Under two weeks working at the Grand Rapids Community Media Center and things have been busy. I am jumping in and helping out with a summer program that is already in existence called ArtWorks. I ride around in a production van filled with high school kids and equipment, and we have been filming interviews at the Urban Institiute for Contemporary Arts, to make a project for their capitol campaign. So far so good, they need my help and I am glad to give it. I have contacted local youth GLBT groups and explained that I want to teach the kids how to create their own digital stories. I have had good responses but it looks like things won't start until the school year. I am making my own digital story this week and will spend some time trying to figure out the best way to exhibit it. Meanwhile, I am working with inner city kids on a new project. They are 16-19 year old males who have are on the fence between jail and a job. We plan to teach them video basics; production, planning, how to do an interview, how to use equipment, etc. The challenge here is forming a relationship with them, gaining their trust, finding common ground to start from. It will take time, and I am working with amazing people who luckily have been doing this for a while. I know that this year I will constantly be learning, and I am really excited about that. My supervisor is awesome, and we get along great. My organization is broke, and financial support for a conference is out of the question...boo. Happy 4th to all...

Comment from Ben Sheldon on July 6, 2007 - 5:09pm

Sounds like a lot of fun driving around in the Van. Mobile operations are always better than sitting around the office (take it from me, I don't even have windows).

I used to work with Danielle Krawczyk, who started the MOLLIE Project at Grand Rapids many years ago as a CTC VISTA. He posted a great video about it.

Also, I hope you are talking with Danielle Martin, who has more digital storytelling experience than you can shake a stick at.

Keep on trucking!

Comment from Meegan Kelly on July 9, 2007 - 10:59am

Hi Sarah!!!

Glad to hear you're having fun. I bet you miss your roommates. I just wanted to say hey.

Meegan

Comment from danielle martin on July 11, 2007 - 5:18pm

Hey Sarah,

Oh man I can't wait to see your story! Is it the same one from the GRUT workshop? Let me know if you need any feedback on your script and such. You're going to post it StoriesforChange.net right? And you could also connect with Jessica McCoy, a current CTC VISTA at the Center for Digital Storytelling who actually helped Naomi out with the story we showed at the PSO.

You should take a look at this great event that I'm going to post soon about this ds workshop a friend of mine is doing in Africa around getting women to share their stories around violence (a different but still sensitive subject, especially down there).

Say hi to Richard!

-Danielle

For those of you who wear glasses: this spring I got two pairs of prescription eyeglasses (including the lenses) for $8 and $12 from zennioptical.com. My old glasses have broken several times and while I've been able to repair them with superglue so far, I know they won't last forever. The glasses from Zenni Optical aren't the nicest glasses you'll ever buy, but they're great as backup glasses, prescription sunglasses (+$4.95 for the tint), or "my bank account has $50" glasses.

To buy prescription glasses online, you need to have your prescription (duh) including your "pupillary distance." You can get your prescription from your eye doctor who you got your last pair of glasses from, but you'll probably have to specifically ask for them to include the pupillary distance; as far as I know they avoid giving it out because it allows you to go elsewhere for prescriptions (but it's part of your prescription, and yours to know). At Zenni Optical, they don't require a copy of the prescription, you just enter it in yourself.

I have a few pictures of my new glasses tagged "glasses" in my flickr account.

Comment from Ben Sheldon on July 2, 2007 - 5:01pm

Thanks for the tip. Any idea where I can get the dark mustache and eyebrows to go along with them? Let us know how your improved ability to see is helping you better serve your community. :-)

whoooo hoo. Just got done teaching my digital storytelling class. At Media Bridges, we have a series of youth classes lasting a week or two. Mine lasted one week, 3 hours a day. And the ages were 9 - 15. You would think that the 15 year old would have been bothered by the younger ones, but they all got along really well.

At first I was worried because I didn't think we would get done in time. But the opposite happened - most of them were done before. And of course these kids love to play on the internet. Games games games and videos on you tube and their myspace pages. So advanced and so little in the attention span department. One kid continually preferred to watch remix videos of happy feet, spongebob, and dora to music like ' party like a rock star' gggeeez.

Anyways. I didn't have much in the means of curriculum. I have found that kids in this age range don't pay attention to hand outs or class instruction. What worked well was me going around to each group (singles and doubles) and explain the steps as they approach them. Some needed more attention then others and it all balanced out pretty well.

Before the class started, I scoured through most of the material out there about the topic. All of it was useful information, but nothing was quite tailered to a youth class outside of school. I also kinda dreaded pulling personal stories out of these kids. Originally I was going to have them bring personal items from home like photos, toys, etc and make a digital story about themselves. BUT - the education coordinator here had a great idea- a field trip! I highly suggest this approach if you are working with a group of kids in a short amount of time.

We took a trip to the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, just a few blocks away. They have a great children's floor called the UnMuseum, filled with interactive art. So we all went on Monday with video cameras that could also take photos (though I can see now, that the quality is not so great on video). They had two hours to play, explore and take pictures and even some video too. Before sending them off, I told them what I was looking for: a picture of their favorite piece, least favorite, the coolest part, and if you would come back again. And guess what? Only a few of them remembered to include these things on their own, while I had to remind some others, and some still did not include those parts.

I wanted to avoid the whole bit about pointing out unneccessary things like: "this is a crazy room" "this is a chalkboard". But I still got that. It's a challange to get some kids to talk more in depth about the pictures they took and how they feel about it. Everytime I asked them how they feeeeel about something, I felt rather cheesy and almost like a therapist.

