"Apple yanks iMovie 6 download, ends era of appeasement"

Apple no longer allows for the download of iMovie 6 now that iMovie 9 is available. (Many people have known this for awhile, but I didn't really believe it until today, when I discovered that all roads to the iMovie 6 download have been permanently SHUT DOWN!) iMovie 8 was such a drastic change from iMovie 6, with fewer editing capabilities than its predecessor, that for a year Apple allowed users to download the OLD version for free. Not any more!

You can read the full article in Macworld at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/138476/2009/01/goodbye_imovie6.html

This means that, for those of us involved in video editing who have been using iMovie 6, we will have to learn iMovie 9. Some students have been using iMovie 9 to produce videos , and have found it to be easy with some "very cool effects."

Yet another example of rapid change where a possible solution to learning the new technology is allowing the kids to teach their peers and their teachers.

Area Nine Cable Council and Cablevision of Connecticut

Area Nine Cable Council and Cablevision of Connecticut
Announce the Winners of
The Annual Access Awareness Awards for Students Grades K – 12

The Educational Access Awareness Awards honor original student television productions cablecast during the school year on Cablevision Educational Access Channel 78. [I am the representative for the Westport schools and attend monthly cable advisory meetings and help plan for the awards and judge video entries.]

Designed to encourage students to develop video production and storytelling skills by creating access television shows relevant to their school and community, the Educational Access Awareness Awards recognize submissions in four separate categories - Public Service Announcement, School/Community Stories, News, and Open Entries.

This year, thirty entries from across Fairfield County received awards. First place Elementary and Middle School projects will be awarded an equipment package for their school. An “Eddy” (Ed Access Trophy) will be presented to individual winners at the HS and MS level and to the school at the Elementary level. A certificate of recognition will be presented to students who participated in First, Second, and Third Place projects. These awards are currently being delivered to schools, and all schools should have them by tomorrow, May 21st.

Congratulations to all of the students and teachers who participated in this year's cable awards program!!!!!!

Awards 2008-2009

High School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“Requiem For The Honeybee” - Greenwich High School
Richard Detmer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Teacher Profile: Mr. Cushman” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

3rd Place - Tie
“Simplicity & Spending” - Convent Of The Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor
and
“Cyber Bullying” - New Canaan HS
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

High School - Open Entries
1st Place
“Hacked” - Greenwich High School
Richard Detmer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Moss’s Mind on Cheating” - Staples High School, Westport
James Honeycutt - Instructor

3rd Place
“Weapon of Choice: Female Suicide Bomber” - Conv. of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

High School - News
1st Place
“Today From The Heart” - Convent of the Sacred Heart
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

2nd Place
“Ram Review, Nov. 2008” - New Canaan High School
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

3rd Place
“Staples HS News” - Staples High School, Westport
Mike Zitto - Instructor

High School - PSA
1st Place
“Support Our Troops” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

2nd Place
“No Cheating” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Ellyn Stewart - Instructor

3rd Place
“Help Before It’s Too Late” - New Canaan High School
Nicole Giusti, Caitlin Dwyer - Grade 9
Roman Cebulski - Instructor

Middle School - PSA
1st Place
“Global Warming” - Bedford Middle School, Westport
Kathy Fleming - Instructor

2nd Place
“Quit Before You Start” - Bedford Middle School, Westport
Lauren Bullock - Instructor

3rd Place
“School Rules” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Middle School -Open Entries
1st Place
“President Obama’s Top Priority” - Weston Middle School
Peggy Jorgensen - Instructor

2nd Place
“The Adventures of Knife, Fork & Spoon” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

3rd Place
“Puppy Trainer” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Middle School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“Cultures” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

2nd Place
“Cyber Bully” - Coleytown Middle School, Westport
Deb Perry - Instructor

Elementary School - School/Community Story
1st Place
“The Buzz: Bullying” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Early Gym” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“News From The Heart” - Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich
Kathy Dunn - Instructor

