Friday, March 6, 2009

Media Class (Updated)

Picture update!


I snapped some pics of the brand new computer lab they built because i thought it was really cool! I have never gotten personal access of such a nice lot of technology for the classes before! (Note: though they appear to be in deep agony, i promise that none of the students were tortured any more than when we were setting up our class FTP server. After that, they have actually been having quite a bit of fun (even that girl in the front).)
Here is our projector screen which i can virtually draw on with my fingers, or select text. It is even pressure sensitive. Above it was the projector, which at first, i was terrified that the people building the lab had horribly mis-mounted far too close, until i fired it up and a handy little mirror flipped out the bottom. This is great because, with the projector being so close to the screen, i can teach directly in front of the screen without facing the agony of blindness. No more calling on the wrong kid because the retinas stop working!


This is our dear friend Andy, who despite being the math teacher actually has about the best English of anyone working at the school (well before he watched the 9 seasons of south park). Since they felt that trying to teach the kids such technical skills in English would be rather impossible, they sent him in to be my assistant teacher, which is working out great!
_______________

Original post (before picture update)
________________________________

So I had to chat and pull strings with the bureau of education over here, but they let me turn this semester's classes into a new "Media and Communication" program. This means i get their fancy (VERY VERY FANCY) brand new computer room all to myself to teach the kids new ways to communicate and how to get the computer's to help them!

The first half of the year we are going to do an eclectic set of projects featuring various media such as:

Writing
Poetry
Dance
Plays
Slide shows
Short animations
Songs
and (everyone's favorite from last semester)
more comic strips!
(and maybe a type of LOLCAT works with Text image combos)


and then in the second half of the year we are going to combine all of these peices to create some live action/animated shorts in the storytellingstudio style (www.storytellingstudio.org ---does this link work? China is blocking dorkfort)

So if anyone has anymore fun types of artwork they want to see the kids produce suggest it up!

Also i am always in need of fun prompts for stories and poems and plays like "My pet is a superhero"
"What would i do with 10 arms?"
So suggest those also!

EDIT: Double points for suggestions that can incorporate their classroom identity (we have a- Lightning Wolf Super Cowboy Fire Dragon Volcano Ninja)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a fun Class! I will think of prompts.

I had a dream last night that you guys came home with tons of HUGE chinese helium balloons as your souvenirs and they all floated away. Just a heads up in case it was a premonition, don't bring back any balloons, it will only end in heartbreak.

Anonymous said...

Here are my prompt ideas:

All food except for candy is poisonous
Volcano Ninja explodes
What would an underwater spy do?
Where would you go in a hot air baloon?
You can talk to animals (but only 1 species, which
one?!)
Super Cowboy rounds up the PLANETS
Fire Dragon vs. Fireman
What does the Lightning Wolf do for its birthday?
You are 100 feet tall
You are the teacher, what do you teach?
Opposite Day (I'm hoping this will be a new concept, I loved when Opposite Day was fresh and new to me)