So here are some logistics if anyone tries this in the future:
- 10 kids (that was our maximum)
- 5 computers (MACS) + the instructer's computer was also used
- 5 cameras (they shared, and that worked out!)
- I imported the pictures and the videos to save time
- used iPhoto to edit and adjust pictures
- iMovie
- on the 2nd day, I put all the pictures and all the videos on everyone's computer, then they worked at that computer all week.
- used our radio room to record the voice overs (kinda a luxury, any mic on a computer will do)
- when some kids were finished early, and if interested, I let them make their own music using Soundtrack, a companion to Final Cut. It's a loop based program that's easier than Garageband (i think)
- and voila! we had the screening party today

At first I tried to keep them off the internet. Especially the younger, less focused kids. They all have myspace pages and love the branded games of the disney channel. But by the third day, seeing how quickly they worked through, I gave in. It's not ideal. But at least it kept them occupied while the other kids were working. Also, those were also the kids that had those frickin roller shoes. Any moment I was not looking, a few would leave their computers and skate around every where. these crazy kids with their crazy shoes.

In the end, the class turned out quite well. They all finished their stories - 5 total. I'll post those up soon. I can't watch their videos right now, I've seen them too many times already. I am happy to say that some of them are really good and definitely qualified as well thought out digital stories.

Now it's off to prepare for next month's week long class- Ad Attack! (that exclamation point is part of the title).

Comment from danielle martin on July 11, 2007 - 5:49pm

You ROCK! Sounds awesome and thanks for all the juicy details in your post. You could publish the stories on StoriesForChange.net and Jess & I would be psyched! And if you add it as an Event, you can see all the stories together...see the workshop I just did in Roxbury with youth http://storiesforchange.net/event/teen_digital_storymapping_bootcamp

I'm of the tack that any story kid take this gumption to finish is GREAT!

For Ad Attack, see if you can get your hands on MNN's media literacy curriculum...it's awesome. I have a paper one I could send you if you can't get it online.

-Danielle

I am back in the office this morning after taking a couple days off from the successful completion of last week's PSO. Boston has been baking under 90-plus degree weather and it's actually comforting to be back in the air-conditioned cave that is UMass Boston.

Despite the completion of activities from the PSO, there is still a lot of paperwork to process, evaluations to read and improvements to be documented down for next time. We've ran four PSOs in the last year, which has kept the process fresh in the Project's mind. Fortunately for our stress-levels, our next full-PSO won't happen until next summer; unfortunately, that leaves a lot of time to forget what we've learned unless we document it.

Even with the Lowell PSO over, there are a few more VISTAs that will be joining us in August. They will be attending the Corporation's PSO in Providence, RI, which is gentler since the Project won't be running it, but we'll still have to orient them to all the CTC VISTA specific info and procedures. All of the paperwork for those incoming VISTAs is due next week!

I returned from Lowell and hit the deck running early Monday. The highlight of the day was visiting the present computer lab and evaluating its relocation to the former County Jail site. This new site proved to be pretty well wired for power and well wired for cat 5 with a present capacity for 24 PC's punched down to the IDF. The IDF rack has expandability to 48 nodes.

The rack will need switch/routing. Work on T1installation is in progress, mostly funded by E-rate, Tele-connect fund!

Comment from Ben Sheldon on June 26, 2007 - 12:15pm

Glad to hear that you are jumping into things!

How did you folks get a hold of the old County Jail? Will you be sharing the jail with other organizations or projects? Being in a jail should make it easier to prevent people from walking off with hardware :-)

Do you have any pictures you could post?

Comment from Jim Mora on July 6, 2007 - 4:27pm

Yes, several other community outreach programs are on board as we grow out and cut out bars and open access in the very real sense. Such as the "CREW" -youth at risk doing heavy lifting projects, a farming area, and accross the street the recreation department(softball and soccer is in the pipe). We believe the Ojai Land Conservatory, and numerous Social Services are inbound. Senior meals on wheels fleet which is out growning its base, and many other possibilities.

More to com

The first day of CTC VISTA I learned a lot of information about what the project is about. It was nice to see all the different people coming from all over the U.S who work in the same field with diverse background. I look forward to the many network I can find and built. I want to be able to built up my social skills as well as learn more about technology, especially in digital media. Hopefully I'll get to learn more as time past on. =)

Boston ROCKS! Well, Lowell anyways. I haven't seen any of Boston except from the interstate. But Lowell? Well, last night we crashed the Brewery Exchange. Fun times. Tomorrow night we'll go back for Bull Riding. Tonight we're hoping for karaoke, pool and drunken darts at the PITA bartender. Savage, I know, but this is Boston and apparently all bartenders are required to be rude here.

This morning I woke on the 16th floor to a squeaky bed and bright lights, feeling the burn for my two greatest needs: caffeine & nicotine. I thought briefly of stealing my roommate's lighter, but he's a black man from D.C. and I had no interest in finding out what sort of retribution he might deliver for such an affront. Instead I went wandering through the streets. At 7 am. For a lighter and coffee.

So this girl beside me thinks she looks like a monkey without shaving her legs. I'm not sure how to tell her that's ridiculous, but I suppose this'll work. She looks nothing like a monkey. A lizard, perhaps....

Heh. Gonzo journalism at it's finest. Hunter, eatcher heart out.

Today at PSO in Lowell, Mass we completed all the necessary paper work, which was a big relief. I am looking foward to the things that will take place in the next couple of days.

PS. I will keep everyone posted.

Hwllo everyone, Im here.... what did I get myself into????