Elementary School - Open Entries
1st Place
“Case of the Missing Presents” - Long Lots Elementary School, Westport
Barbara Eilertsen - Instructor

2nd Place
“Tech Tips” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“The Money Show” - Kings Highway Elementary School, Westport
Tara Doyle, Nancy Giglio, Timothy Soper - Instructors

Elementary School - PSA
1st Place
“Internet Safety” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

2nd Place
“Recycle Man” - Greens Farms Elementary School, Westport
Kelley Auringer - Instructor

3rd Place
“Trashless Lunch” - Long Lots Elementary School, Westport
Barbara Eilertsen - Instructor

A special thanks to:

John Repicky (Wilton), chair of the ANCC Education Committee for all of his work organizing the awards judging, publicity and ordering of trophies and camera packages

Jennifer Young, Cablevision representative, who supports and funds the education initiatives

Carol Weinshel and Evelyn Reeve (Easton/Redding) ANCC members who create all of the student certificates!

and all other members of the ANCC committee who plan and judge the video entries

GFS: TV10 visits McMahon Communications Center at Quinnipiac University

On Tuesday, April 21, 2009 the 5th grade members of the GFS TV10 club visited the Ed McMahon Mass Communications Center at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. Kelley Auringer, LMS, arranged and managed the visit.

Quinnipiac students in the School of Communication led the TV10 crew through a tour of Quinnipiac's state of the art television studio and broadcasting program. The TV10 crew was allowed to use Quinnipiac's professional level technology and equipment to produce their own news show. The students' favorite part was working with the green chromakey wall and producing the weather. There was a lot of laughter, excitement and fun as the learning took place. By all accounts the field trip was wonderful and will be considered by many to be a highlight of the TV10 year.

Making Data more Visual, Relevant and Comprehensible

This week John Dodig, principal of SHS, shared an amazing video, Hans Rosling: Debunking Third-World Myths with the Best Stats You've Ever Seen. Many teachers are now exploring how they can use the software demonstrated in this video to make data more visual and understandable. Watch the video to discover new ways to visualize data:

Current Issue of Educational Leadership Focuses on Literacy 2.0

Janna Bell, assistant principal at CES, recently shared two articles from the current issue of Educational Leadership with staff. The theme of this month's issue is Literacy 2.0. Janna shared the article, Orchestrating the Media Collage by Jason Ohler, with two committees at her school: the literacy committee and the ITL committee.

Both groups met separately on different days and all participants came to each meeting having read the article, ready to discuss. Both groups had lively discussions with much interaction and found the article interesting and applicable to their group's mission.

The article is atypically NOT filled with much educational/technology jargon. It provides 8 guidelines for teachers to ensure the promotion of the most important skills associated with digital literacy. The article focuses on the increased importance of reading and writing in education, explains the difference between report and story and elaborates on why they work well together, adds art as the 4th essential "R", and explains the importance of becoming knowledgeable about a wide range of digital tools.

This article is a MUST READ for anyone interested in redefinining literacy. A link to the online article is available here.

BMS: Creating Book Trailers

NO, NOT THAT KIND OF BOOK TRAILER!!

Rita Hennessey, library media specialist at BMS, recently challenged students to create a Book Trailer, a movie to advertise a book! The contest was also advertised in the BLAST and Lauren Bullock & Kathy Fleming, technology teachers, also helped promote the contest in their computer classes and in the after school Media Club. This is the advertisement for the contest:

Book Trailer Contest!

Create a trailer (or commercial) for a book. You can use Windows PhotoStory 3, Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, or any other technology that can be saved (or converted) to a .wmv or .mov file.

Guidelines:
Minimum length: 30 seconds
Maximum length: 2 minutes

What to include:
The Title and Author of the book are required - everything else is up to you!
Your goal is to convince the viewer to read the book.

Students can submit their videos to the "Book Trailer Contest" drop box
(on the "R" drive).

