Tool for Collaborative Screenwriting

Next time you're brainstorming with the youth about what film to make, try this cool tool from BBC Scotland. (Courtesy of the great folks over at Lifehacker.)

NYT Learning Blog - Ethnography Curriculum

Photography is a really wonderful tool for teaching art, science, and humanities.
"How do writers create or defy popular images of settings? What is ethnography, and how can it be used to reveal the meanings of places? In this lesson, students consider the power of place in their own lives, and then execute an ethnographic research project that dispels clichéd notions about where they live."
Click here for the curriculum
and
Click here for a similar curriculum over at the California Council for the Humanities.
Both are great.

MEDEA Awards Deadline is July 31

MEDEA Awards 2010

The MEDEA Awards competition is an international event which recognizes excellence and creativity in media in education. MEDEA aims to highlight the educational environments that reflect the media-rich world in which our learners live nowadays.

Learn more here.

Past winners here.

This year, the MEDEA Awards 2010 and prizegiving ceremony will be incorporated into a new conference entitled Media & Learning: towards the era of digital fluency, taking place in Brussels from the 25-26 November 2010. This conference will bring together practitioners and policy makers and will highlight the latest developments, services and digital and media competences in education and training. Proposals for presentations, demonstrations and workshops at this conference must be submitted before 1 June 2010.

It's Baaaaaack...

About a year and a half ago, I pitched a project that would have youth creating their own original content for digital media distribution. Doesn't sound so innovative at first - after all, most youth media programs have youtube channels.

But what I was hoping to do was to help bridge the digital divide with a completely different technology - a little internet box that families can purchase for under $200. Eventually I dropped the idea because it looked like the iPod touch might be taking over.

But Chumby, the little internet box that could, is back with a new model and an even lower price. Take a look - might be a nice way for your program to combine user interface/design concepts with digital storytelling and 21st century distribution models.

Movies for Young Urban Filmmakers

The first step to becoming a filmmaker is to watch great works then analyze and critique them. I have found these films to be especially effective when teaching storytelling, composition, and editing. Some of these films are Oscar winners, some are not. Many of them are urban cult classics. You can even ask your students to let you know which music videos have been influenced by these works.

Blood In, Blood Out - Three brothers, their choices, the consequences. (also called Bound by Blood)
City of God - Gangs in Brazil. The documentary about Favelas that's on the US dvd is also very educational. A nice contrast is to show this film with Black Orpheus.
The Conversation - A sound tech regrets the job he's done. Coppola directs.
Cooley High/Boyz in the Hood - An African-American High School story. Cooley High is set in Chicago in the 1970's and written by the same guy who co-created Good Times. Boyz in the Hood is essentially a remake/modernized version set in LA in the 80's.
Made in America: Crips & Bloods - This documentary by Stacey Peralta presents valuable perspective and also shows some great CG (After Effects, Motion, etc.) technique.
Do the Right Thing - Great example of issue filmmaking and also had a huge influence on music videos. Shows a wide range of camera angles and moves.
Klute - 1972 Oscar winner about prostitution. Deep. Shows how the camera can be used effectively when NOT moving.
Mi Familia - LA's Chicano history told in a classic Hollywood structure.
Requiem for a Dream/Trainspotting/Gridlock'd - Movies about drug addicts. Three very different takes. A good question to ask is which one is the most realiztic and why?
Scarface - If you have to ask, you'll never know.
To Be and To Have - A beautiful documentary about a group of schoolchildren and their teacher in rural France. In filmmaking, many times simple is better.
Visions of Light - Documentary about the job of the Cinematographer/Director of Photography. Dials in detail that students didn't realize was there.
The Warriors - Cult classic. Everything old is new again.

Be sure to screen all of these films in advance, many of them contain adult language or themes that may not be appropriate to your school/program. However, you can also show a less offensive scene or portion of the film for discussion.

Video Geotagging

I've been doing research for an idea/project I'm putting together and thought I'd share a couple of links. This project won't happen until the fall, so the technology is sure to change somewhat between now and then. This makes for interesting research. Usually I'm looking for the current/future trends, but this time I'm trying to look at what's been done in 'recent' history.

The topic is basically mapping - how are people using mapping to present photos and video? (The deeper question becomes, of course, why would you? I should have more answers once my research is done.) There are some fascinating mashups, some helpful technologies and also some things that have not happened yet, but should. Here's just a few links:
A nice list of geotagging definitions and some lesson plans and other resources to get you started is here.
Flickr shows up on google maps, but Panoramio is another company doing more landscape and beauty shots.
I love this project, which sought funding at donorschoose.org last year. It won't be completed until May.
I went to a presentation earlier this week by FoundSF.org which is using MediaWiki to collect resources and design it's site. Should be even more and more exciting stuff over the next few months. It also looks like an excellent site for a class/after school program to use for research and then add their own contributions. And MediaWiki is an EXCELLENT tool with lots of potential for those willing to do their open source homework.
Actually, I've been quite surprised to see all that Google* is doing and others (like Wikipedia, sadly) are not. A lot of the information I'm finding is from 2008 all the way back to 2006. I wonder why these technologies aren't more widely used? Maybe it's just too much time and research!

