know you could do with Video (and 2 You did).” Of course, Hall had a lot more than ten tips to share and you can get the whole list from his Discovery Education Speakers’ Bureau handouts page (the PDF is a quicker download). On the list (for both Mac and PC): a PPT trick to keep a video going over a number of slides, green screen/chromakey fun, QuickTime Pro, screen capture programs, Google Earth, cell phones, Film on the Fly, fun with reversing clips… You get the idea.

Not a NECC reflection, but a reminder - “Science of the Movies” visits the Jim Henson workshop on Thursday night.

I have to admit to myself (and you) that I just can’t put together cogent, well thought out blogposts when I’m caught up in the swirl of a conference like NECC. Keynotes, debates, concurrent sessions, poster sessions, chance encounters, vendor visits, old friends, new friends… I think I just need to serve things up as little more than 140 character Plurk/Tweets until I get home and can distill some of this overpowering input. So, with that off my chest, I attended our annual birds of a feather Digital Storytelling SIG for just 30 minutes this afternoon and got this gem to share from PBS’s Frontline. They are putting a new spin on “work in progress” and inviting us to not only look and listen in, but also to be part of the story. Digital Nation is a documentary that will air in January 2010. Watch how it progresses and maybe take part in it yourself.

Watch this morning’s debate about the role/future of bricks and mortar schools. Though they declared a single winner, we all win by listening to these well thought out statements by some well known educators and two very eloquent high school students.

Reflecting on this last school year, it has become quite obvious to me that schools are moving away from mini-DV tape camcorders and towards less expensive, flash memory cameras like the Flip and Kodak’s Zi6 or Zx1. I think there may have been some brief flirting with DVD and hard drive camcorders, but they have their own management problems and don’t represent any significant cost savings. I had been planning to write a comparison of the two right at the end of school. What stopped me was importing video into Windows computers. (I am holding my Mac-biased tongue here, all my Apple video editing programs seem to be just fine importing video from either camera.) MovieMaker can handle the Flip’s video files after installing the right codec and Adobe Premiere Elements is  happy with the Zi6. However, the converse is not true and I haven’t been able to find any online solutions. So, one of my main goals at NECC week after next will be to try and get some face time with the camera and software people to see what they know. I would also like to hear from you. Do you use one of these cameras or another flash memory brand with PC software? Would you please share your story here via comment or email me at jbtv(at)mac.com?

The latest round of winners have been announced in ISTE’s 30th anniversary, tell your technology story. But don’t dismay - you still have until June 15th to upload your story to be in the running for a trip to NECC Denver in 2010. Check out all the videos celebrating our journey incorporating technology into the classroom and ISTE’s 30th at http://www.istevision.org.

Kindergarten teacher Al Doss snagged an HP mini laptop for “Al’s Ah Ha Moment.” How can a brick and an Apple IIgs lead to a technology enriched classroom?

“New T-E-C-H-nology“  is a fun take off on a commercial done by engaged high school students who like learning in teams. Their effort won a Flip Ultra video camcorder.

Jack Tovey’s “Art for the Digital Generation” puts a new spin on Picasso and got him a copy of the ISTE book Visual Arts Units for All Levels.

Since NECC is just four weeks away and the deadline to get your impact of technology story celebrating ISTE’s 30th anniversary in, in time for this month’s drawing (an HP mini notebook or iPod touch, Flip video camera, and the ISTE book, Visual Arts Units for All Levels) deadline is May 31st, I thought it a good time for a little reminder. The grand prize will be a trip to NECC 2010 in Denver. You can see plenty of contributions already at the ISTE Vision website but might you not have some thoughts to add also? All submissions will be playing on special kiosks throughout the NECC convention center.

Graphic from ISTE’s site supporting your learning (and teaching) journey with a focus on digital citizenship.

The last Friday in April has been a dilemma for me the last few years because both the Chicagoland Television Educators Video Festival and Tech&Learning magazine’s TechForum Midwest always fall on that same day. I feel a bit cheated because I only get a half day at each learning event. Add to it the DEN Virtual Conference on Saturday (archives TBA) and my Wilkes U. digital storytelling class’s final grades due on Monday morning, and I’m glad it’s a cold, gray, rainy Sunday for catching up (sorry golfers et al.).

You might enjoy perusing our CTEC site and its resources. This year’s winners aren’t posted yet but you can look over ’08’s best and get some great ideas for projects with your students (don’t miss the link at the bottom of the page to get to other categories like commercials and documentary). This year we had almost 400 entries in 18 categories. There are also some interesting lesson ideas posted at the bottom of our institute day recaps. Check out “Lollipop Interviews” where students interview each other and “What’s My Line?” easily adaptable for video and writing projects in your own classes.
I really can’t remember how long ago I connected with the Tech&Learning conferences and its energetic staff, but it was so long ago that they are the ones who introduced me to this “relatively unknown” guy from North Carolina named David Warlick. Since then, it has become an annual reunion of learning and great dinners with old and new friends from in and out of state. I missed Jon Orech’s Advanced Thinking in Digital Storytelling this time around but you can catch up on his thoughts at his Wiki page. As an English teacher for almost 25 years, Jon brings great insight to visual grammar.

This is the “handout” for my 3/20 session here in Detroit. An abridged version of the slides can be found in the post before last (March 9th).

My hero Marco Torres (Marc O’Torres?) and his students from San Fernando H.S.

Frank Guttler’s 

Google Teacher Academy video application and his Lights, Camera, Learn blog

Learn and share at the American Film Institute’s ScreenNation. And their YouTube channel.

Jason Ohler, Art is the 4th “R” and New Media Narratives

The Great Minds Foundation, students making videos to encourage other students to make a difference.

The Chicagoland Television Educators Council

Discovery Education streaming (search on “afi”)