PRINCIPAL’S COLUMN – DECEMBER
Recently, I attended the National Writing Project’s Digital Is conference at The Sheridan Hotel in Philadelphia. I was excited to be a part of this important and progressive conference sponsored by the prestigious McArthur Foundation.
The first break out session I attended was presented by The Digital Youth Network (DYN) which was a Chicago-based digital media organization in school and after school. They presented various student media projects including animation, pod casting, and digital story telling. We discussed the value of these projects, the assignments, and the logistics behind such projects in one middle school classroom.
In the afternoon I attended a session whereby an 11th grade class was studying immigration and had created written narratives and films about their families history. Again, we discussed assessment on such a project, timelines in a classroom, objectives, and participation for all students.
At night, The Arts Academy was part of a group of educators and organizations that displayed digital work. Mr. Mazza’s 10th grade class created a project that included “retouching.” The students discussed magazine images and how photos of people are retouched to fit society’s definition of beauty. Our students had retouched their own photos and then added written reflections about the idea of beauty in society.
The Digital Is conference really reinforced the power of using 21st century tools in the classroom. It also brought to light the careful questions that a teacher must use before planning a media project with their students. The fact that there was a network of educators who are interested in digital media and want to share their ideas and projects was thrilling and valuable. As a principal, what I took away from this experience was thinking about how to plan more professional development for our faculty. Further,the vision of the Arts Academy was reaffirmed by a lot of the student work showcased during the conference. It is clear that when students work on well organized media literacy projects, they end up learning beyond the content objectives that were intended. Often the research takes them further into places, ideas, etc. that were unexpected. It goes without saying that the technology skills that students are mastering will prepare them for the future in multiple ways.
I look forward to the winter exhibition where we will be showcasing some of these digital projects for parents to see.
