Category Archives: imagine
all things things imagery
Kids in school on Saturday!
Here I am, sitting at my desk on a perfect Saturday morning waiting for a group of student to finish shooting a short film they are making to compete in a 48hr competition online. It is such a great way to spend a Saturday, seriously!
These kids are fantastic, enthusiastic and totally given to the project. Sure, they have no script, not much of an idea of how to operate the equipment, nor much of a crew – only 3 of them because the other 3 or 4 managed to get themselves grounded last night – but they are committed to finishing a 3minute short within 48hrs. This is what I love about video in the classroom. Even though many of the students in school who work on videos are not my actual Digital Moviemaking students, the word gets around that we have decent equipment for them to use and they gravitate towards my neck of the woods.
Once kids have an interest – and if they are in school on a weekend they sure have an interest – the rest is easy. Teaching them how to operate complicated equipment, how to deal with editing issues using post-production effects, or how to make better audio for their projects is simple when they are actually paying attention. When students get together to create video projects they employ all the good stuff employers are looking for these days; group work, leadership, good communication, [some] planning, troubleshooting, quick-problem-solving, creativity, imagination. As long as they are interested I watch as they develop these skills all on their own….I’m there to guide the process, but they get to do all the work. It’s a joy really!
Check out what Dimitris and company churned out in 48hrs:
If you had the opportunity: iPads or laptops for faculty?
I’ve been asked to make long-term assumptions that will affect how our community goes into the last phase of finally rolling out a 1:1 program at our school. For various reasons we are committed to going forward with this initiative. For year1 we need to mobilize our faculty since currently all are tethered to a classroom PC. So….since we are strongly considering that students will have an iPad instead of a laptop in Middle and High School, I am wondering if it does not make sense to equip faculty with the same gear. Sure, it will tick many teachers since it means learning a whole new way of working, but the argument that it is not possible to do all the work in an iPad now-a-days stands less of a chance to totally hold back such an initiative. Computer monitors would be readily available in classrooms for those needing more screen space, and w/less keyboards would be available for those who wish to still type on a traditional keyboard. Also, using our GoogleApps system we would have the same basic text editing capabilities as those we are used to having now. We have other cloud-based solutions already available for e-text-books, video streaming, test taking/grading, printing, graphics creation/manipulation, music editing, etc….but I am still not 100% sure.
More later as the plan comes together….
Rosie’s Short Animation
Rosie is one of my grade 12th Digital Moviemaking students. She is highly creative and forward thinking. For one of her projects she wanted to do an animation sequence, so I introduced her to the open-source software program Pencil installed in one of the iMacs in the computer lab. She took to it in less than 5 minutes. Together with a Wacom tablet, she produced the following short animation in less than three weeks. Enjoy!
