The Media Spot

It's been a great year! We've established a network of blogs for school staff and students to communicate with each other, and publish their work. We're breaking down the fear of technology across the staff, developing in-school standards for media education and technology, creating a menu of classroom multimedia productions, and establishing a model program for other NYC elementary schools. Below are links to some of our favorite videos produced this Spring. There is much more! To see all of the work of students at 124, check out their blogs, starting at The PS 124 Student Blog. (see also, our 5th grade video series on violence)

5-303's video series on where our food comes from
Talking produce at PathMark Class 5-303 went on field trips to PathMark (a supermarket), the Park Slope Food Coop, and talked to Liz Carollo of Greenmarket, an organization that sets up farmer's markets in NYC, to find out where the food in their local grocery stores comes from, and to define the similarities and differences between them.

Using the same source video footage, they created 6 different videos on themes ranging from the difference between organic and conventional farming, buying local vs. food flown in from all over the world, and how the food we produce and distribute effects our environment.

The kids, as well as their teacher Mr. Flickinger and I were strongly affected by what we found out through the process.

5-301's Stop Motion Music Videos
Live student flies over original artwork 5th grade students learned about stop motion animation by drawing flipbooks of stick figures defying gravity. Then they set up a camera on a tripod above a mat of blue paper on the floor, and videotaped themselves acting out the movements from their flipbooks. I replaced the "blue screen" background behind the students with scanned artwork students created with their art teacher, Ms. Truppi.

Working in iMovie the students added music and digital effects to create a variety of fun music videos.

4-308's Video Illustrations on Friendship
A wide shot to establish the conflict Ms. Caputo’s class has been discussing what it means to be a good friend this year. Students explored the issue through writing and discussion. Working with Ms. Caputo and I, the students wrote two 3-sentence stories based on their themes, then adapted those sentences into video scripts.

Students learned the basics of video production by figuring out how their message could be communicated using images and sound by storyboarding 3 “shots” for each script.

Students had to decide between "close-ups", “mid shots” or “wide shots” to express visually the information in their written stories. Through this process they saw how there were multiple ways to tell the same story.