Siemens has announced its We Can Change the World Challenge, "the only national sustainability challenge that empowers students in every grade level to develop and share environmental solutions that just may change the world!"  

The challenge is divided into three categories: elementary school (k-5), middle school (6-8), and high school (9-12).  Videos can be used as supplemental material to a team's application.  There are numerous prizes and your students still have time to submit an application.  The application deadline is March 15, 2011.

Good luck!

The Guggenheim Museum and YouTube are conducting a search for the world's most creative online video. 

According to the website,

“The goal of this unprecedented project is to discover and celebrate work that expands the notion of what video can be. Submissions may include any form of creative video, including art, animation, motion graphics, narrative and non-narrative work, or entirely new art forms. YouTube Play hopes to attract innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget. Participants can be art students or amateur video makers as well as creative professionals.

To help video creators generate the best possible submissions, the YouTube Play channel will post HP Make tutorials, featuring editing, sound, and other video-making techniques.

How to Participate
Participants are invited to submit new or existing videos created within the last two years to a YouTube Play channel at youtube.com/play. The maximum running time for a video is ten minutes. Each participant will be asked to provide a written statement regarding his or her work. Only one video per participant will be considered. The deadline for submission is July 31, 2010, 12:00 p.m., Pacific Time, 3:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.”

Good luck!

I attended the ISTE 2010 Conference in Denver, CO last week.  Wow!  It was an amazing gathering of thousands of educators enthusiastic about and actively using technology in the classroom.  At the Flip Video in the Classroom session I learned more about using Flip cameras, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity.

The session presenters were classroom teachers who use Flip cameras, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity with their students.  Below is a link to the session handouts and information.   

http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=54689939

I hope some of the information is useful to you.

Three teachers (a library media specialist, an English teacher, and a gifted and talented teacher) from Fairport, NY shared an interesting 9^th grade writing and digital media project in ISTE’s June/July 2010 Learning & Leading with Technology.  

“In developing a unit for ninth grade nonfiction, we decided to focus on works that conveyed our motto for the year:  Word Are Powerful. The three of us…put together a multimedia research project called People Who Changed the World, which was designed to encourage students to examine the lives and words of people who have made a difference and to analyze their lives and qualities.”

To integrate more filmmaking, students could create a movie instead of a  PowerPoint.

Resources:

Online plagiarism PowerPoint and quiz

Webpage with assignment, rubric, and resources

We recently discovered a fabulous site about digital storytelling created by a teacher in Missouri.  Krissy Venosdale’s site http://greatdaytolearn.com/digital_storytelling/portfolio.html contains:

-       Definition of digital storytelling

-       Portfolio of student projects

-       Sounds & music resources

-       Assessment resources

-       Image resources

-       Storyboard tools

-       Software and technology resources

Enjoy!

Here is a great link to find free public domain classical music to use in your projects.

To get students invested in their education, President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have announced a new video contest, asking students to "inspire" them with their stories.

The contest, called "I Am What I Learn," is accepting entries from middle school, high school, and college students ages 13 and older. Students can submit videos up to two minutes long, and entries must be received by Nov. 2.

"Students share responsibility for their education and for fulfilling their dreams," said Duncan. "This video contest is an opportunity for young people to share their stories about where their education and career training can take them. At the same time, I encourage parents, schools, and communities to play a strong role in their stories by being accountable for forming stronger partnerships that guide students to their goals."

Here are the contest rules:

- Each video must be submitted by an active student, age 13 or older.
- Contestants chosen as finalists will be contacted through their YouTube account and must respond within seven business days to confirm eligibility.
- Finalists under the age of 18 must submit a parental consent form.
- Videos must be two minutes or less in length.
- The contest's page on the U.S. Department of Education (ED) web site (www.ed.gov/IAmWhatILearn <http://www.ed.gov/IAmWhatILearn> ) must be featured in the video.
- The video content must be original.
- The video must convey the importance of education, as well as the student's individual academic goals.

Aside from these requirements, there are no restrictions on the style of the video, and students are encouraged to be creative.

Winning videos will be chosen based on their creativity, strength and originality of content, and ability to inspire.

Click here to learn more. 

Good luck students!

We just completed a fantastic iDEA training the last week in June with teachers from Salt Lake City, Washington County, Davis County, Granite, Jordan, Juab, Iron County, and Ogden districts. We're excited to learn from these teachers' experiences incorporating the filmmaking process into their classrooms!

 Time is always an issue related to integrating video projects into core content. One idea you might consider is to collect media related to specific units. This might include pictures, video, and audio related to a content area. Save these collections in folders on the desktop or another location, so students can import them into an editing program. Most editing programs allow for recording audio, so students can write and narrate the video. This will reduce time spent in production and provide an opportunity for students to refine editing skills. There are several online resources that can be found on the iDEA website where you can save media to collections - perhaps a parent or student can assit with developing these collections as well.

 Another great  way to edit projects is through quicktime pro, which is a $29.95 program for both PCs and Macs. I am working on a "how-to" guide to editing projects in this program, which is surprisingly easy!

Happy 4th of July!

Following up from last weeks quarterly meeting, I wanted to post some online resources for video galleries. These can be used to show your students, or to help inspire you for ideas about your own projects.

The IVIE Awards out of San Diego is a great resource for high quality video content. This is the same website that has the two videos we watched at the meeting last week. You can find those here and here.  There are several great projects on this site, all of which come right out of the classroom.

The Apple Learning Interchange is a website that allows you to view numerous projects created in the classroom using various Apple products. The website allows you to search for projects by either topic or technology. To be honest, much of the video content here isn’t exactly “award winning,” but each video has an in-depth description about the process of creating it, so watching these projects should give you a good idea about what to bring into your classroom.

Finally, ListenUp is more than just a video gallery, it’s an entire media community for youth. This website feature many videos, including PSAs, documentaries, and even how-to videos. In addition to these videos, you can find links to additional youth media resources such as storytelling and postproduction tools.