Some amazing sharing of their writing. You can absolutely hear the students’ voice in each piece of writing!
If you missed the previous post about the first grade community collaboration please be sure you don’t miss it (click here)
On Friday the dedicated and dynamic @hamlin lower school staff were introduced to the Riveter Lab. The space, refreshed but familiar welcomed them and then they quickly got to work. Our time was spent being introduced to the new and exciting tools housed within the library, seeing some of them in action, brainstorming how they could be used to help the girls bring their dreams to life, and then a heated competition: to build the highest free standing structure they could using Keva Planks and Strawbees:
We’re really proud of the accomplishments of these teachers and the fun they had … but it seems we were a ways off the world record:
The Hamlin.org Global Citizenship webpages needed to be created, and Dan was preparing for a seminar he was leading about Global Citizenship. We wanted to have visual content to supplement the written/spoken material that had already been assembled. What better than a student created iMovie project to meet these needs!?
Dan Polk, Director of Global Citizenship, and Marisa Felt Bellingrath, Assistant Head of School, teamed up to envision the project and created a proposal for two Grade 8 students, Ava and Bella, to complete.
Jim Lengel, Middle School Tech Integration Specialist, and Liz Beck, Project Manager LMS, were teaching Bella and Ava in the Digital Art Elective at the time of the project.
Q: What grade level were you working with?A:Dan Polk and Liz Beck: Grade 8Q: What were your goals going into the project?A:DP: The central goal of the project was provide a broad overview of Hamlin’s Global Citizenship program, one that incorporated the voices of both students and faculty.LB: Both students who created the video had been in Digital Arts for 5 trimesters. They are iMovie and Photoshop power users and are very talented esthetically. We needed a project that would challenge these students and help them take their skills to the next level – creating digital content that can be used in a real world context, and learning how to work as a part of a team to execute a creative project.Q: How did you roll out the project?A:LB: Originally, Dan asked me to work on this project. While I was happy to help, the timing perfectly coincided with the start of Trimester 2 of Digital Art and the struggle I was experiencing with keeping the course relevant to Ava and Bella.
Dan arranged a time to meet with Ava and Bella during Digital Art. He introduced the scope of the project, as well as its goals and timeline. He and Marisa also dropped in periodically to check on their progress. The students knew I was there as a resource, but overall they managed the project independently and worked on it both during Digital Art and on their free time.DP: I also provided the students with music ideas, images, and questions to pose to faculty/students.Q: If you were to do the project again what (if anything) would you change?A:DP: I might include a live shot or two of students doing something Global Citizenship related, skyping, working in the community etc.
Last week Hamlin dance teacher Jill Randall her first annual on/line teen dance film festival. The video highlighting the successful entries has already had more than two hundred views.
First Annual On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival – 2015 on Vimeo.
Participating Schools:
International School of Bangkok
Idaho Arts Charter School (Nampa, Idaho)
The Public Academy for the Performing Arts (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Sandy Spring Friends School
La Reina High School (Thousand Oaks, California)
Carolina Friends School (Durham, North Carolina)
We believe that EFFECTIVE teaching is REFLECTIVE teaching – here is her reflection on the project’s success(es):
Goals going into the project:
The On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival is a natural extension of the “dance for the camera” work that we have been doing at Hamlin over the past four years with 7th and 8th grade students. We wanted to think outside of these school walls and see what other middle school and high school dancers are doing around the United States, as well as other countries. How and why is dance important in teens’ lives and in education?
How we were successful in meeting those goals:
We had a great first attempt with the project! With the wonderful support of Hamlin teachers and staff (including Wanda Holland Greene, Marisa Bellingrath, Rose Helm, Jim Lengel, Rachel Davis, and Mark Picketts), we got the application out through several education, tech, and dance networks around the world. Twenty schools sent in letters of interest, and about 15 schools completed the process and submitted films. The Hamlin students were excited to see the responses. The students created a thorough rubric to assess the films. Lots of great conversations, connections, and inspiration came out of this.
When we do it again, we will……
We are already excited about next year. We will select a theme that all submissions must relate to, to deepen the connections and conversations. We also will be articulating more for the Hamlin students – and for all applicants – more tips and tools related to film editing. What questions are the dancers trying to answer? What does a film offer that a dance onstage does not?
Stumbling blocks:
Keeping track of all of the applications and submitted films! We will create a different system for next year.
The ‘Hour of Code‘ is a nationwide initiative, introducing computer programming to 10 million students and encouraging them to learn how to code. Hamlin is both proud and excited to use this week, once again, to highlight the incredible coding that is already happening on our campus. We believe that coding continues to be essential for our girls to meet the challenges of their times.
In the Lower School, every class has been scheduled for at least an hour worth of coding instruction with Ms. Windell. Girls will use a variety of coding apps that have been selected to be developmentally appropriate for their age/skill level. These apps include Kodable, Scratch Jr., LightBot, HopScotch, Blockly Maze, as well as resources from the Code.org website.
In the Middle School, we are excited to offer the girls the opportunity to come in before school and code together. It is our goal that the girls’ interest in coding will be sparked and they will complete at least an hour of code between home and school during the week. From 7:50-8:25 am, Grades 5 and 6 will code under the guidance of Mr. Lengel on the first floor of Stanwood, while Grades 7 and 8 will code with Ms. Davis in the Great Hall. Special alumni guests will be popping by during these morning coding sessions and on Thursday, December 11, Middle School parents are encouraged to join the girls to see what they have learned and how exciting coding can be. The girls will explore a combination of Scratch, Lightbot, RoboLogic, CargoBot, CodeAcademy, and Code.org.
Girls in Grades 4 through 8 are encouraged to join us in the East Dining Room on Tuesday, December 9 at 7:50 am to hear from the founder of Task Rabbit, Leah Busque, an entrepreneur, innovator, and coder. Leah will talk about coding and its effect on her learning, as well as how coding has shaped her career.
Administrators and all staff members are being encouraged to join in the fun! Join us and make the commitment to try something new – and to learn to code throughout the week!