No Matter, There

We’re enjoying having Rand Whipple, master mind behind Box of Light Theatre, spending mornings with us for two weeks as “artist in residence” at our K-8 school, supporting our all school thematic study.  Our thematic study this year builds on our previous year’s thematic study, and reflects our diversity initiative (there is a whoooole lot of blogging potential there, in how to meet the challenge of seeking out the diversity within the local and larger world that our school faces, including our challenge of being in a small, rural community that is not very diverse). Last’s year’s thematic study was “This is Who We Are” and this year’s is “The Power of Our Stories.”  I can’t help but love that title!  ( I am a fan of Jane Yolen, who advocates teaching classic cultural tales, myths and fairy tales, in her book Touch Magic.)

A Special Role for Middle School Students

All of our students are excited and looking forward to being part of this project. Our middle school students are being the technical staff and assistants for Rand.  A team of middle schoolers is helping each lower school class to tell their stories. The middle school students are also planning on telling a story of their own.  They are eager to learn how to use Rand’s programs to record, morph, “goo,” and otherwise manipulate images, and to eventually produce a dvd.

Working Within Their Own, and Society’s, Limits

They are learning, along the way, that when a group of middle school students accompanies primary students on a field trip to record their stories on videotape, someone should remember to bring along a video camera!  Luckily, Rand thought to check before the bus left… Ah, the challenges of the middle school brain!   They are also learning the frustration of having filmed an event and later discovering that every single shot included a person they did not have permission to record.  Issues of copyright and attribution have also been thoroughly discussed.  I think the middle school students are learning that they have to work within societal and organizational constraints, even during this most creative of exercises–if they are going to be able to share their work.

It has brought to my mind Ilsa Aichinger’s story, The Bound Man.  That might be a good story to use as part of a debriefing when this work has concluded.  These students are certainly beginning to learn how to work within their bonds, and that both limitations and opportunities come with them.

Posting Work in Progress

Instant feedback is wonderful, and it is gratifying for the students to see how their work is coming out.  Rand asked if we had a spot, or if we wanted to use his website, for students to post clips that they have edited and compressed with Rand’s help.  I made a page available on the free wikispace that came with this blog, and it was a learning experience for me!  Since the wiki “insert video image” called for a web location for the image, I checked out free online places. I went with Google Video, since Odeo inserts a watermark and Google did not, plus Google Video allows you to make the file private.  If anyone knows of a better way for me to have done this, please let me know!

The first clip is up, and it is a special story from an interview of our Intermediate team teacher, Audra.  Please take a look–it is at http://matter.wikispaces.com/telling+stories+in+school

May your stories be hopeful ones.

Filed under: My Middle School Tech Class, Tech Among Teachers, ethics, media and