Learning Curve

Nothing beats attending a performance live, but is time, space, and conflicts create issues for you, then attending virtually is a great option. For our IP presentations, my colleague, friend, fellow STAR DEN, and now Instructional Coach (next year’s dream job) and IP partner for over a decade, Jen Brinson and I decided to run a backchannel for the presentations. I had run backchannels before at conferences, presentations, and most recently in my classroom for students who were absent and for review purposes. My go-to platform of choice has always been Ustream.tv, although I hold similar accounts in other Web 2.0 offerings as well. The idea was the easy part; executing two-camera channels was an llama of a different color. So, I went to my go-to student, William Kennington, a great example of Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital Net Generation. Kennington was convinced that Ustream.tv could handle multiple channels; I knew Mogulus (now Livestream, but more about that later) could, but had my doubts about the former. Trust William; Ustream could and did handle the two-channel set up, and he also found a way to use CFF Macs to pull in the individual teams’ home laptop videos. We were glad to go with Ustream, because the streaming resolution and end-output quality when archived have always been superior.

On May 27, 2009, when this year’s IP debuted, two students, Megan Heverly and Mark Attilio ran the backchannels, starting, ending, saving, and archiving each team’s two-channel streams for posterity. They were my link to the streams, since I was, as always, mutitasking. Brinson anchored the streaming the whole day, since she had formulated her defense questions for the teams in advance, and was our connection with our guest viewers, which included her family in NC and her Canadian colleagues in her online course with Discovery Education/Wilkes University, Salisbury Middle School history classes, and Mrs. Meholic’s math classes. At one point, Brinson said we had 21 site guests. Not bad at all for IPs maiden voyage into virtual productions.

The question that Brinson and I continue to be bombarded with is when will the presentation be posted. Here’s the timetable. William is giving the teams their stage footage to mix and edit with videos/slides tomorrow. Thursday is binder due date, and that includes a mixed final video. At that point, I will compress each video, render it, and upload it. Each video takes about a half a day from start to finish for embeddable code for online posting. At that point we will post to our blogs: Changing Connections, RJ Stangherlin SHS, Learning Curve, PA DEN, Education, Technology, and Fun blogs. I am guessing that a week from this Thursday you can start checking our blogs. If you are part of our social networks (Brinson’s and mine overlap to a point), you can follow our tweets. We’ll keep you posted for when the students amazing presentations can be virtually yours.
IP
Multimedia
Stage Presentation
Education
Technology
Integrated Project
Turbo Tagger

Every once in a while a project design and a great mix of students take a concept and put their indelible signature on it. In the 12 or 13 years that Brinson and I have been working on IP, we’ve seen those years when teams forever changed the way all of us work. Looking back from then to now, I’d say three different years, separated by a chunk of time in between, had students that took IP to the “next level.” On Facebook tonight, before I set out to write this blog, I was talking with the design engineer, Michael Wohlberg, whose team’s vision forever changed the process. And then there was this year.

In many respects, it was a amazing year with high energy but without high drama, and that’s a good thing. We went with a modified “What If” concept, and the students really delivered. What really impressed me about this year was the collaborative effort, the coordination among teams, the creativity, and the kindness of this year’s IPers. Which is not to take anything away from other years, other groups. There was just, for me, something special, almost undefinable working to make this year memorable. So, there you have it. My answer to the question I keep being asked, in and out of school: how were they? Simply great!

A year’s work, a team’s countless hours, a group’s research, monumental collaboration, an individual’s presentations on film footage and live on stage. It’s showtime for 23 students, and no matter how you spell it, IP is a multimedia educational in-house field trip worth taking. Join us on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at Salisbury High School’s auditorium, or if you cannot attend in person, you can participate virtually in real time by joining our backchannels on Ustream.tv. You can attend by clicking this link, and you can participate in a chat format as well.

If you are new to the Integrated Project, this year’s venue, which explores factual and counterfactual history, asks and answers this essential question: What if there was no news? What’s news? So, why not join us as students rewrite the history of an era as it was, and as it might have been. All times are ET.

8:51-9:51 An Era on Air: 1920-1933–Brandon Aversano, Chloe Frick, Olga Karounos, Erin Lobach, Dennis Peterson, Meagan Walsh

9:55-11:00 Uncovering Coverups–Nadia Daher, Hayley Joseph, Laudi El-Kareh, Kelsey Molseed, Andrew Samy

12:23-1:30 Generation X–Peter Cialkowski, Skye McCarty, My Phan, Fatema Rajmohammed, Hannah Rucker, Courtney Weiss
1:34-2:40
9-11: Broadcasting Terror–Matt Eherts, Sarah Gracely, Joshua Gregory, William Kennington III, Brandon Lansing, Shannon Safi.

Meagan Walsh and Erin Lobach were the first two students to jump at the extra credit offered for entering the BrainyFlix SAT Contest. The goal was to make studying SAT vocabulary fun by creating a short video that defines and explains the word. Walsh and Lobach made and entered 2 films, and their carouse video won Editor’s Pick. They won a monetary prize and award certificates. Inside was a note to them from the Editors who wished them good luck on their final, something they talked about in their video.

Enjoy watching Harry Potter surface in Erin and Meagan’s carousing winning video.

Meagan Walsh
Erin Lobach
SAT BrainyFlix Contest
Salisbury High School PA
Turbo Tagger

Salisbury High School might be a small school , but it is big on star power. Mark Attilio and Megan Heverly made us especially proud of them on April 17, 2009, when Carbon-Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 held their first annual CFF Showcase. Megan and Mark joined a large group of teachers from IU 21 to showcase two years of project-based learning in their English classroom. To Salisbury’s credit, many participants at the conference commented that since Megan and Mark were such knowledgeable presenters, they mistook them for teachers. Any who knows this team understands their professionalism in approaching a task. One of Mark and Megan’s favorite recollections of the day occurred when a teacher said to them, “You have no idea how much I learn from my students.” Their response: “We know what you mean.” That tells you how really good this team is: they are humble with their abilitity and knowledge, but so willing to share it. Once again, they proved that Salisbury Students Are Tech Savvy, and consummate professionals as well. Students like Attilio and Heverly lead the way in true 21st century learning, creating partnerships in education that are dynamic, ground-breaking, worthwhile, and overdue.

Presentation resources are available on Megan Heverly’s Edublog. The video they made uses SnagIt to screen capture their digital footprint.

IU Video(low quality) from megan heverly on Vimeo.

Megan Heverly
Mark Attilio
CLIU 21
CFF Showcase
Education
Technology
Turbo Tagger