Digital Arts Service Corps - education

developing online communities for education

Stephen Loverme — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:02:02 +0000

One of the main goals for HOME In.c at the moment is to create a community between the students in our different programs (our three partner schools and the TeenTV summer workshop). I feel that the best way to do this is to tap into existing social network rather than trying to create our own. We've tried having a Myspace page for TeenTV but it hasn't caught on. Currently I'm looking into developing a presence on Facebook...creating group pages for TeenTV and each media lab. I'd like to have each media lab have it's own group that is affiliated and shares membership with the main TeenTV group. Hopefully in this way students from different schools can network with one another.

I'm also developing some curriculum materials around blogging and citizen journalism. Working with a journalism class, the stories published in the school newspaper will also be published on the web via a blog, with some stories being developed into video pieces for the school TV show. Ideally the school's paper (The Brighton Banner) will have an online audience that will enage with one another and the authors discussing the articles and issues within the school and the community.

Just finished one summer class

lauren bratslavsky — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:33:00 +0000

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).

School outreaches

lauren bratslavsky — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:26:03 +0000

This is the first week in many months that I do not have any outreaches. I had two of them to focus on for the past several months. One was from a high school and the other was an after school program.

The high school group was a bit difficult. Most the kids were there by default, since the options they wanted were already full. But it ended up ok. I will say I tried to use a curriculum and that miserably failed. It partly happened that way since half the kids were already familiar with video production and some imovie (though they failed to tell me that during our first day, no wonder why they were not paying attention). It also may have happened because another portion of the group was completely uninterested in learning. Some of these kids have issues with instant gratification. They want results now. There was little interest in planning. And then when it came time to shoot, there was no planning to fall back on. I also hate to say this, but it was kinda a rotten group of kids. A couple of loud mouths and show offs detract from the rest of the group and impede on learning. But I guess that's a common complaint. One of the students even voiced her distaste for the class and completely disrespected the teacher. She called the teacher lazy and annoying and all these things right to her face. Maybe kids these days have little respect and little patience.

For one kid, all he wanted to do was hustle and make rap and beats and all that junk. I finanlly gave in, since he was not productive to the group, and let him play with garageband. I explained the program to him, gave him a tutorial. Even set him up. And he couldn't even figure it out. All he wanted to do was make beats. And we have that capacity. But he wanted it instantly- he sat at the computer for nearly two hours with nothing to show. geez.

Anyways, they did have some final results. There was a psa about basketball and physical activity. And there were grandios plans for a motorcycle fundraiser where motorcycle groups in the area would preform tricks and stuff. That fundraiser was cancelled. But at least there were two good interviews about motorcycles and safety and some other issues that were turned into a short movie. Nothing festival worthy, but I'm sure glad that they at least produced something. I also had some good talks about consumerism and why those nike air forces and michael jordans are so important. Puts the whole media literacy in perspective when trying to teach it to a bunch of urban youth who work hard at crappy jobs to earn the money to get the shoes and the looks to be socially accepted.

The other group at the after-school center turned out well, despite a few obstacles. The kids were making a video about their center to show parents at a community brunch. They got great footage and interviews. BUT lo and behold, one of the cameras I was using was freakin broken. And I had no idea until it was editing time because I never went over the footage. I guess the heads on the camera were misaligned resulting in digital glitches in the video and the sound. Also, one of the mics was malfunctioning.

LESSON: always go back and look at your footage. Ideally, import it into a computer.

In the end, it worked out ok. Kids got to use a camera, which most of them never have before. But there was little time for editing, which was what some the kids were really excited about. I think some of those kids are signing up for our summer classes too, so that was a good way to get more kids involved.

The next month will be spent fixing some other videos, preparing for summer classes, and working on the policies and guidelines for the youth media program here

getting to be the end of march and have not blogged yet

lauren bratslavsky — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:23:42 +0000

hi there. Spring is in the air here! And it's already humid. Everything at Media Bridges is going alright. Though our state senate just introduced a devastating bill to public access, consumer choice and all that stuff. Am I allowed to talk about that? well, anyways.

Today I finished a mini grant for a summer media camp. It was a short short grant but good experience to write up descriptions and form some budgets. By the way, if you are writing a grant, you're a volunteer, not a staff person and that looks really nice to the grant people. We'll do the camp regardless if we get the money, since it's already in the budget, but more money is always nice for equipment and foooooood.

I started an outreach with an afterschool youth center last week. Nice kids and they love love love the camera. Everyone wants to be on camera. Yesterday, after finishing filming the footage for the movie about the center, the group of kids broke out into an impromptu rap. With beats, background vocals and raps and all. I think we'll add that footage during the credits. They've been more excited about the extra footage and getting bloopers than the actual content. Go figure.

Another group I'm working with decided that they want to make a documentary about motorcycles. Several of their teachers have motorcycles (I think most of them are former NFL players, no kidding, it's a great high school football school). They also plan on getting some motorcycle 'cliques' to do tricks but we'll see if that happens.

I've also been working on writing our youth media program policies, particularly our internship policies. I actually had an intern under me for a few months, but that all went sour. Part of the problem was that I never laid the boundaries or explained even the hierarchy of our organization. Good learning experience though it was a nightmare as it was happening. I hope these policies and guidelines will prevent future problems. And if anybody has any suggestions or their org has some written intern policies, please help.

And that should do it. Oh - and thanks to karl for the badass bike website. I'm planning to start biking to work and based on that map, the elevation and the calories burned, i think i can drop my ywca membership (which i never use anyways). super.

Media Literacy / Education

danielle martin — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:41:05 +0000

Media literacy is basically the "ability to “access, analyse, evaluate and use” media." (Wikipedia). Many non-profit digital media programs find it essential to incorporate media literacy components into their workshops and programs, but what's the best approach? Are there free curriculum available out there for CTC VISTAs to use? Does it make sense to teach media literacy to CTC VISTAs themselves?

Here's the ideas generated during the brainstorming at the Fall '06 PSO around this topic:

-media construction (reference MNN curriculum, ACME)
--developing a critical eye
-connecting media making to school curriculums
-equipment donation
-audio production