storyboard for digital story

here is a link to my storyboard.  a very strange things happened when I completed this storyboard.  The story is about my childhood street and my house number was 513, when I finished the word doc the word count was 513.  What a strange thing.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2m9guXini8dMDB4ZEluclFCQnc

dje 11

  1. What are your concerns about teaching young people to make videos about social problems?

I have concerns for their safety.  When they go out into their communities and expose social issues they may be putting themselves at risk.  Another concern I have is that their story may have an opposite effect on a youth that do not live in the same type of social culture.  It may seem cool to a teen who does not live in a urban setting.  While the urban youths are discussing the hardships they face each day it may be glorified to another not living in those conditions and you now have a copycat want to be who is now at risk.

Then read Chapter 2 in the course text and answer the following questions:

1. Name a social issue specific to the Appalachian region that you think young people in your community would or should address.  The lack of employment opportunities for top paying fields causing many of the youth to just settle and not challenge themselves to strive for a better way of life or strive to make changes.

2. Find an online resource you might use to scaffold community-based  video production process.

A print source is Digital Filmmaking for Teens. Authors Pete Shaner and Gerald Everett Jones. Premier Press, Paperback, Bk&CD edition, Published December 2004, 237 pages, ISBN 1592006035.

A online source can be found at http://www.mediacollege.com/

This site gives information from very bic information and takes you through all the different processes you will encounter in multi media production.

3. Choose on of the following perspectives; teacher, parent, or community member. From your chosen perspective, would you be supportive of a school program that engaged students in community-based video production? Why or Why not?

From the teacher perspective I am supportive of any activity that gives students opportunities to use their talents.  I think that this is not only a way to be heard but to also show their talent and creativity.  I do think that the teacher must have a thick skin when sensitive topics are covered.  Teachers must remember that these students are encouraged to open up sometimes very personal issues and teachers have to realize that the language will reflect the language used in their everyday life.  I think that guidelines of how to complete the project should be given as far as the technical skills but not the content.  One way that content can be controlled is to have the class brainstorm for a central topic and then choose the topic to use but how to tell the topics story should be keep open.

I believe that these young video makers have important lessons to teach us about how to more effectively use media technologies and cultural traditions to build upon students’ skills of visual and oral expression as stepping-stones, instead of stumbling blocks to learning.

I always think that teachers can learn from their students as well as the students learning from the teacher.  I think that effective teachers are open to what they can learn from their students.   Accepting the students culture no matter how foreign it may seem to the teacher is important to bridge the gap between the real world and the educational world.  In these media projects students used their cultural language but learn how to get their message and meaning to others which means that they will need to use spoken language that others will understand while still staying true to their world.  Using their voices to tell their stories rather than studying rote words will lead to a greater understanding of language. Word meanings and communications.

Dital media empowers youth [Web]. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bbit65fO3k
Goodman, S. (2003). Teaching youth media: A critical guide to literacy, video production & social change. NY: Teachers College Press.
Mediacollege.com. (29 N). Retrieved from http://www.mediacollege.com/

DEJ 10

Chapter #1: Framing the Inner-City Teenager

1. Do you think topics that center on "frustration with official power" and "attraction for mass media fantasies would differ in  rural communities from those that inner-city teenagers focus on? How? Give some examples.  I do think that frustration with official power exists within both communities but in different ways.  In a rural community the issues may be speeding, driving without a license, underage drinking and drugs.  In an urban community life is more about survival than the risk taking events of the rural community.  The youth have to comply to the laws while survival may be doing the exact opposite.  The pressure no do right comes from official power but gangs, peers, life situations often dictate behavior that is in direct conflict with the official power.

2. How do traditional social institutions and mass media work to silence inner-city kids?

Traditional social institutions try to mold behavior into their desired outcomes without taking all the factors into consideration and fall short in helping the person.  Mass media give an image and a face to behaviors of certain groups.  The behaviors are either acceptable, looked down upon or exploited to sell a product.  Urban youth often find themselves in the unacceptable group and want to be the accepted one or just accept their fate and continue behaviors that will lead them on a downward spiral.  Media shows more of the failure of minority youths than the achievements.  There is no news in Tammy getting her B.S. but if Tammy shoots her rival at a graduation party it is news.

3. What is your reaction to the statistics presented under the heading "And Justice For Some?" Do you think the system in intentionally organized to disadvantage urban youth of color?

