I am totally immersed in exploring the application of the Ning (and social networks in general) in the classroom. Right now, I have built a ning for my teen media makers class, and am still working with an outsourced web development company on an alumni social network. The GoGlobal international ning has kindof been put on hold for now, but I did apply for a grant to travel to London this summer to meet face to face with the educators involved in that project in the hopes that we can get a project developed for next year.

So far in teenmediamakers.ning.com, we have as a class developed an acceptable use policy. We looked at existing AUPs, such as MySpace’s, Facebooks, and the Ning itself, and then partnered up to develop guidelines in each of the following categories : safety, feedback, language, content, and consequences.

We have next moved into power and roles. Each member is asked to explore and document the “powers” they have inside the ning. I am contemplating  giving everyone (there are 8 kids) the same “powers”, as in the power to moderate each other. But we may discuss whether we should elect moderators or not. Much is up in the air!

Next we will look further at identity, and the students will modify their profile by populating it with identifying media, such as photos, videos, text and more, about who they are and where they are from, as a way to connect their “offline” world with their “online” world.

These are all initial thoughts…and I have been seeking more reading and curricula from colleagues…

Although students are required to plan out their shots in a storyboard before even getting a camera, there is still a continuous planning process as decisions are made on the fly and choices are made about how to get the best shot for the scene. The project becomes self-directed and entirely in the hands (literally!) of the students.

The teams have been steadily filming over the last 2 weeks and coming up with some great stuff! I have been sitting 1 or 2 or more down on-the-fly to introduce them to Premiere so that they can see what is possible in terms of editing. It also allows them to think about any more shots they may need if they can see the timeline as it builds before them. There is no cut-off for filming days, but of course the editing process takes the loooongest and often sneaks up on the kids! Teaching them time management and scope is a challenge and often involves constant checking-in and group discussion.

Last Thursday I was invited into a Flash meeting with teachers and principals in the UK. Here’s a Screenshot :

It was pretty seamless - the live video streamed quickly. When you want to speak, you click on the orange hand to get in line (the “queue”) and then your video appears in the main screen when its your turn. The group had a specific agenda, so I was kindof eavesdropping…just to get a sense of the tool. Thanks Ian! More on the ways in which we are working together soon…

During the first phase of the video PSA project, the media makers have been given a 4 page proposal to fill out, which include a storyboard and “pitch” piece. Their mission is to convince the big time movie producer, (me), to fund their film. They must pitch to me their “30 second elevator speech” and use industry standard vocabulary to identify shots and angles in their storyboard. If I approve it, they will be given a camera, tape, and my blessing. The first team to be approved gets to use the marker for a week. (the marker was originally a $25 wall art from Bed,Bath & Beyond, until my dad added hinge on the side! We will use post-its to mark up the “slate”. This is low-budget filming, folks, we gotta be creative!).

So far, I have 2 teams who are reaching out to local middle school students and addressing peer pressure and responsible video gaming. Another team is exposing stereotypes, and another is investigating the cultural divisions in the city’s neighborhoods. An older team is taking on the truth about STDs, and another group is promoting after school alternatives to gang memership.

I’m super excited about their ideas and keep pushing back “What is your message?” “Who needs to be in your audience?” and “Who are you helping in the community?”.

More teams formed today! There will 10 total video PSAs produced by February 08!

Here are the video production teams from today’s section :

Originally uploaded by msradden

My small but savvy advanced web group is gearing up for their client to come in for the kickoff interview session. We picked a company name (”4 girls, a guy and a laptop”) and each student is completing a layout in Photoshop of their employee profile within the company web site. They will post their resumes and cover letters as well as a complete bio. Next week we will slice them up into HTML, link them and FTP each page! Stay tuned for the launch…

A special shout out to “Justin” from Blip.tv support who helped me figure out why I couldn’t cross-post…My blog had no title so it didn’t show up in the list to choose from. Doh. Takes me back to coding…Up all night in the engineering lab and DOH it was that ONE COMMA that screwed up the 50 pages of code!!!! Sigh. I kindof miss those days in a sick way. Literally. We ate swedish fish and drank red bulls to stay up.

Term 1 ended today and although they are not ALL done yet, the few identity “I am” flash projects I have seen so far are awesome! I uploaded one to Blip today just to see if I could post SWFs. Success! Enjoy :

I successfully uploaded my podcamp day 1 video to my Blip.tv space AND tagged it correctly in order to get it included in the Podcamp Boston aggregate, which is cool. Baby steps, folks, baby steps. BUT I am now emailing with “Justin” from Wordpress to help me cross-post onto THIS blog. There are some “problems”…ARGH.

In other news, as I nail down the HOW TO in the next few days, I am recruiting students for the podcast class here. I hate to use the term “class” cuz it really won’t be run in that traditional sense. I simply want students who want to broadcast their stories through media in an effort to connect our own classrooms, with the greater community of the neighborhood, the school system, the city, and even the world.

My students will also join a global discussion forum which will include our school, a school from Japan, and a third school from Yorkshire. I think we can get some cool trans-atlantic projects going! That’s what new media is all about - sharing in and building a collective and collaborative knowledge base with and through multiple forms of communication. And my goal is to get teen voices heard among all the twitter!

Oh here’s my extreme close-up (DORK!) on Steve Garfield’s excellent video blog.

Turns out that the 5 easy steps to video podcasting are not so “easy” after all!

I reflected on my first day at Podcamp by video taping a session from my camera. I figured I already have a Google Video account and a blog, so I can edit it a bit in MovieMaker, and upload it before I go out to watch the Sox game. Um. Google Video does not have the option to post directly to your blog after you upload it to your account…MovieMaker is compressing the thing SO small that the result is the above file…I tried 4 different formats so far…the wordpress plugin for video play also is changing the quality of the video…and I thought Blip.tv would answer this all but no, I need my wordpress api url or whatever and yet that doesn’t solve the cross-blogging posting (according to wordpress support forums). SO I just spent the last hour on this when I should now be on my way into the city. And all you get is the above poor quality video!! The sound is awful! I am so disappointed.

Help? Plus, this isn’t even actually syndicate-able, is it, since I uploaded it from my computer? (I just made that word up)

You KNOW I will repost this tomorrow once I figure it all out, but, I gotta go get a life right now!

Oh, and that special appearance of a Sox fan at the end is Teddy. Depending on the sports team, he can be Teddy Bruschi, Teddy Hesburgh, or Teddy Williams. “High Five! Go Sox!”