A Thousand Words - Storytelling and Editing

A picture is worth a thousand words, as the popular saying goes. The
poetry of that statement belies the underlying truth of just how
powerful images can be. A picture can show a view of reality, but the
objectivity of that reality can be profoundly affected by how that
picture is framed, how an individual's eye travels across the image,
and how that image is interpreted by a viewer's own point of view and
life experience. How an image is composed, read and interpreted can
give that image the power to inspire and arouse great passion and
sometimes great change.

I wanted to develop a lesson for my ROP Video class at I-Poly H.S. that would challenge my students to 'read' a picture and to really think about how they use, and often misuse, editing tools such as transitions and effects.

First, I set up a series of photo buckets with my Picasa account containing

some historic photographs by Dorthea Lang and Lewis Hine from the Library of Congress' collection. You can see all the photos here, here and here. Pretty powerful stuff!

After a short lecture and demo on the grammar of editing transitions and a screening of segments of some Ken Burns documentaries. There is a nice clip on YouTube with Ken Burns explaining how he 'gets into a photograph' and the origin of the famous Ken Burns Effect on iMovie that I used as part of the background lesson.

I assigned the students to make a 90 second photostory with photographs from folders that corresponded to their last name. I asked them to look at each photograph for a minute and develop a point of view and a story from 6 of the 10 images provided. Then storyboard out the narrative showing how the camera would pan and scan the larger image. My goal was to get them to narrate a story, visually.

In addition to using the editing tools, they also composed their own music with Garage Band. The students seemed to get a lot out of the project, and as usually the case with good project-based assignments, I found them doing a fair amount of independent research about their photographs. Research that went well beyond what I was looking to teach them about making good editing decisions.

Here are some nice examples of completed "Thousand Words" projects:

Anne R.'s take on the the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2 from Dorthea Lange's photographs.


Karissa N. was moved by Lewis Hine's images of child labor in America during the Industrial Revolution.

I also did the project with the students...here's mine.


Looking at the results, ultimately I think this approach was far more interesting for everyone than a dry tutorial on effects and transitions....not that there is anything wrong with that. :)

Digital Education Leadership Conference - Goin' Hollywood!

This week I was honored to be among a group of invited educators, technologists, district IT gurus and some of the leaders in the space where technology and learning collide...often with unintended results at the DELC 'Let's Go Hollywood' Conversation.

The world famous Magic Castle was the site of an amazing kick-off reception on Wednesday night where conference opening speaker Mark Seigel dazzled the crowd not with his inspiring insights about the possibilities for education but with...wait for it...Card Tricks!

The conference room at the Hollywood Renascence Hotel may have been small but the ideas were big, from Mr. Seigle's quite elegant connection to a quality education today solving the problems of tomorrow to Matt Federoff's demonstration VICCI, a beautiful, simple and intuitive online curriculum management system he created for the Vail, AZ School District.

Matt told us how they made Empire High School a textbook free zone. Sounds radical right? Well, to hear him tell the story it just made more sense economically to take the money they would spend on textbooks that become quickly out of date and spend it on laptops that can access a world of information and resources that's always current and relevant. Crazy right? Revolutionary? No, as it turns out just incredibly smart! Seriously, who do these people think they are?!

How does dynamic and appealing media like video games fit into classrooms in urban and rural areas? Pretty easily it would seem for those willing to try was the message I got from Adrian Hall who came all the way from the UK to show us how he hacked a PS2 dance mat to help schools teach 2nd language skills and how applications for the DS and other systems, and social networks are challenging what constitutes 'educational technology'.

There were also great conversations with Rowan Trollope of Symantec about cyber-citizenship and Ben Hope of Fox Network with the skinny on how a fully digital production, post production and distribution model saves money but is also pretty good for the environment.

I think one of the most intriguing activities the group engaged in was what I can only describe as a Constitutional Convention for a Student's Bill of Rights and I think the DELC got much more for the convention than they expected as the conversation touched on digital privacy, the importance of safe learning communities, what choice and voice does the student have regarding who teaches them what they learn. What does 'going to school' mean for the future of education...how about a world where we don't use the word school? Can a quality education be guaranteed for all learners if learning spaces don't have 4 walls and a whiteboard?

Having conversations like this with anyone passionate about education would be a thrill, in my case it was extra cool to be in to company of friends like my buddy (and fellow AFI exile) Mitch Aiken, Julie Drake & Chrystal Maggiore from the LA County Ed Office and some of my favorite Screen Ed workshop grads Barbara Barkemeyer my Google Teacher Academy classmate Jeremy Davis, and Kieth Lawrence from the Mary Pickford Institute. Thanks to the folks at the Center for Digital Education and their sponsors for a great couple of days of ideas, arguments, demos and Magic in Hollywood!
As they say...That's a wrap!