I do not think that it is intentionally organized to give a disadvantage to urban youth but there are many more minority urban youths on the roles of detention centers.  I think the problem is much more complicated than courts being unfair or slanted against urban youth. 

4. Link to an advertisement or commercial that you consider to b e influenced by hip-hop culture?

5. What dangers to young people do you see in the relentless marketing of "cool”?

I think that one of the negative results is that all youth want to be cool so if a produce is marketed and the teen can not afford the product they may go to extreme means to obtain the product.  If on the other hand the teen accepts that they have no way to obtain the product they are looked at as a social outcast because they do not have or wear the cool products.  I also think that the hip-hop life style sends the wrong message to all yoths not only minority youths and yet this lifestyle is glorified in the media.

6. What is your reaction to the research that shows youth violence in decline? Do you still think that is the trend in 2012? Find some statistics to support your answer?

Living outside of Pittsburgh I hear that crimes are being committed daily by youth so I did think that crime rate was on the rise.  I know that in Chicago this year it has been the worst summer for murder in many years and they related it to gangs.  I found this short video that stated that crime was on the rise but more important was the message of the video.

Juvenile Delinquency Rising in US - Video Dailymotion

7. Why is it important to let youth speak for themselves and their voices to be heard?

When we give the chance for youth to speak we gain insights into their world, their problems and their dreams.  It can give us a starting point of what needs to be changed to help them travel on a tract to success rather than on the same path of risky behaviors.  I live not far from many low income urban neighbors and I often hear the man is keeping me down but do we ever give the youth to explain why they feel that way or even the opportunity to find out if it is really true or that they can be successful given the tools and their own work to achieve.

8. What prevents Urban Youth from articulating their own lived experiences in ways that might be productive? Do you think this is problematic in rural areas like West Virginia? Do you think rural youth are victimized by mass media in ways that are different than Urban youth? How?

First with urban youth language skills are very poor for many.  Urban youth have a street language and a language they are expected to use.  We have classes for ESL but it reality the street language is like their native language and then they are placed in a classroom or work place that their native language is not acceptable.  Media celebrates the thugs and the hip-hop culture and so urban youth take their role models from this subculture.  Once again street language is used in these portrayals. When their message is delivered in street language main stream media disregards the message.  Rural youths may not have been exposed to rich language and many terms and words may be foreign to them.  When you see rural settings and people in mass media they are also stereotyped but instead of thugs and rappers, they are slow thinking country western singing people who are not very ambitious.  Rural messages also may be disregarded my main stream media as being backward and unimportant.

9. According to the author, what is the best way to address the literacy challenge? Let the youth voices be heard.  Give them opportunities to experience language by community interactions, virtual lessons, and successful business leaders to see how language is used in telling their story.  This will give more meaning to words than rote memorization.

10. Why is the skill and drill approach to literacy instruction ineffective?

The rote learning will soon be forgotten because the youth do not have a reference point for the words.  There is no connection between many of the words and their real life use of words.  The rote memorization is just that and true meaning and practical use is not achieved.

11. What should schools offer to improve literacy instruction for Urban Youth? Do you think this strategy would also benefit student of the Appalachia region whose literacy rates are similar to those of youth in the inner-city?

I do think both groups would benefit from the same strategies.  Give the students opportunities to see actual ways these words are used.  Start with building a working vocabulary that has meaning to the student and build on that.  Let the students have access to different community members, business leaders and learning opportunities via technology.  Give the students opportunities to express themselves.  Challenge their knowledge by designing projects outside their comfort zone to expose them to new learning opportunities. 

12. How is the process of reading changed by media?

The media can be a good source for students to experience things outside their comfort zone however they must be given literacy skills to interpret the message the media is really presenting. 

13. According to the author how might the imbalance between inner-city kids strong command of oral and visual language be used to improve print-based language? Do you think this would also work for low-literacy kids in the Appalachia region?

Give the students exposure to all racial groups, cultures and social opportunities by developing projects that give the students exposure through media, technology and printed words.  Let them develop their oral and visual language skills by participating directly in the process rather than given a set of rote lessons.  5 do think that this type of learning would work in both settings and one of the many reasons I do not believe in teaching for a test.  

wk 12 activity 1b

My dramatic question -Does anything really withstand the test of time?

