Collaboration with the Pearson Foundation

The Bay Area Writing Project's (BAWP) collaboration with the non-profit Pearson Foundation is intended to expand opportunities provided by our participation in the National Writing Project's (NWP) Technology Initiative. This collaboration provides teacher consultants with even greater access to high-quality resources for professional development in technology. For five days in August, 2005, four Pearson Foundation staff provided sixteen BAWP teacher consultants, the BAWP director, and the associate director for technology with training in digital story production. Pearson provided a fully equipped laptop lab, direct instruction and technical support during the five days. In the 2005-2006 academic year, ten teacher consultants did extensive advance preparation with their students and colleagues' students for week-long Pearson Foundation school site residencies. During these residencies, Pearson Foundation provided laptop equipment and technical support to the teacher consultants in their classrooms, training over 400 students in digital story telling skills. Additionally, in June 2006, Pearson Foundation staff assisted two BAWP teacher consultants who directed an advanced institute in digital story telling for a new group of BAWP teacher consultants.

Technology Institute 2005    /    ID & Password:  required.  --- AUGUST 2005
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/ProDev/BAWP/TI2005/

OAKLAND LIFE PRO DEV SESSION — AUGUST 2006
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/ProDev/BAWP/OaklandUSD/OLA/ProDev_Summer06/

WRITE TEAM — L. MOITOZA, MIDDLE COLLEGE — Fall 2006
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/projects/ProDev/WriteTeam_Fall06/

ALBANY MIDDLE SCHOOL — YOUNG WRITER’S SUMMER CAMP — JULY 2006
http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/ProDev/BAWP/AlbanyUSD/AlbanyMS/YWC_Summer06/

Sample of students' digital story:

As part of our initial Youth Voices Coast to Coast student weblog community, student teams created digital stories describing their neighborhoods for viewing by audiences in other parts of the country. Here is one example created in a BAWP / Pearson collaboration by juniors at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology in San Francisco. (Click the image to play the video.)



Student reflection on weblog community writing:

Video productions like the one are linked to the postings and discussions that occurred in the year-long online weblog writing community called Youth Voices Coast to Coast. Here is participant Mayra A.'s (18 years old, Galileo Academy, San Francisco) reflection on the value of the weblog writing experience:

Using Youth Voices was a good experience for me. Based on the time I spent on Youth Voices, I did enjoy reading what others thought about school, incidents, and more. Youth Voices is an interesting thing to be apart of, but unfortunately school writing is not like blogging. I liked blogging on Youth Voices because I can write about anything. We are given flexibility on what we can write about and it makes it fun because we can write about anything we desire. I wish school was more like blogging where we got to choose what we write about rather then being required to analyze symbolism in various texts. Blogging allows youth to express themselves among their peers. It a place with no boundaries. Being apart of Youth Voices has grown my interest in currents events. I pay more attention to the news and try to stay updated to what is going on in the world. Of what I wrote, I did enjoy writing for other people around California to read. It was interesting to see what others thought on certain situations, especially on Tookie Williams. Although I may not have wrote as much as I wanted to write, Youth Voices is a good project. I believe it helps youth see the different perspectives of others rather that just containing themselves to just their mind. I think personally for me I would have wrote more if I made it a daily routine and not a occasionally drop by. I would say once you get use to visiting it, you participate more.

BAWP and Pearson Foundation partnership:

To the right is a screenshot of the project portal created by our Pearson Foundation partners. The web address for the portal content is protected by username and password requirements. Content will be made available publicly when teacher consultants' permissions have been finalized.

Below, teacher consultant Jennifer Dannenberg, English and Social Studies teacher, Albany Middle School, reflects on the two levels of technology integration.

Teacher reflection on the summer advanced institute:

The process has been somewhat the same [as the writing process] because I see that it is still rethinking so you have the clarity of your message. You have to whittle it down so that it is simple enough to illustrate graphically. When you're working with so many mediums, it becomes so complex and so lovely and more emotional in terms of the finished product. I can see that is really the development of how the writing process is included. For the kids, I think about the idea of integrating technology because for them, it is very natural, and they will pick it up very quickly.

I am going to use it immediately in my classroom. . .

Teacher reflection on the school year residency:

Whew! We did it! By the end of September, fifty-nine 6th graders at Albany Middle School had made their first film! Talk about concentration -- the students' faces and effort showed their commitment to their project, as they downloaded, uploaded, spliced, panned, dissolved, and perfected their "Where I'm From" digital film. The Pearson professionals (Michael and Claron-and occasionally, David) were the maestros--with patience and good-humor, they guided, instructed, and rescued. Both the students and the teacher (me) learned new skills and tapped reserves of creativity.

Such concentration!

The 6th grade students had several important writing experiences during their digital film experience:
  1. The first one was basically a list of the "cultural universals" (elements that define a culture --examples might be art, music, movement/dance, food, costume, etc) and how they apeared in that student's life.
  2. The creation of an individual poem that communicates at least five of these personal culture descriptions.
  3. Table-group sharing of poem and revision of the poem; second drafts
  4. Highlighting of key nouns and verbs in poem lines to consider visual images that would accompany the thoughts exressed
  5. Creation of the storyboard  - the writing down of asset ideas to accompany segments of their poem lines.
  6. After the group assignments were announced, the trios of students had to work together to look for a structure within which to integrate their poems (--this was easy for some groups, but harder for others whose members didn't write on the same cultural elements.)
  7. Groups rewrote their group poem -- making it flow, giving it a beginning and end., creating their voice-over.
  8. After making the films, I had the students write about the process. I asked them to consider what they learned, what was easy, hard, and what they would change about the experience.


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