Finalists' trailers will be shown on BAM, so please use
school-appropriate language and images.

Deadline:
Friday, March 6, 2009

Winners will be announced Friday, March 13, 2009

Prizes: Your choice of iTunes or Barnes & Noble Gift Certificates

First Place: $25.00
Second Place: $15.00
Third Place: $10.00

See complete details at http://bmslmc.pbwiki.com/Book-Trailer-Contest

From the student entries, three were selected as 1st and 2nd place, and a 3rd was given honorable mention.

Honorable Mention to Melissa B. & Will H. for The Wizard of Oz
Runner up to Alex P. for Kensuke's Kingdom
First Place to Caroline S. for 13 Reasons Why (View Below)

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY CLEARINGHOUSE

The Educational Technology Clearinghouse is a website that provides free web resources for students and teachers. It is a resource for all kinds of sources, including: audio, clip art, fonts, photos, videos and presentation templates.

TIMESPACE: WORLD - from the Washington Post

Just read about the Washington Post's new interactive news map on Joyce Valenza's School Library Journal NeverEndingSearch Blog, and thought it would be of interest to many of you personally, and it could serve as a resource for some of your students.

TimeSpace is an interactive map that allows you to navigate articles, photos, video and commentary from around the globe. Discover news hot-spots where coverage is clustered. Use the timeline to illustrate peaks in coverage, and customize your news searches to a particular day or specific hour. (Many Washington Post stories appear at midnight; others are published throughout the day as news happens).

Place your cursor on the timeline at the bottom and you can scroll through 24 hours changing the number of Photos, Post Global Blogs, Videos, Post Articles, Foreign Policy and Articles are available. You can check each box to filter only those types of information you are looking for. Using the search box you can refine your search by entering names or topics of interest.

Click HERE to go to the Post's Interactive News Map.

SHS: TV Production

Mike Zito and Jim Honeycutt co-teach the TV Production class at SHS. They work with all students on developing video skills through demonstrations, planning and creating videos for several weekly TV programs, and critiquing each others video productions.

Students are provided individual support and guidance to bring their personal and group ideas to fruition. This "independent study" environment has allowed every student to learn the basics of video production and some students to master a variety of video editing software at a very high level. When this happens students can serve as mentors to other students and the teachers.

One student, Brandon, has excelled at Motion 3 (part of Apple's Final Cut Pro suite which allows the creation of many visual effects, including particles exploding through space; movement around an object and 3D motion graphics). He has created several video pieces for the TV Production class (including the sample for the opening of a Good Morning Staples program shown below), and also applied his video skills to products for a Social Studies Civil War project as well. He is working simultaneously on many projects on his own MacBook Pro that he brings to school.

Mike Zito said this about Brandon: " He has inspired other kids and pushed Jim and me to keep up with him and elevate our program."

It was a real treat to sit in on this TV Production class today, not only to see the great concepts that are being taught and discussed, but to also conference with Brandon to view the many video projects he is working on and to hear the depth of understanding he has about video construction and the tools he is utilizing.

SHS: Students Provide Middle East Policy Suggestions to President Obama

Dana Gilland, Social Studies teacher, and Robin Stiles, library media specialist, recently completed a project focusing on the Middle East at SHS.

Students pretended to be the new Secretary of State, meeting with President Obama for only 3 minutes to convey their thoughts on the foreign policy for the Middle East. They had to include 5 out of 9 main ideas from the semester long class on the Middle East. Students had to infuse American values with what they had learned about the identity of the region and the people. They then had to come up with a foreign policy approach/strategy to handle terrorism which would not create more enemies for America.

Research was primarily done in the LMC, while the synthesis was done primarily at home or during free time before exams. To present their strategy students were required to create a digital story. Students could use any platform they were comfortable with, including PhotoStory3 and iMovie. Their presentations constituted their final exam, and the movies were presented during that time slot. Here is one sample created by Suzie.