Multimedia and Project update

1. The biggest concern of mine this week is the fact that I was just made aware of an issue that happened with the video camera order. We had six cameras that came in during the month of December, which turned out to be the wrong model number. We sent them back. I was informed that we were "exchanging" them for new cameras.

I had asked the team on several occasions since then where the cameras were, and I was told that there was no word yet as to when the new cameras were coming.

Yesterday I found out that a consultant (who has not attended a single one of our technology meetings, incidentally), had intercepted the order, saying that he could get us a "better deal". As of yesterday, the cameras had not been ordered. It's almost March. We sent those cameras back in December.

I will not rant. But this is unacceptable. Mr. G. should not have intercepted that order without informing me.

2. The schedule has been changed by Mothura K.A. to reflect the following multimedia assignments:

Tre: all of 11th grade
notes: The 11th grade recently submitted "round 2" of their PSAs for their grade wide project. The work was overall very low quality. Tre collaborated with the 11th grade team and the 11th graders were asked to re-do the PSAs, and the new ones are reportedly better. I have not seen all of them, but I plan on reviewing them as soon as I can.

Pascal: all of 10th grade
notes: Pascal has been working primarily with Mothura I.Wade and Mothura M.K. in the 10th grade up to this point. I will still be providing some guidance to the Mothori A.S. and Mothura K.H. in the 10th grade since I have started working with them already.
Overall, there is a general imbalance in the amount of work done by some students as opposed to others. They are also facing what I call the CONTENT CRISIS... lack of content is an epidemic. I address this later in this post...scroll down and read the section called CONTENT IS KING.

I am assisting with project management for 9th grade but I am not providing multimedia instruction, this is covered by our consultant, Mothuri J.G. Next week will be his first time attending our weekly Tuesday multimedia team meeting, so we will receive a report from him at that time. I am continuing to work with them on Fridays, facilitating historical video viewings and questions. I met with the lead advisor for 9th grade yesterday and we have mapped out the next few sessions.

I should also mention that yesterday, I facilitated the process of the entire 9th grade setting up their blogs. I received a great deal of assistance from Mothuri J.M., lead advisor for 9th grade, as he took a few groups into another room to help me finish the entire 9th grade before 12 noon.

12th grade: Our Consultant, S.Clark is still finishing work with the seniors and she has been asked to make sure every student finishes a web site, as many students were still behind in their work the last time I spoke with them. She has done an amazing job with the internet broadcast team. I disagree with the belief that we have to "discontinue" her work with small groups. It has been proposed that she should only work with entire advisories...that her working with only 8-10 students at a time is not fair to other students. I disagree. I don't think she would be as effective if she had to manage 18-20 students at once, as she explicitly stated to me when she started that she really feels more comfortable working with small groups. We need to have more conversation around this.

CONTENT IS KING.
I know I have stated this several times but I want to be very clear:
It is my belief that a structured focus on research and literacy is the most important step for us this year in terms of improving project quality. I have instituted the student blogging protocol and student account system on the website to help serve as a vehicle for this process to develop. I have held three separate staff development discussions around this topic. As of yesterday, about half of the advisors raised their hands saying that they would like training to understand how the blogs work.

Understanding that we are not in a "build it and they will come" scenario, I have assigned myself, Tre, Pascal, and LaToya to be responsible and accountable to make sure that students set up accounts and hook them up to the New Media website.

I stated in staff development yesterday and I'm stating it here that STUDENT GRADES FOR MULTIMEDIA AND PROJECTS WILL BE BASED ON CONTENT POSTED IN THEIR BLOGS.

What should the blogs contain?

• Outlines of the project
  
• graphic organizers when possible
• notes about the project
• interview transcriptions or recordings
  
• videos
• classwork done for multimedia classes (in a separate blog if necessary...student accounts support multiple blogs) - this is a significant part of multimedia grade
• the final product- this is a significant part of multimedia grade
  
• if a student is working in a group (which is everyone), student must categorically explain their individual contributions to the project.
  

Who is responsible for ensuring that students update the blogs to contain the relevant work needed? This is the responsibility of the advisory grade group teams, but I will be monitoring this process through the website. The next part that I am building, (and will be working on today) is the online tool that allows us to view any advisory and pull up the student blogs for that advisory, organized by grade and/or advisor.

The process of getting the students to enter information is the hardest part of this work. Building research skills takes time, but I am very excited about the M.A.K.E. program from Milwaukee (read my post below entitled Cross Curricular PROJECT MANAGEMENT).