This article from St. Louis Today
talks about a camp aimed at teaching girls science in the 9th and 10th grade. It's been well documented that girls and boys do equally well at math and science until about this age. For some reason, then girls drop significantly.
In video I've seen this phenomenon as well. It still surprises me that I am one of only a handful of female camera operators. After all, composing good shots and pushing buttons is not a uniquely male or female skill. But there's something about filmmaking that seems to make people think it's too technologically challenging (or geeky) for girls.
Funnily enough, when girls meet me and see me with the camera, a lot of this fear seems to melt away.
What about you? Do you see girls shying away from the behind the camera jobs? What about working with computers and post-production? And if you do see this phenomenon when teaching 'the science of moviemaking' what do you do about it?
Friday
Where to get Fonts
"Fonts are about the easiest way to add to your creative arsenal, and I’ve compiled a long, but certainly not complete, list of Web sites offering fonts ranging from completely free to uber-expensive." Great article from James Dempsey over at Macworld: Creative Notes
Thursday
Filmmakers That Think Outside the Film
Filmmakers That Think Outside the Film: This article takes you on a tour of some of the ways filmmakers are thinking beyond the film. Examples include how the assets of a film are repurposed, how filmmakers offering components of their film in digital format for anyone to ‘remix’. Courtesy of WorkbookProject.com
Saturday
What Are We Teaching?
Throw this one in the category of philosophical debates, but I sometimes wonder what we are teaching in our digital classrooms? When I first started teaching video, the goal was to create new filmmakers. But there are so many students for so few Speilberg-Lee-Coppolla-type openings. So what are we trying to teach? What kinds of skills are we passing on? And how will our students use them?
The Assimilated Negro Blog has some interesting comments based on reading an article by Malcom Gladwell on Genius : "This sort of pigeontails with my theory on genius, that being that we shouldn't view it as a skill or trait that an individual possesses, but more a zone or a place that we enter and leave. Genius, as I see it, is almost like falling in love. We all have the capacity for it, and perhaps some are more predisposed to fall than others, but everyone has their moments."
He goes on to add: "If you start working a job at 22, and stay there for ten years, at 32 you should be a master. And filmmakers and artists who start at 20, may hit their stride at 30. And of course you can accelerate or slow down the process according to how much you want to focus. And it highlights how you inhibit your potential in one fieldby spreading yourself across many fields."
So what do you think? Are we training young media professionals or giving kids skills that they will then apply to other fields? And if the latter is true, are we spreading them so thin that they will become "Jacks of all trades, Master of none"?
The Assimilated Negro Blog has some interesting comments based on reading an article by Malcom Gladwell on Genius : "This sort of pigeontails with my theory on genius, that being that we shouldn't view it as a skill or trait that an individual possesses, but more a zone or a place that we enter and leave. Genius, as I see it, is almost like falling in love. We all have the capacity for it, and perhaps some are more predisposed to fall than others, but everyone has their moments."
He goes on to add: "If you start working a job at 22, and stay there for ten years, at 32 you should be a master. And filmmakers and artists who start at 20, may hit their stride at 30. And of course you can accelerate or slow down the process according to how much you want to focus. And it highlights how you inhibit your potential in one fieldby spreading yourself across many fields."
So what do you think? Are we training young media professionals or giving kids skills that they will then apply to other fields? And if the latter is true, are we spreading them so thin that they will become "Jacks of all trades, Master of none"?
Mac or PC?
"Our tech plan calls for laptop purchases to be made over the summer. We were set to go with PCs, but now a committee member has asked about Apple's new Intel-based Macintosh computers. Should we reconsider?"
In one word: Yes.
Here's how Techlearning answers it
In one word: Yes.
Here's how Techlearning answers it
Friday
Teachers learning how to use technology to enhance lessons
Now this is what I'm talking about!
Teachers learning how to use technology to enhance lessons
Teachers learning how to use technology to enhance lessons
PicLens Software
MacInTouch Announces: "Cooliris released PicLens Beta 1.5, a Safari plug-in that transforms a browser window into an image viewer. The viewer provides a full-screen option, slideshows, playback controls, support for the Apple Remote control, and other features, including support for Flickr, Facebook, Google Images, and Yahoo Images. This release adds Google and Yahoo image searches from within full-screen mode, multi-page browsing, an option to jump directly from PicLens to the image web page, and support for Picasa Web Albums, Friendster, and any web site that supports Media RSS. PicLens is free for Mac OS X 10.4 with Safari 2 and 3."
Tuesday
"Technology is now in the Mainstream of the 21st Century Classroom"
Marin educators creating the 21st century classroom: "CHILDREN in Bryan Nielsen's third-grade class at Sausalito's Bayside Elementary School have moved beyond simple staging of a makeshift skit to become their own video and editing crew - filming their efforts and editing on computer with animation, titles and sound.
'It's a new standard of enthusiasm, I think is the biggest thing,' Neilsen said, describing his students' interest in use of the school's multimedia tools in their production of Aesop's fable, 'The Ant and the Grasshopper.'
But far from being in the vanguard, Nielsen's class is in the mainstream of the 21st century classroom, in which sophisticated high-tech equipment is being used in myriad ways at all levels by students and teachers alike."
'It's a new standard of enthusiasm, I think is the biggest thing,' Neilsen said, describing his students' interest in use of the school's multimedia tools in their production of Aesop's fable, 'The Ant and the Grasshopper.'
But far from being in the vanguard, Nielsen's class is in the mainstream of the 21st century classroom, in which sophisticated high-tech equipment is being used in myriad ways at all levels by students and teachers alike."
New Apple Education Site
With the rollout of Leopard, Apple has revised it's site's look and layout pretty extensively. I think the Education
section is a definite improvement. More streamlined than before. Hopefully all the same content is there...In the past I've gotten some great ideas from looking through others' lesson plans and sample projects.
section is a definite improvement. More streamlined than before. Hopefully all the same content is there...In the past I've gotten some great ideas from looking through others' lesson plans and sample projects.
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