Mathew Needleman | BlogWalker

March 10, 2009
by blogwalker
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CUE Friday Sessions

Walked away with another round of immediately useful resources and ideas from Friday’s workshops:

iPhone: The Ultimate Teaching Assistant – Lanie McGann provided a great overview of iPhone uses and applications via her presentations and iPhone Education PDF. She ended her session by polling the audience for favorite iPhone apps. Haven’t had a chance to checkout all of them, but, for a starter, many parents in the audience love Trace.

Film School for Video Podcasters – Mathew Needleman continues to be my guiding light in resources, strategies, and justification for transforming elementary students into filmmakers. For a glimpse into Mathew’s presentation, teaching style, and multiple talents, checkout his very complete post for this session.

Ten Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with Video Clips – Loved Hall Davidson‘s fast-paced, hilarious session. Thanks to a little help from Mathew Needleman, I’ve located the link to Hall’s PDF ( but still can’t get the PowerPoint to load).

November 11, 2008
by blogwalker
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Mathew Needleman’s K12Online Preso – Oh my!

I’ve blogged about Mathew Needleman before. Since attending his CUE 08 presentation, I’ve been following his blog and have even written videoconferencing sessions with Mathew into my district’s current EETT grant. But if you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face with Mathew in real time or virtual time – or even if you have – you now have the opportunity to watch the amazing video he created for his recent K12Online Conference presentation Film School for Video Podcasters!

Mathew’s explanation of the storyboarding process will make you rethink those storyboarding templates (that I’ve been giving students). I also have a much better understanding of the Rule of Thirds now. He touched quickly on lighting too, an area I haven’t a clue about setting up, so I’m hoping maybe Mathew has an upcoming session on that topic.

What a strong case for media literacy in the elementary curriculum! Just wish I had joined Mathew live for his K12Online Conference session. Next year for sure!

March 21, 2008
by blogwalker
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Tips for Future Filmmakers – and Their Teachers

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.