Monday, April 30, 2012

Debris Field



From the NBC Evening News, Monday, April 30th.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

JUST RUN!


 


 





The Power Of Image & Sound



As we begin planning, choreographing, and storyboarding our own video projects, it's important to appreciate that pairing images with sound can create powerful impressions. You need only look to your favorite movies for examples.  We need to be mindful of this as we select the music, block scenes, and begin filming.  Who will be our audience?  What feelings do we wish to provoke?  Is there a hidden message we want the audience to think about?  These things we must discuss in detail.

The soundtrack used in the video above was performed by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. It creates a very different feeling than, say, Pop Goes the Weasel.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Project Block 4.26


































With the Explorer Project coming due next week, students are designing and composing slides, and following-up on final questions.

The availability of the Chromebooks have changed the way students at ISM conduct independent research. Next year, we'll take it all a step further by eliminating the need for bound composition books altogether, replaced with on-line student blogs.  Routine journal writes and guided compositions will be uploaded to their personal blogs rather than printed on paper.  While we'll not have an entirely paperless classroom, we will take a step forward towards that goal.

Every year brings new leaps in technology.  For me, returning to the States each summer from West Africa, I particularly noticed the fantastic increases in storage capacity, and the price of terabyte-size harddrives.  Now, for the first time in my career, two students are carrying Kindles.  One has downloaded our current novel, The Captain's Dog, to her Kindle (for a much reduced price).  Impressive.