Following on the heels of my trip to the CUE Conference, last Wednesday I headed over to our Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC) to help judge the SEVAs (Students Educational Video Awards). As I sat with a team of teacher reviewers scoring middle school entries, I kept thinking about Mathew Needleman’s second graders’ amazing going-beyond-Open Court productions , such as as Camouflage Jones - Private Investigator. Making an award-winning film requires more than a well-designed storyline and storyboard. A bit of background in basic camera shots can make all the difference in grabbing and keeping an audience’s attention (and scoring judges points)!

As part of my district’s DOLCHE project, we provided participating teachers with a copy of Niko Theodosakis’s The Director in the Classroom. As engaging and comprehensive as this resource is, it does not include a section on basic shots. Fortunately, to complement Nikos’s book and videoconferencing trainings, my talented DOLCHE partner Krishna Harrison-Munoz jumped in with both a teacher workshop and a student workshop on basic shoots, much of which is included in her Roadmap for the New Video Producer and her Roadmap for the Student Video Producer.* Combine this handout with Mathew’s Kinds of Shots Tutorial, and even I (Queen of Bad Photography) feel confident about taking digital storytelling to the next level.

*Note: This was my first time using the K12HSN’s edZone to upload a document. Very easy! And I love having all that free space for uploading!

Day two was another great day (except for ups and downs of wireless connections) at CUE. Here are my snippets:

The K12 HSN - We’re Not Just About the Wires - Alan Phillips: I’m still in a state of amazement over Edzone, the HSN’s newest project. Not only can California educators grab a blog (or blogs), they also have free storage for uploading - and sharing - videos, podcasts, and documents. Setting up a blog takes only a minute. I’ll be reposting from BlogWalker into BlogWalker’s Twin, not to defect from Edublogs, but to fully test the capabilities of an Edzone blog and to share with teachers in sites that block all forms of social networking. I’ll be checking out both podcasting and video uploading this week. Edzone is a wonderful gift to California educators!

Digital CPR: Bring Your Reading Series to Life in Video Podcasting - Mathew Needleman: For the past year, I’ve been following Mathew Needleman’s work with bringing filmmaking into the Open Court curriculum. Mathew opened the session with an amazing “film noir” produced by second graders. Check out the student film projects at http://www.needleworkspictures.com/vic/, and I think you will join me in standing back in awe of the way he has integrated film into the classroom. No, these are not the GATE students. Mathew taught at a school improvement site in LA County (same school he attended). His presentation included tips, strategies, and a strong argument for filmmaking as a way of increasing student achievement. My favorite tip was to avoid simply retelling a story and, instead, develop a script around a unit theme. A very inspiring presentation! (Note to self: find research on the link between students being able to make intertextual connections and literacy gains.)

Google Earth in the Classroom - Joseph Wood: Well who isn’t blown away by Google Earth?! So GE plus a highly entertainly presenter made for a packed session. But it was worth sitting on the floor for an hour to start thinking about all the possibilities for engaging students with GE and Google Maps, and Google Skies and on and on. Joe has posted his GE in the Classroom handout, along with many other GE resources. I left this session inspired to create a Google Lit Trip or two, using the Time of Remembrance Interview Archives. Yes, you can upload video into Google Maps:-)

AFI Screen Education Center: Digital Filmmaking in the Core Curriculum - Frank Guttler and Mitch Aiken: This fast-paced session was a slice of the training for teachers offered by AFI. They are currently offering a very complete manual in PDF format on exercises for budding filmmakers. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link either on their site or Discovery Education’s site. If I locate it, I’ll update this post. (Note to self: look into attending an AFI Summer Institute!)

Yes, that is CUE’s Mike Lawrence on stage with the band at Friday afternoon’s poolside reception. I wish I could have stayed for the Saturday session, but I thoroughly enjoyed my two days at CUE 2008 (three days counting the EdubloggerConWest session). A fun ending to a fun-filled conference

Starting with Wednesday’s Edubloggercon and ending with the Friday poolside reception, the trip to Palm Springs to attend the 2008 CUE Conference was well worth the trip to Palm Springs! Despite some lousy connectivity issues for both presenters and participants, I walked away with new ideas and resources from every session I attended. Here are some snippets from Day One - Thursday:

Technology to Bring the Past Alive - Mike Lebsock: Well right off the bat, when you meet an 8th grade history teacher with the guts to dress in colonial attire, that’s sort of an indicator that he’s all about engaging students with the past. I valued the resources he shared (in his demonstration and handout) and, even more, his sharing of how he structured the introduction of and integration of podcasts in his US History curriculum. Before having students create collaborative podcasts on the Declaration of Independence, for instance, his students listen to professionally done podcasts hosted at the Colonial Williamsburg site. After listening to actors readings of historic documents, the students are ready to start recording their own versions. To build on comprehension, Mike also has students include images with their podcasts. Excellent presentation! (Note to self: Notify CUE staff that you were not totally focused when filling out the evaluation for Mike’s session - and might have marked all 1’s instead of the well-deserved 5’s.)