* Google geotagged YouTube in 2007, Flickr added video geotagging in 2008, for example.

Taking the Bridge to the Next Level

I've been swamped lately, working on a contract to help design a statewide contest for young filmmakers. It's been wonderful work - merging many of my interests (filmmaking/video, youth/education, health education, research, and more). Most of all, I have been working to address digital divide issues that are specific to video and youth I've worked with in the past.

For example, many of my students don't check their email. They prefer to keep in constant contact via myspace - and see their yahoo account as just something you sign up for so that you can get a myspace page. So we're building an rss feed (via twitter) into the contest page. It will allow us to post everything that goes into email blasts onto the site - in an abbreviated form.

Another example is the submission requirements and rules. I've been working on that a lot - researching what technologies *most* youth are using now. (This is in comparison to what technology the experts and magazines recommend, but kids can't always afford.) So I'm making room for kids who might want to shoot a film on a cell phone and edit online because they don't have a computer at home.

Today I found a really helpful list that gives a wonderful 'big picture' view of this sort of troubleshooting. It applies directly to my current project, but also applies to many many more.

Blogger the explicit posted Simple questions to ask when planning a contribution-based project back in January and then added an Installment #2. He also writes about setting expectations for contribution-based projects and then revises his thoughts. All of the links contain wonderful food for thought - for projects big and small. It's kind of cool how much consultants and teachers have in common :)

Learning Film Making Online

Courtesy of Ken Radio
Great site that provide a real-world education of the complex world of motion picture production through a series of easy-to-understand, yet comprehensive videos, workbooks and resources. By partnering with industry leaders in the creative and technological fields, we strive to teach real, cutting edge techniques to filmmakers around the globe. We also seek to build an online community of filmmakers to help forge long-term connection between filmmakers from all disciplines.
http://www.powerfilmmaking.com

It's Not Just About the Software

Adobe has an excellent suite of resources for iTeachers. Not only is there a wonderful gallery of work, but white papers, curriculum, and direct links to an employee volunteer program and software donation and training for educators and non-profits. Phew! Definitely worth checnking out.

Adobe - Adobe Youth Voices Gallery - Resources: "Adobe and its founding Adobe Youth Voices partners — Educational Video Center, Listen Up!, What Kids Can Do, Arts Engine, and iEARN — offer a variety of free and low-cost resources to help you integrate youth media into your classroom or out-of-classroom programs."

Technology and Music

From the Desk of David Pogue - So Many iPhone Apps, So Little Time - NYTimes.com: "Once you install and open this program, your iPhone's screen displays four colored circles of different sizes. These are the 'holes' that you cover with your fingers, as you would the holes on a flute. Then you blow into the microphone hole at the bottom of the iPhone, and presto: the haunting, expressive, beautiful sound of a wind instrument comes from the iPhone speaker."

A surprising example of iPhone as musical instrument.

Barnes�&�Noble.com - Book Search: The Daily Spark Series

According to the publisher (Barnes & Noble) "The Daily Spark Series gives classroom teachers a dynamic way of delivering stimulating and effective exercises to get students motivated at the start of class."

I think they're also a great resource for media classes. I especially enjoyed the one focused on Poetry - many of the ideas would be perfect for short films. They could also work in a music/songwriting/beats & rhymes curriculum.

You can flip through them online with a membership or head into a B&N to look at the hard copies. But these books are only available from other vendors (like Amazon) as second-hand copies.

Why Keep a Journal?

A cool list to spark ideas from online journal Penzu. These could be some great starting points for a video diary or 1st person documentary project as well...

Why Keep a Journal?: "Don’t know where to start? If you would like to achieve the therapeutic effects of journaling, writing in an expressive journal is a good place to start. Here are some quick tips from Dr. James W. Pennebaker to guide you along."

Cool Software - Mac Only

Create Polaroid™-like pictures over at the Poladroid Project.
Samples are here

A couple of cool links for generating ideas

Writer's block? Cure writer's block with creative writing games - brainstorming widgets - poetry generator - character name generator

And here's one that allows you to create word trees of any text. Nice way to make art from something as dry as a political speech.

You Go Grrrl!

