No Future Left Behind

Marianne Malmstrom, a technology teacher at Elizabeth Morrow school, created the video below with Peggy Sheehy, the media specialist at Suffern Middle School in New York. Peggy and Marianne are both leaders in working with students and teachers in virtual worlds. I first met Marianne (aka Knowclue Kidd) when she was presenting student machinima at a lecture in Second Life. I then asked her to present her machinima work with students virtually with me at a conference in Florida last November. We have continued to communicate via Skype and Second Life, and I was very impressed with the video when I previewed it before it was presented. Although I shared it with ITL staff in early March, I wanted to share it with a broader audience.

Marianne and Peggy created this video as a keynote for the Net Generation Education Project: http://netgened.wikispaces.com

When kids at the Suffern Middle School Tech Club were asked to talk about education and their future, they gave Peggy Sheehy, the SMS media specialist, an earful. Other students heard about the project and joined in. They brainstormed the script and started filming. Listen and learn the bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from the students, if we only dare to ask them.

Students from The Elisabeth Morrow School Tech Club contributed machinima created in Quest Atlantis.

Marianne Malmstrom (aka Knowclue) worked remotely with the students of Suffern to create machinima of their avatars.

Original music, "Harpsicord" was created by a former Suffern Middle School student, Larry Bordowitz.

All editing was done by Peggy Sheehy and Marianne Malmstrom.

MACHINIMA

Deb Perry and I attended a Machinima presentation in Second Life this week sponsored by ISTE and given by Knowclue Kidd, who in real life is Marianne Malmstrom, a technology teacher at Elizabeth Morrow school in New Jersey. (A previous post from April 1st focused on her work with Peggy Sheehy on the video, No Future Left Behind.)


Knowclue (shown in the picture above) explained the value of students creating videos or machinima inside a virtual world (such as Quest Atlantis or Teen Second Life). Costuming, sets and storylines are "free" and not limited by reality. Students are highly motivated by this environment, as can be viewed in some of the projects below

Knowclue shared some of her students' videos.Some of the videos did not play, but the links provided an opportunity to see the videos outside of Second Life. Here are some of the links she provided so you can get a sense of the work she is doing.

• http://knowclue.pbworks.com/Machinima
• http://www.knowclue.com/movies/ISTE_SL_sample.mov
• http://www.knowclue.com/movies/6_Aphrodite_Web.mov
• http://www.knowclue.com/movies/Collier_sample_Web.mov

Deb and I will be visiting Suffern Middle School in New York on Monday to see Peggy Sheehy's work with students in Teen Second Life, so you will be reading another post on this topic next week!