My first line can be My childhood neighborhood is ever changing but remains unchanged in my menories.

activity 1 wk 10

1.      Please describe a positive scene from childhood in detail.  What led up to this event? When and where did it happen?  Who was involved?  What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did it have on you?

I can remember being in my grandmother’s kitchen huddled with several of my cousins conspiring how we were going to torment the mean old neighbor Mrs. Tygart.  I lived on a small street in Pittsburgh along with my great grand-mother, my grandma, my four aunts and uncles and my 14 cousins.  You could always find several cousins at grandma’s house at any given time day or night.  There was an old mean lady that lived up the street who would come each evening and eat ice cream on my grandma’s porch.  All the grand children knew she only came for the ice cream because if my grandma did get it fast enough she would ask for it and if she was out of ice cream my grandma would send one of us to the corner store for some ice cream.  On this day we were deciding whether to play loud on the piano, run around the front yard. Or sing loudly while sitting on the porch, all of which would drive Mrs. Tygart insane and she would leave.  We decided to sing.

2. Please describe a negative scene from childhood in detail.  What led up to this event? When and where did it happen?  Who was involved?   What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did it have on you?

Our house was robbed.  I grew up with a street full of relatives and did not have a fear in the world.  We had a summer cottage and would spend all summer there and weekends in the fall.  We came home one Sunday evening when I was about 5 years old and our house was a mess.  My dad grabbed me and threw me on my aunt’s front porch and said keep her inside we’ve been robbed, call the police I don’t know if they are still in there.  I don’t remember when my mom was after we got home but my mom, dad and I all came home in the family car.  I still was afraid at first and wanted to see what was going on.  I can remember peeking out my aunt’s front window with my cousin Shirley.  My aunt stayed with us while my uncle went to help.  Soon the whole neighborhood joined in the scene because the majority of the neighbors were my relatives.  I was allowed to go home after the police left and the house was in shambles.  All of my clothes were out of the draws and all over the floor.  I had a little tin bank from the 8 o’clock coffee company and it was opened and the money gone.  There was probably only a few dollars but it was mine. 

3. Describe a particular event from your teen-aged years that stands out in your memory today.  This can be positive or negative. What led up to the event?  What happened?  Where and when?  Who was involved?   What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did the event have on you?

We bought a new house when I was 13 and we had to move from the only street I ever live on.  I was leaving all of my family behind on my old street.  I was excited to have such a big new house but also afraid of leaving.  I was leaving my family where I had built in friends and was going to be on my own.  It was my mom, dad and me moving about 6 miles away.  I had to start a new school and make new friends.  I lived in the city where all the kids that went to my school walked and this new school all the kids were bused.  I can remember my dad having to drive me every weekend to stay at my grandmothers and to play with my cousins.    If I could not go in there one or more of my cousins would come to my house.  My first week at my new house I took my dog for a walk and got lost and was only about a block away but there was a woods between me and my house.  This was a new experience because I knew my old neighborhood and the two neighbors that surrounded my neighborhood.  I changed my physical location but my close ties to my family remained.  This is when I knew they would always be in my life no matter how far apart we were.

4. Describe a vivid or important memory from any time in your adult years.  Again, this can be positive or negative.  It can be about anything – family, work, whatever.  The scene stands out in your mind today as being especially vivid or important.  Please describe what led up to the event.  Then describe the scene in detail.  What happened?  Where and when?  Who was involved?  What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact has the event had on you?

I was married for 5 years and I got the great news I was having a baby.  I couldn’t wait for my husband to get home from work to tell him the news.  He was so happy and wanted to call his mom and mine right away.  That happy moment soon faded into nine months of being sick every day.  I was so sick that I lost 27pounds while being pregnant.  I had to be followed by a risk doctor but I had a healthy 8.5 pound baby boy.  It seems like yesterday but it was really 33 years ago.  I went from an only child to a wife to a mother and then a widow.

 5. In looking back on your life, you may be able to identify particular “turning points” – episodes through which you experienced an important change in your life.  Please choose one key turning point scene and describe it in detail.  If you feel your life story contains no clear turning points, then describe a particular episode in your life that comes closer than any other to qualifying for a turning point – a scene where you changed in some way.  Again, please describe what led up to the event, what happened in the event, where and when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, and so on.  Also, please tell me how you think you changed as a result of this event and why you consider this event to be an important scene in your life story today.

