Sharing the love - or passing it on

Caroline Lewicky and Amanda Bond

 I enjoy conferences. I have attended many conferences over the past few years. Here are some photos from the most recent one - last Friday May 2nd the LTEN  conference was hosted at our school, by us - the New Literacies team.

As part of our conference Caroline Lewicky and I presented a hands on workshop using photopeach and showing how we used it with grade 3 this year at our school. Have a look at some of the excellent trailers produced in just 15 minutes.

Storyboarding for the digital stories

 This digital story telling workshop has its origins at another conference I attended here in Istanbul in 2001. It was the ECIS triennial librarians conference. There I attended a workshop on digital book trailers. So many ideas whirled around in my head but the best advice I got was to try out the websites with small groups before introducing them to a class. I went back to school and did just that. I created an after school activity and worked with five grade 3 and 4 students. We fell into big holes and small and together climbed out and worked out how best to make the trailers.

The following year (2012) I worked with a colleague and her class in grade 4 and then the next year Ayse and I presented our work at the CEESA conference in Prague. The slides are embedded below.

This year Caroline and I were asked to work with the entire grade 3 - 3 classes over two campuses on a digital storytelling assessment. I learned so much working with an expert IT integrator. We refined the whole process once more and linked it all with our school's New Literacies curriculum. 

So from one conference as a workshop participant, to many hours working with students and colleagues at school developing great skills and literacy competencies, through to presenting at two conferences with expert colleagues - a conference workshop attended is worth the time and money invested. Thanks so much for sharing the love - look how far it can go.

Ceesa powerpoint for slideshare from librarybond

CEESA conference presentation

I find that nothing hones my skills or makes me more nervous than presenting to my colleagues so when Ayse and I decided to submit a  presentation for consideration at the CEESA conference in Prague this March we really were stepping out and being risk takers. CEESA is the Central and Eastern European Schools Association and is describes itself in its mission statement: CEESA is a collaborative community of international schools which enhances school effectiveness and inspires student learning and development.  

So in the spirit of collaboration Ayse and I offered a workshop on how we teach her class to make Digital Book Trailers. Our goal was to inspire, offer some ideas that work and show some tools that are available to teachers and students who want to try this way to recommend a great a book.

On the day we found our our workshop proposal had been accepted we both were elated and then terrified. Together we taught this unit and together we presented the workshop about it. 

We showed ways to enable the students to understand that images relayed  ideas and emotion. Our presentation included film trailers, advertisements, activities involving images and of course the final student products. I have uploaded it to slide share just for glimpse of what we did. It doesn't inlcude the images workshop we did with the students or with the workshop participants but it does give you an idea of what we did. Enjoy.

Ceesa powerpoint fro slideshare from librarybond