The Media Spot

The Media Spot has worked within The Generation Connection summer camp for senior citizen mentors and kids age 8-12 since it's establishment in 2002. Each day, small groups of campers video tape activities and work with TMS to edit their footage into "Clips of the Day". This year's clips focus on in-camera editing, and employed a 14 year-old counselor in training to assemble and pre-edit camper's raw video clips.

TMS will be working on location for the fifth year in a row at The Generation Connection, a "camp on wheels" that brings together 8-15 year old kids with active senior citizens for a variety of activities all over central Florida. A regular feature of the camp has been video production with TMS, where campers and seniors videotape daily experiences and edit their footage into documentary-style "Clips of the Day" throughout the week. Check out Friday's Clip of the Day from 2006.

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.

This post showcases some of our favorite videos produced this Spring, including: Fifth grade investigations of local food markets and animated music videos over original artwork, and a dramatic video illustration on friendship by fourth graders.

The PS 124 community decided to take a strong stand against school violence this Spring. Following this theme, the students of class 5-302 decided to make a series of videos exploring violence in their lives and community.

5 production units in 5-302 developed questions based on their main ideas, and video taped interviews with 2 visiting eighth grade students from IS 318, along with their dean and vice principal, as well as a fellow student from 5-302, and a favorite PS 124 school aide.

We've been making progress with our video production work at PS 32 in Brooklyn. We worked with the boys for 10 sessions to produce a 5 minute video, and showed the video as part of GSS's "Hero Project". "REAL HEROES" was the title, and it got a great response at the show.

Students at PS124 add short "video illustrations" to strengthen ideas in their writing within blog posts.

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.

Students researched Columbus' arrival in the carribean from a variety of sources. They shared their findings in investigative news-style interviews.