The biggest turning point happened my sophomore year at Fairmont State College.  I was living in a school owned apartment with three roommates.  One night I was sitting in my room when a knock came at the door.  I can still remember what I was wearing; it was a red and blue robe, when I opened the door.  Boy was I surprised when I saw 5 guys standing at my door.  I told them to leave but after I shut the door I reopen it and asked the guy I knew who the blonde guy was.  The blonde came back up the steps and introduced himself as the brother of a friend of mine.  I did not believe him because my friend’s brother lived out of the country but he showed me his driver’s license and he was his brother.  He asked if I wanted to go somewhere but I said no and not with 5 guys.  He asked if I would go if he took them home and I said yes.  This was not like me at all but when he returned I went out.  We went and got pizza and talked and he brought me home before the doors were locked for the night.  When I got up to the apartment I told my roommates I was going to marry that guy.  They laughed but a year later, when he had to go back to Germany to work I got married.  I spent 31 months in Germany and returned back home where I spent 32 years married to that blonde.  His name was Jeffrey Lynn and he became very ill in 2005 and died in 2007.  I lost my best friend but still had the most precious gift he could have ever given me our son Jeffrey Lynn.

dje 9 additional questions

According to the author, what is the main reason school have ignored engaging student with critical media literacy.  

“Teacher Talk” uses words like 21^st century skills, global students, and authentic learning as regards to life skills but in reality it is just talk in many insistences.  The education system  still uses  a school model bases on a system that can be traced to the industrialization era.  In this system schools are run like factories where the students(workers) are transported from classroom to classroom (workstation) and the teachers(management) gives them the information needed to perform the job or complete the assignment.  The author contends that this system does not meet the needs of lower socioeconomic, urban minority student in preparing them for the life outside of school.  Schools have been reluctant to go from factory-like models to a learning center.  He also states that school administrators often purchase technology but do not give the teachers the skills to use it effectivelty and schools have been reluctant to join community based programs to supplement the school’s programs.

2. Define critical media literacy.

The ability to analyze, evaluate and produce print, aural and visual forms of communication. 

3. How can film making or digital story telling support the goals of critical media literacy?

The student not only learns to evaluate and analyze the media they view or hear but gives the a role in the process of producing media.  It gives the student a voice and let them learn how to get their message across through their film or digital story.  The learn how the lighting, tone, movement,  words, music all affect the message they want the viewer to get from their project.  This gives them real experience in the process so they can understand.

4. Why does teaching media literacy become more complicated as student become consumers of news?

Students are exposed to media in both in and out of school.   When they are exposed to more and more messages they form their own ways to deal with the messages and then when media literacy is introduced in the classroom old habits have to be broken and new ideas introduced.

5. What is the difference between learning through the media and learning about the media?

Learning through media is accepting the facts being presented or the view point the producer of the media wants you to get but learning about media lets the student know how to evaluate and analyze the message being presented and can make a personal choice to accept or reject the message. 

Resource

Goodman, S. (2003). Teaching youth media: A critical guide to literacy, video production & social change. NY: Teachers College Press.

DJE 9

Failing to distribute critical literacy skills equally to all children regardless of their race, class, gender and ethnicity only reinforces and perpetuates the inequities in knowledge and power that marginalized groups already face(Goodman, 2003). I agree with this statement. I have heard many times from minority youth “the MAN keeps me down” and as a white middle class individual who grew up and had my primary education in an upper middle class neighborhood I thought this was just an excuse for being lazy and unsuccessful. I have changed my view as I worked more with these youths in my pursuit of my educational degree and also through community programs. I have always told people that they have to challenge what they hear, read and view and to decide if they want to believe it or not. I think that these marginalized groups deserve the skills to also be able to understand who, what and why a certain message is being delivered and be able to let others know their opinions. I have seen opinions of these marginalized youth be disregarded without consideration

 I found this website which was a good resource for many different topics and examples of medial projects. the name of the organization is Parienet which promotes community connections through technology tolls.

Link to Parienet dital storytelling


Resource:
Digital storytelling in the classroom. (2011). Retrieved from Digital storytelling in the classroom 
Goodman, S. (2003). Teaching youth media: A critical guide to literacy, video production & social change. NY: Teachers College Press.