Blogs and Wikis: Writing Across the Curriculum - Brian Bridges: This was my first time to hear Brian Bridges present. Even though he has posted all his handouts online, his hilarious presentation style made it a memorable hour. Since I am always looking for royalty-free music for students projects, I was glad to learn that Jamendo, a site I looked at a year ago, now has over 7,000 albums online, with artists offering them to the public royalty free. (Note to self: send link to Jamendo to all DOLCHE project teachers.)

Integrating the Internet into the Primary Classroom: Gayle Berthiaume - One of my goals for this school year is to take a closer look at technology integration in the primary grades, so I’m glad I caught the tail end of Gayle’s presentation. I’ve always been a fan of Scholastic products, so it’s no surprise that they offer a ton of resources for the younger student. (And thanks to a little prompting from Alice Mercer, they be adding RSS feeds to their sites.) Besides sites like Scholastic’s Go Buggy, Send a Letter to Clifford, Publish Prehistoric Tales, and the spinning wheel of computer lab favorites, we also toured fun sites such as Giggle Poetry and very promising sites such as Panwapa - where students can make their own avatars, play many learning games, and make safe “connections” with students around the globe. Here’s a link to Gayle’s favorite primary sites - http://del.icio.us/tag/gayleinternet(Note to self: start putting together workshop for primary teachers.)

Digital Imaging and Tips & Tricks for Photoshop & Photoshop Elements - Arnie Abrams - I would love to do a hands-on workshop with Arnie Abrams. He is a master at simplifying all things Photoshop. I’m still working with PSE 3, but am tempted to spring for PSE 6, based on the Photomerge Group Shot option and the right click ability to send photo to a Google Maps.

Coming up next…Reflections on CUE 2008 - Day 2

Not all sessions are being streamed, but here’s a link to what’s been archived - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/edtechlive.

How do we justify project-based learning (PBL) in a test-driven climate? I’m sitting in a session with Jane Krauss and Sylvia Martinez, who are discussing the reality that you have to make some adjustments to your curriculum in order to fit PBL into your curriculum. Fact: Thinking takes longer than multiple choice. Fact: “PowerPoint does not a project make” (Jane).

So how do you translate authentic assessment to measurable numbers? “You can do it; it just takes a little longer” (Sylvia). But since we tend to teach the way we were taught, how to we change our ways? Idea: have a tech-using, PBL-oriented teacher come demo a lesson using another teacher’s students - with that teacher in the room as an observer - who will no longer be able to say “Oh, my students could never do that.” This model = “embedded professional development.”

How do we provide the evidence (research)? Start blogging your classroom practice. Blogging = self-reflection and … action research.

I’m at the CUE Conference a day early to attend the Edubloggercon. Sylvia Martinez is up right now doing a session on Twitter. With Twitter, comes a new term “microblogging.” She’s explaing how Twitteriffic works. She’s moved on to Tweet Scan and explaining the API thing, which allows 3rd parties “to suck stuff out of Twitter.” Tweet Scan allows you to search terms, such as your name, to see what Tweets are out there. Good way not to miss Tweets directed to you.

I like Steve Hargadon’s comparison of Twitter to a cocktail party. The participants are starting to chime in with the “presence” of Twitter community, because “there is a conversation going on all the time.” “It’s like being in the break room, not everybody is in there all the time, so no need to take it personally if you don’t get a response, unlike email.” And there’s even a My Tweets Map application…

The front page of the Sunday Sacramento Bee features the first of a three-part story that I wish every educator - across the state and nation - had access to: Tackling Life - South Sacramento Raiders. Bee staff writer Jocelyn Wiener has followed former team members of the 1992 south Sacramento Raiders Junior Midgets football team to see what paths their lives have taken in the 15 years since the photo was taken. For the most part, their stories are filled with obstacles associated with living in low income, crime ridden neighborhoods, starting with dysfunctional, broken, or nonexistent family ties, moving on to the pull of escalating gangs and peer-related drug dealings, and ending all too often in incarceration and/or early death.

