The Media Spot

4 videos exploring different television genres.  Students brainstormed, wrote, shot and edited the following videos collaborating with GSS and TMS staff.

In June of 2009, 4 teachers at PS 334, The Anderson School (one of my AUSSIE schools) traveled to the Galapagos Islands to cap off the development of a school-wide multi-discipline curriculum-building initiative. To expand the potential value of this trip, we used a variety of technology-based resources including digital video and photos, collaborative online digital presentation software (Voicethread.com), an integrated online curriculum map, and a project blog to create and share re-useable custom resources, and to enable teachers to interact with students from the islands.

Australian and United States Services in Education, (AUSSIE) is a professional development company renowned for their math and literacy consulting in over 650 schools in New York, Australia and New Zealand. Digital School Solutions is AUSSIE's new team of educational consultants focused on providing customized embedded professional development for schools across the country informed by the NETS standards.

Good Shepherd Services is a "A social service and youth development agency serving vulnerable New York City children and families". We began working with GSS in the Spring of 2007

For our Spring 2009 session at PS 32 with Good Shepherd Services (GSS) "a social service and youth development agency serving vulnerable NewYork City children and families", we continued our production work with a new groupof kids who brought their own ideas and excitement to the videomakingprocess. Alongside the GSS staff and the students, we scripted,planned, videotaped, and edited a video on the themes of "growth" and"identity" for their of the yearperformance, "Grow Mania".

Yesterday we wrapped up a high-paced media education program at Good Shepherd Services camp, with an end-of-summer video exhibition at PS 32 in Brooklyn. For 3 weeks in August, I worked with groups of middle schoolers and "tweens" as part of the camp's "choices" hour at the end of each day. Different groups of campers made 2-day commitments to planning, shooting and editing short videos that were projected at yesterday's assembly for the camp community.

8th grade students choose a side on the future of Puerto Rico. Should it become independent, remain a commonwealth of the U.S., or become a U.S. State? Each group conducted research, designed a logo, and searched the Internet for images to help make their case. One group even wrote a rap! They wrote scripts, storyboarded, operated the camera and sound equipment, and edited the video (see TMS Live! for documentary footage). The projects were screened around the school, and audiences were polled aferwards on where they stood on the Puerto Rican question. Who do you think won?

For their Puerto Rican Pride assembly, 8th graders edited images of themselves into photos featuring Puerto Rican cultural and historical scenes and figures. These photos accompanied video interviews in which the students told original stories linking them to the action in the photos.

8th graders mapped out and shot a documentary tour of their neighborhood in the South Bronx.

Students from The Atlanta School (GA) collaborated with 8th graders from Community School 211 (Bronx, NY) to script and produce 3 videos using 3 different styles of filmmaking in one day at The Bronx Zoo.