Are your students using iPads or iPhones?

If they are, then they won't be able to access a lot of flash movies online. This should be a consideration as you decide which platform/s will host your class's work.

Fortunately, HTML5 is accessible on multiple platforms. And developers are adding functions to it every day. Take Mozilla, for example:

"Video on the web has always been a bit disappointing.

After all, it’s pretty much just like television, only smaller. And unlike the rest of the web, video is just as much a passive experience in your browser as it is anywhere else.

Mozilla would like to change that. Developers at the browser maker’s Drumbeat project — an initiative that advocates new open web technologies — have created Popcorn, a tool intended to make web video every bit as interactive as the rest of the web.

Popcorn is a very new effort and still a bit rough around the edges, but results are already impressive. Popcorn adds metadata to HTML5 native web video, annotating videos with information like location, details about the people and topics in the video, subtitles, and licensing details. The metadata can be used in real time to add to the experience."

More info here at Webmonkey.

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.

The Contest Has Launched

Youth: sign up to upload your video and vote for your favorites!
iTeachers: help your youth to create videos and posters and enter them.
Deadline is April 15 - tax day!

MO Project
MO Project is a contest about a movement. Californians are making neighborhoods healthier and we want to hear from you. Join in! Think about what's working, what's not working, and how to make it better. Your short films and posters will be shown to state and local representatives to help shape future funding and laws.

Make a short film or a poster and enter today!

Cool Stuff over at Stories for Change

Help Us Celebrate Youth Voices!:
"In honor of International Youth Day, we are excited to announce our online campaign to feature digital stories made by youth from around the world that are working to make the world a better place. Starting August 12th through September 2nd, we will be displaying a rotating assortment of stories on the homepage as well as encouraging dialogue on strategies for doing digital storytelling projects with youth.

We also encourage youth members and those working with youth to consider uploading their own stories (visit: http://storiesforchange.net/node/add/story) on this theme and including the “youth” tag so they can be added to our growing collection.

This celebration is a part of Stories for Change’s initiative of sharing stories on particular themes, to coincide with various international days and celebrations. The goal of this initiative is to highlight both the diversity of voices on the site and the common social justice threads going on in the world of digital storytelling today.

Through the initiative, are working to connect with other organization's doing work on specific social justice issues and encourage them to become involved in the Stories for Change community. For more information, please email: laura@storycenter.org.

All the best,

The Stories for Change Team"

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!

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."

Recently Expanded - Great Source for Youth Made Media

Uth TV
has been expanding its' website and now offers even more clips from youth media producers nationwide. The quality of work by todays' students is just amazing. If you already spend waaaaay to much time on You Tube, be sure to peek here as well.

What if you only had 1 day to make a movie?

By the way, the gallery for the Insomnia Film Festival is up. The top 9 films are currently being viewed and scored by celebrity judges. Winners to be announced shortly.

The Documentary Project

The Documentary Project
was a beautiful program for refugee youth in New York. They have put together this website to document their process

Share web text, video, and more with your phone - Lifehacker

Even with the smallest student project, there is some distribution. Currently we output everything to quicktime and then let the students use iDVD to make their own copies. We also have a youtube site where we post students' videos so that they can share them with their friends. (It also serves as a great publicity tool for our organization.)
But this looks kind of fun. Lifehacker gives a review on Joey, a service that allows you to move video to your cell phone. I know that our students would love to do this.

Bronx Students Learn Filmmaking, Tribeca Style - New York Times

I'm happy for the kids, really I am. Tribeca filmmakers reaching out to inner city kids is a good thing. However, I can't help but think there was an opportunity missed here. It just seems like the article is being kind - like the film wasn't that good.

People assume that teaching media is easy. That all you have to do is show up with a camera and the kids will get it and create great work. But then, I guess people assume filmmaking is easy too.

Using Video with Students Who Are Deaf

You may have heard about the events at Galludet University in Washington - basically there is a big controversy about preserving deaf culture and specifically sign language.

Current technologies, including the web have opened up infinite new possibilities for communication. One thing that's happening - that was never possible with phones and email - is that the deaf are publishing signing movies to the web.

There are some really great vlogs on youtube - just search for "Deaf" or "ASL" (American Sign Language). Or, you can take a look at some of the amazing short films made by Eagles Media at the California School for the Deaf.