The Media Spot

Yesterday we wrapped up a high-paced media education program at Good Shepherd Services camp, with an end-of-summer video exhibition at PS 32 in Brooklyn. For 3 weeks in August, I worked with groups of middle schoolers and "tweens" as part of the camp's "choices" hour at the end of each day. Different groups of campers made 2-day commitments to planning, shooting and editing short videos that were projected at yesterday's assembly for the camp community.

The PS 124 community decided to take a strong stand against school violence. Following this theme, the 5 production groups in class 5-302 made video news releases (VNRs) exploring violence in their lives and community. Extensive preparation, or "pre-production" work by students created a rich, well executed production process that produced dynamic results, and lots of opportunities for critical media analysis.

Using the same source video footage, the students 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.

5th grade students in their art class at PS 124 incorporated original pastel drawings in a video, learned about stop motion animation, blue screens, and image mapping in this dynamic collaborative production.

5-303 made 6 different videos out of the same set of video footage that they shot on their trip to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in February, 2007. Their productions demonstrate the power of decision making in video editing to create infinite messages with the same source material.

Our media education program at PS 124 during the 2006-2007 school year was based on a network of free blogs hosted at wordpress.com. The blogs will continue to be used by teachers and students for media eduction work in the classroom, and also by PS 124 staff for administrative purposes.

Students adapted a portion of the novel Maniac McGee for video by drawing storyboards that would capture the essence of the descriptive language.