Courtesy of the Media Alliance mail list:
"Reel Grrls is a Seattle-based media literacy program for teenage girls and they've taken on media ownership concentration. As a happy result of the Seattle FCC hearing earlier this year, Reel Grrls put out a sharp 10-minute documentary on youth and news content. A great teaching tool for those of you who work with teenagers or tweens. Yes, we've put a link to it on our website and yes, Youtube is wonderful, but we really encourage you to support youth media-making and buy a copy of the 2008 Reel Grrls Story Time Compilation DVD, which includes the film (and some other wonderful stuff, too)."

Everyone's Talking About...

This week I spotted this technology in an article on Wired, but I've also found articles on Techlearning and, of course, Cnet. So, I did what any modern girl would do and searched Flickr Photos and found one Flickr Group - called the ChumbyChums.

The object of my infatuation is a Chumby. It's been available for less than a year. Once I saw the company site, I remembered that I'd heard about it about 6 months ago, went on the site and didn't see anything to get excited about. But I was only seeing it then as an out-of-the-box tech toy.

Turns out it's customizable in many ways...which means it could very well be a great tool for teaching. (It connects to your wi-fi network, has a touch screen and runs widgets from all the major sites. Some blogs are also saying it has an accelerometer inside and maybe even a built in GPS? But you can also take the electronics out of the casing and hotwire your Chumby to things like a small engine or embed it inside a teddy bear.)

Anyone want to hack together a Chumby, a Tonka Truck, and a Camera and have some fun geomapping the neighborhood? What other ways would you, could you use it in your digital classroom?

(By the way, my guess is Melissa's been getting a lot of hits lately.)

My New Playground

We have a student who needs their own, individual project. So I'm building a series of exercises that will allow him to explore some of the issues going on in his life - inspired by the film Tarnation. Part of the plan is to have him use the built-in camera on one of our iMacs to make a self-portrait using stop motion. So I went hunting to find an example and found this instead...Boinx Software - iStopMotion 2 - Examples

Fun stuff. Now I have lots of ideas for projects for all ages!

Using Music and Sound Across Curriculum (iTunes or GarageBand or...)

Really nice article over at Techlearning: Teaching With Tunes: 21 Ideas for Incorporating Music Throughout the Curriculum. Here's just a couple of my favorites

2. Cultural Studies As a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, I discovered the incredible sounds of Andean folk music or musica folklorica. It was an eye, or should I say ear-opening experience. In the study of world geography, indigenous music should be required listening. With labels like Putumayo and National Geographic Music, bossa nova, Delta blues, Mongolian throat singing, tango, and the "voices of forgotten worlds" are only a download away.

4. Fieldwork When the ivory-billed woodpecker was allegedly sighted in the Honey Island Swamp, Cornell University sent down a team of ornithologists who specialized in bioacoustics. For them, the best way to find the elusive "God Bird" was to listen closely. Have your young field biologists conduct their own research using cameras, binoculars, note pads, and microphones. Or, record your own sounds from the field and then have your students describe what they hear. They could even create a symphony of found sounds.

9. Math How do we visualize math? What do patterns sound like? Where does spatial reasoning and harmony intersect? Supposedly, there are any number of mathematical concepts inherent in music—being a humanities kind of guy, I only calculate a few. From proportions and frequency to counting and fractals, break out your slide rule and trombone and then measure out a smokin' hot number...

13. Public Speaking More so than spiders, snakes, and even heights, public speaking is our number one fear. It's also one of the most valuable skills in the workplace. While kids are sometimes reluctant to "stand and deliver" a book report or speech, give them "Mr. Microphone" and a melody, and watch as their inhibitions waft away. With The Who and U2 as role models, have your young orators practice their body language, inflection, and voice projection live, on stage and in concert!

How to Turn Art into Profit?

It's been on my mind a lot lately - how can I help my students to make money from their digital work? I mean, they are learning skills that might someday translate into a job in the (highly competitive) world of media arts. However, is there a way for them to make money NOW with the products their producing in class? Isn't that part of Web 2.0's potential?

This article recommends Youth Media as a source for revenue for the non-profits that run the programs that teach them. Youth Media Reporter: Non-profit does not mean Non-revenue: "The focus on earned income within the nonprofit community continues to rise, fueled by boards, funders and stakeholders enamored with the idea of social entrepreneurship and diversified funding streams. The good news is that youth media groups are in an excellent position to capitalize on the trend, as they often produce a tangible product like videos, web sites and magazines"

What do you think? Have you bought any youth made media on iTunes? Have your youth?

Otherwise known as Participatory Video

Journalism in the Hands of the Neighborhood - New York Times: "After a free-flowing discussion about the kind of news they see and read in mainstream outlets, the group of about 15 was encouraged by the class’s three teachers to suggest their own story ideas, a few of which they will turn into five-minute video segments by the end of the eight-week class. A pattern quickly emerged: proposed topics included gun control, violence in schools, as well as crime against cab drivers."