The Media Spot

Over the past year, I had the opportunity to work with the inspirational staff at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, PS 686, on a series of documentary videos on their arts, enrichment and media literacy programs.

Throughout their inaugural year, I worked with academic coordinator Nicole Nelson and principal Donna Taylor, developing a framework for how they will integrate media literacy skills and concepts into their curriculum.

Have a look at their video archive, starting with the 5-video fundraising series, A School Grows in Brooklyn, which includes our documentary on K-1 Media Literacy.

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.

The teachers and students at PS 334, The Anderson School, a gifted-and-talented K-8 school Rhys has been consulting with through AUSSIE since 2008, were presented with a unique opportunity to integrate multiple technologies into an exciting opportunity bridging media literacy, traditional classroom learning, and natural science studies. All grade levels collaborated to create multimedia products that would transform their traditional curriculum and embrace the challenge of creating new learning materials to inform their own understanding of the world, while combining new acquisition and practice of technical literacy skills like video production, web development, Internet-based and collaborative annotation resources, with new literacy skills like researching information on the Internet and composing text-based documents on a computer, as well as traditional and real world competencies, like public speaking, teamwork and community building, and persuasive writing.

Today I had a glorious first day of consulting at the brand new Brooklyn School of Inquiry (PS 686), a gifted and talented magnet school in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I'll be getting in on the ground floor this year to help the staff build media literacy concepts and integrated technology projects into their inaugural K-1 curriculum, which they will eventually expand to K-8.

In his weekly Youtube.com video address, President elect Barack Obama announced that he is planning, as part of his economic recovery plan, to "put new computers in our classrooms" and give every child "the chance to get online", to enable our students to "compete in the 21st century (global) economy".

This is encouraging to those of us in education who believe that "21st century schools" must expand the traditional curriculum develop students' ability to critically analyze and communicate in new forms of media -- the same tools that the president-elect himself is using to communicate with the American people. 

Several classes at PS 124 have been using Google Docs for word processing for the past few weeks. Google Docs is a program that performs the basic functions of an office program like Microsoft Word, but the major difference is that it is accessed on the Internet. Having this free word processor online allows students to access their documents from any computer that is connected to the Internet. The ability to access school documents from Macs or PCs, at school or at home, is revolutionary for technology integration at schools, who are routinely faced with limited computer maintenance, and are rarely equipped with shared file servers.

Mr. Destefano, a friend and consulting educator for TMS, is at it again with his high school class in Littleton, Colorado: the 2008 Tech Turn-off.

Each year Mr. D asks his class to forgo TV, movies, text messaging, email and other communication technologies for a week, and journal their experiences on their class blog. The class always generates thoughtful discussion of the role these technologies play: the ways they help and hinder us; the ways they interconnect and isolate us; the effect they have on our physical, social, and emotional landscape.

We've accomplished some great things in the first 10 days of our 30-day residency at The Parkside School in Brooklyn (PS 130). The blog network is set up, first graders are making videos that will provide a window into their exciting school lives, we've developed a strong policy for online safety, and a framework for a technology plan is in place.

I recently began consulting with Australian and United States Services in Education (AUSSIE), a professional development company renowned for their math and literacy consulting in over 650 schools in New York, Australia and New Zealand. My first assignment, at The Anderson School (PS 334) in Manhattan, is to establish a technology plan, and configure and roll-out a content management system for their school community powered by eChalk.

At PS 124 we're approaching the year-and-a-half point of our media education residency. In that time we've developed a network of blogs that has become known as "The PS 124 Online Learning Network". This group of websites are the foundation of the school's media ed and technology integration program, used for student practice with the Internet and web publishing, archiving of lesson plans, rubrics, and curriculum maps, and as a community resource for general school info and announcements.