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by Larry Frates, Art Director and Exploratory Coordinator
Laconia Supervisory Unit 30 - Memorial Middle School
How It Began ěIt was
an awsome way to meet new friends and use computers to learn about
ourselves our school, and our community at the same time,î said Teagan
Morin, an eighth grader participating in the Integrated Arts programat
Memorial Middle School. She is one of over six hundred students who
have participated in Cultural projects at local, regional, state,
national, and international levels thanks to the inclusion of
technology in their classroom.
Her
school is located in Laconia, New Hampshire, USA on the shores of
Lake Opeechee. Memorial Middle School serves over six hundred
studentin grades six, seven and eight in a City of 15,000 people.
It
all began in the Art Department with an iMac six years ago and has
grown into a 6 eMac, three camcorders, video conferencing, student
centered studio space that supports the schoolís core and
exploratorcurricular areas, produces itís own weekly cable television
show, documents school wide activities, and fosters global
understanding as a project participating member school of the
International Education and Resource Network.
The
school's faculty and students have participated in Creative Arts
Courses, Learning Circles, and Face to Face Exchanges, but none of
these has motivated our student community more than the Moving Voices
Project.
In March we were informed that
MMS has been selected to participate in this innovative iEARN project
along with four USA schools and sixteen schools from around the world.
The goal of the project was to foster global understanding through the
production of a video piece that answered the question...
What do I want the world to know about my school?
This was more than chance! What more could a video
related class ask for from a project? This was the real world offering us an opportunity to apply what
we were learning. It was a chance to organize what we had been
experimenting with over the years: the elevator story, the script, the
storyboard, the taping, the editing, the viewing and the reviewing.
How We Did It
Organizing
our participation centered on our State and District frameworks. The
Moving Voices Project met the objectives of fostering global
understanding through the Arts, developing a cultural identity,
demonstrating the ability to apply skills learned in the integrated
classrom, participating in projects that foster career awareness, and
utilizing skills learned in core curricular subjects in the arts
classroom i.e. Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science.
Having
identified the frameworks allowed us to develop a working handbook to
be used by the students along with a rubric checklist to be used over
the nine weeks of the project. Here is the working document.
Organizing Our Process
Implementing
our Moving Voices Project included two additional subject areas,
Computer Studies and Library Resources.The Integrated Arts program
organized the 150 students into smaller PRODUCTION COMPANIES. Each
group was charged with the task of developing the elevator story, video story, storyboard, etc. with faculty members from
each area acting as resource personnel for the first week.
Each
PRODUCTION COMPANY was required to present their ideas to the larger
group at the conclusion of week one. The ěcompaniesî were then allowed
to reorganize their structures based on their need for camera crews,
sound crews, writers, editors, and directors. This meant that some
ěcompaniesî merged while others decided to continue with no additions
and a bit of in house reorganization.
At this point in time
each company of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders carried their
enthusiasm into after school editing time and thanks to the support of
Project Extra, a 21st Century Grant, the Laconia Education Endowment
Foundation, the Laconia Education Association/NEA, the Belknap Mill
Society, the MMS Food Services staff our end of the year event was
successful. The outcome was a seventh grade victory with all other
videos being compiled into an introduction piece to be used at the Move
Up Day Orientation Program for new fifth graders entering Memorial
Middle School.
Week two served as a great
week for video taping, photographing, interviewing, and reviewing the
results. Some students began to rise to the occasion of decision making
while others began to show signs of a ěthis is going to be too much
workî attitude. Because we had so many students involved it was easy to
begin to separate the enthusiastic video producers from the others who
had the potential to develop related products. Some of the students
worked on scenery, others developed TV identification badges, and
others helped to write and print release forms. Others setup the Moving
Voices Award Ceremony as well as organizing invitations to the Premiere
of our two minute creations.
What Next?
The
Summer of 2004 was memorable for the new fifth graders entering our
school related to the Moving Voices Project. Over 35 youngsters were
part of a live video conference with the teachers and facilitators
participating in the 2004 iEARN Conference in Slovakia. For over one
hour they watched and asked questions about how they could be part of
this exciting project when school opened in the Fall. Their enthusiasm
carried over into follow up groups conducted by the Guidance staff
conducting the Summer Orientation Program with the following ideas
growing from those discussions:
- Create more school videos
- Create a video yearbook
- Create a weekly tv show about different countries of the world
- Video conference with more students
- Sponsor a project for iEARN !
Their summer idea is now a "real" iEARN project called EYE TO EYE.
In Conclusion
The
Moving Voices Project was more than an on line experience. It opened
our studentsí eyes to their school, community, and each other. It more
importantly helped our students to realize how important sharing ideas
can be to the development of a safe and peaceful world.
Moving Voices Project in Media
Technology & Learning, May 1, 2005 - Moving Voices: Digital Filmmaking in the Global Classroom
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