The story is played out in the Elk Grove Unified School District (my district) and Sacramento City Unified School District (Alice M’s district), but I think the two areas featured in the article could easily and accurately be replaced with countless other urban school districts nationwide. When I look at the annotated map of the south Sacramento area that Wiener has included in the article, I am sure thousands of students in similar social-economic areas could create compelling stories using Google maps to make visible to an online audience what poverty really looks like. I say this after four years of connecting high school classrooms across the state and nation through blogging and interactive videoconferencing in projects that invite students to share, discuss, and ponder social actions revolving around challenges they face on a daily basis in their local communities. For students living in communities such as south Sacramento, the challenge is not so much how to survive four years of high school, but rather, how to survive four years of traveling to and from school, along with the in between weekend events and confrontations.

I am wondering if any of the survivor or success stories from the 1992 team are due to a teacher - or two - along the way who made a difference. For the many that dropped out of school, I’m sorry they never had the opportunity to learn from dedicated, talented teachers such as Bob LeVin, an English teacher at Florin High School, one of the high schools a number of the 1992 Raider members would have attended. Bob LeVin is a teacher who understands the enormous challenges faced by many of his students just getting out the front door each morning to attend class. He cares deeply about their present realities and tries to offer a curriculum that is engaging, while at the same time challenging and geared to preparing students to live, learn, and work in the 21st century. Always looking for new ways to package literacy skills, in the 2003 school year he invited me to his classes to introduce the students to Enrique’s Journey, a blogging project that connected his Florin students to a group of high school students in Lompoc, a small farming/military community in southern California. Pleased with the way the Enrique project offered a voice to many students who rarely participated in the face-to-face environment, Bob was definitely up for continuing the journey. And we did, with the 2004-05 Youth Voices Coast to Coast project. To illustrate how this project took students beyond the walls of the classroom and the confines of the Florin community, I’ve included a picture from a videoconference session during which Bob’s students joined students from San Francisco’s Galileo High School to co-present with me to a group of educators at the 2005 CUE Conference about the Youth Voices project. I’ve also included some clips from the session so you can hear first-hand how Web 2.0 technologies directly impact students and teachers: one student’s take on the project, another student’s take on blogging; Bob LeVin’s wrap-up.

In addition to involving last year’s students in the 2006-07 iteration of the Youth Voices project, Bob also introduced filmmaking into his English classes, empowering students to document local histories and events. Within months of putting cameras into their hands, many of his students submitted entries in local and regional film competitions. All finished the year with an appreciation and understanding of multimedia literacies.

But the deal is Bob LeVin mainly teaches 12th graders. Regardless of whether they are in the Elk Grove or Sac City School District, I hope the members of the 2006 south Sacramento Raiders Junior PeeWees will have the mentors, supporters, teachers, and positive school experiences necessary to ensure that they stay in school all the way through to their senior year.

I want to acknowledge Jocelyn Wiener and her team for documenting and sharing a story that needs to be told. With schools re-opening over the next few weeks, I think this series is an timely reminder of how important it is for every student to feel that he/she is a valued member the community, especially the school community. I look forward to Part 2 and 3 of Tackling Life.

Note: 1995 and 2006 team photographs by Bee photographer Anne Chadwick Williams.

Technorati Tags: sacbee, south_sacramento

This year’s CUE featured a number of sessions on blogging. I walked in on Bernie Dodge’s session just in time to hear him mention a white paper on the value of students blogging: Learning with Weblogs: An Empirical Investigation.

Here’s a summary I gleaned from Hernandez-Ramos’ blog entry:

The study investigates the impact of weblog use on individual learning in a university environment. Weblogs are a relatively new knowledge sharing technology, which enables people to record their thoughts in diary form and publish those diaries as web pages, without programming or HTML coding. The research sought to empirically determine whether the keeping of on-going (web based) learning logs throughout a semester would result in better overall student performance. This was hypothesized, because web based learning logs appear to promote constructivist learning, provide reinforcement, and increase accountability (non-anonymous idea sharing). Results from an information systems undergraduate course with 31 students indicate that weblog performance is a significant predictor for learning outcome, while traditional coursework is not. Weblogs appear to have highest predictive power for high and low performing students, but much less predictive value for medium performers. Results also suggest that there is a learning effect for weblog authoring.