Digital Arts Service Corps - school

TV shows and Websites

Stephen Loverme — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:18:40 +0000

I'm more or less continuing work on some of the same projects described in my last report. At Brighton High School we are finishing up post-production of the first episode of BHTV, which the TV production class has worked all semester to produce.

On the web I'm working on further developing our Drupal website that's being used at Somerville high school. Some of the things I'm adding are a grading feature which which allows the teacher to calculate grades and share them privately with each student, as well as an "assignment board" feature which will sort all projects with their associated content, due dates, groups and so on. I'm also creating a resource page on the organization website where al of our curriculum materials can be stored and downloaded.

Organize and Execute

Kevin Palmer — Fri, 11 May 2007 00:08:53 +0000

Current Projects:

Project: Develop Strategic Plan for HOME, Inc.

Drivers: AJ McGuire, Alan Michel

Result: A strategic foundation that includes well-defined programming, meta-structuring of how all HOME, Inc. related programs converge, detailing of company roles, an updated organizational mission, etc.

Date of Completion: May 2007

Project: Develop HOME, Inc. Organizational Handbook

Drivers: AJ McGuire, Alan Michel

Result: A series of documents that describe in detail What, Who and When of everything HOME, Inc. does.A matrix of what items need to be accomplished throughout the year, who needs to accomplish each of those items and when each of those items needs to be completed.

Date of Completion: June 2007

Project: Communications Hub for Pilot High School Design Team

Drivers: School Design Team Leaders, Committee Members

Result: Site that allows easy communications between Design Team members while also allowing transparency in Design Team decisions

Date of Completion: August 2007

Project: Develop HOME, Inc. Web Portal

Drivers: AJ McGuire

Result: Website that leverages Web 2.0 capabilities for use with school programs, internal communications and teacher training

Date of Completion: May 2007

Project: Build High School Radio Station

Drivers: Students, School Media Teacher

Result: Low Frequency High School radio station that transmits in a several mile radius across Jamaica Plain/Roxbury/Hyde Park. Student run, produced and broadcast.

Date of Completion: June 2007/Fall 2007

Project: Build High School Web Portal

Drivers: School Teachers, Admins, Students

Result: High School web site that leverages Web 2.0 capabilities to allow students to keep a goals journal, maintain a school media repository and enable greater communications between students, staff and parents

Date of Completion: June 2007

Continuous Programs:

Program: Mosaic In-School and Afterschool Program (Media Production)

Drivers: AJ McGuire

Result: End of the year presentation of all student produced work from December 2006-May 2007 at Social Justice Academy.

Date of Completion: End of Service

Program: ETV In-School and Afterschool Program (Media Production)

Drivers: School media teacher

Result: A closed-circuit television program that is written, directed and produced by High School students, airing once every week and a half at English High School.

Date of Completion: On-Going

Doing It For the KIDS!

AJ McGuire — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:24:34 +0000

First Shot - So this Monday will be my first day doing the bit that urgently matters in a minute-to-minute sort of way: working in one of our after school programs. At the moment we're short of solid information but it looks like my co-worker (also a CTC VISTA) and I will be playing zone with 25 high school freshmen and somewhere between 0-5 video cameras in an effort to provide an interesting hands-on introduction to media production and digital storytelling. We're attempting to do this by breaking things up into small groups with very specific aims (mini-missions) and augmenting the equipment with whatever we can scare up. That means my beloved drum machine, an old digicam, my microphone and Google. I'm glad we didn't have to resort to building birdhouses out of popsicle sticks.The process of tracking down the means of production (cameras, software, staff we're meant to be working with, potential volunteers) have actually made me start to understand what Donald Rumsfeld was talking about with all that "known unknowns" jive... see below, coaxed into poetic format courtesy of Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/): The UnknownAs we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know.—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefingIf it survives the battlefield, I'll post the notes, general curriculum and lesson plans that I whipped up for the program. Keep your eyes clear, keep your hands steady and most importantly, keep your receipts.

Working away

Richard T. Anderson — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 01:33:16 +0000

Well it's day two and I thought I'd better get around to doing a blog before Danielle comes to Grand Rapids to kick my butt. :D

I've basically been on the job for two weeks already. The Grand Rapids Community Media Center hired me as a contract worker for two weeks so I could get a head start. Get some training in before the school year started so I wouldn't be jumping in cold with students.

I'm working mostly with an organization within the GRCMC called MoLLIE, short for Mobile Learning Lab for Information Education. One of the things we do is go into a few of the Grand Rapids Public Schools and teach students to make short videos based on something they are learning in class. Today we were at a special school here called Zoo School. It's for bright 6th graders and is a small school run at the John Ball Park Zoo.

Even though my ex-girlfriend of 4 years had three kids and I've been a substitute teacher for the past 2 years, I was still nervous about going into the class today. But I didn't need to be. I worked with a great group of kids. That won't always be the case, I imagine, but it was agood way to start.

So, altogether five of us went in to a class of 30 armed with video cameras, tripods, and microphones. We split into groups of six. Each group had three pairs that were working on a report for a particular animal. So all the students took turns behind and in front of the camera.

On Thursday we do the same with a second group at the school. Then on Thursday we bring in the iBooks with their footage on them and they edit. There won't be a lot of editing to do this time around. We kept it very simple as we only have two hours per session with them.

Another thing I did today was work on surveys. We want to find out what kind of services our Community is interested in. So we made three surveys. One to take to the schools, one for non profit organizations that work with kids, and one for the general community.

These surveys will hopefully give us an idea of what type of new programming I can help the GRCMC and MoLLIE develope. I'm very excited to get that going.

Well, I think I'm running a bit long. So, I'll stop here.

Peace,

Richard.

P.S. I love that I can indent my paragraphs.