Posts filed under ‘School’
College Application Time – ‘Tis the Season
This year Stanford admitted only 7.2 percent of applicants and Harvard accepted only 6.9 percent of them. The process seems daunting. At Harvard, before kids even get to the essay questions, they need to circle whether their career, academic, and athletic plans are “very likely to change” or “absolutely certain.” Then they’ve got the 250-words-or-more Common Application essay. (One suggested topic: “Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.” Yikes.) And many schools add on “optional” essays.
Writing a college application essay can be pretty stressful, and it should be time-consuming. After all, you don’t want to give the admissions counselors at your dream school a bad impression based on a poorly written essay that you threw together the night before the due date. Proper planning is essential because you will need to give yourself plenty of time for adjustments, rewrites, and proofreading.
Here’s a guide to some ways you can use to help you through this rite of passage:
Be Yourself. “Applications are best if they reflect the way the student is,” says Light. “It’s very tempting to sit down and try to figure out what admissions officers — we as a species — want to see, and there are perils in that.” Why? “We have pretty good radar to detect the overly varnished,” says Keith Light, who has worked in admissions at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and now at Brown. “It’s not that we’re cynical and looking for cheating or too much input. [But] it’s not very hard for us to spot when a parent or someone else [like a teacher] has had too much of a heavy hand in the writing.” It makes admissions officers wonder, “Are we really getting to really know the student, or what others thinks the student is?” he says. It’s best when students pen their own essays, which sound 
as though they’re written by the person their teachers are describing in their recommendation letters.
Once it’s time to begin writing your essay for real, you’ll have a notebook full of ideas from which to choose. Go through your notes and see if anything seems worthy of using; you can even choose two or three topics as “maybes” and narrow things down as you go.
Decide which essay topic you are going to use, and begin by writing an outline. Even though you may have been told otherwise, your admissions essay doesn’t have to be about something that no one else has ever done. While it’s important that your essay is unique and talks about you, most high school students go through similar experiences … and you don’t want to create an essay full of lies, remember?
Once you begin writing, you’ll probably realize that the experience isn’t as bad as you’d imagined it would be. Just remember that the purpose of writing this essay is to present a personal view of you to the college admissions staff. If the school does not require in-person interviews, your essay may be all they have to go on. Take your time and allow others to read your essay and provide constructive criticism before you turn it in.
Don’t underestimate yourself. Keep your attitude positive. Most kids don’t go to Harvard — but still get into a college and love it. This fall about 7.5 million students are expected to attend public four-year institutions and 4.6
million to attend private four-year institutions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. (There are more than 420 public colleges and universities alone, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.)
Don’t feel compelled to add extras, such as resumes. “We neither ask for or expect them, but they pop up,” says Light. (Some even include “mission statements.”) Light once received a 12-page one. The parent told him, “The son of my friend down the street just got admitted to Harvard last year, and his resume was 14 pages.” Light’s take on it: “He was admitted in spite of the essay.” (Resumes aren’t the only add-ons: Once Light received multiple copies of a color-coded family tree, dating back to the 1800s, which showed close relatives’ connections to a university.)
Follow the essay guidelines that were specified on your application. You don’t want it to be too short or too long. Most schools allow typed essays, so they will probably have specifications for font size and spacing; others will request hand-written essays, so be sure to submit your essay in the format that is required. Read your directions carefully.
Remember to proofread your essay. Check your work carefully for grammar, spelling, and structure. Ask others to proofread it, too – your English teacher is a great choice for this job, if they’re willing to help you out, as well as your friends and family. An essay that is full of typos and grammatical errors will look sloppy and rushed and will reflect poorly on you.
Save your essay. It’s fine to use the same essay with minor revisions for more than one college application, so be sure to save your essay. Keep it on the hard drive of your computer, but burn it to CD or place it on an external hard as well. You never know when your computer may crash and cause you to lose everything. You can even email it to yourself as an attachment.
Good luck!
The Bullies and the Bullied – A National Epidemic
The study of the “Ethics of American Youth” released Tuesday surveyed more than 40,000 high school students. The survey reported that half of all high school students say they have bullied someone in the past year, with nearly as many saying they have been the victims of bullying.
A study by the non-profit Josephson Institute of Ethics also found that one-third of all high school students say that violence is a big problem at their school, and nearly one in four say they do not feel very safe there.
The issue of harassment gained prominence this year after a spate of suicides by students who were being bullied. President Obama has even stepped forward, calling for greater awareness of the bullying epidemic, saying the nation must “dispel the myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up.”
This past Tuesday also featured The U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, holding a national press conference announcing guidance to schools on handling bullying and discriminatory harassment.
Earlier this month, Duncan released a statement about anti-gay bullying in response to to a trend of recent suicides — particularly Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman who took his life in September:
“This is a moment where every one of us — parents, teachers, students, elected officials, and all people of conscience —needs to stand up and speak out against intolerance in all its forms. Whether it’s students harassing other students because of ethnicity, disability or religion; or an adult, public official harassing the President of the University of Michigan student body because he is gay, it is time we as a country said enough. No more. This must stop.”
Duncan’s statements and planned press conference also comes at the time that the local story of Cassandra Morris was published. Morris dropped out of Ogemaw Heights High School earlier this month because she said she couldn’t handle the bullying from students for being a lesbian. Her bullying went beyond the walls of the school.
So with all these cries for justice, cries for help, occurring this week, the question remains: will something actually be done? Bullying is a crisis that is always discussed, but never really tackled. Maybe now that the harsh spotlight of the media is highlighting every painful angle progress might actually be made? The White House has even gone as far as to say that it would host a conference next year on preventing bullying and harassment. But is this soon enough?
Creating the Perfect PSA
What do you want the world to know? That’s the central question asked when you are creating a public service announcement (PSA), which is any message promoting programs, activities or services of federal, state or local governments or the programs, activities or services of non-profit organizations.
Often in the form of commercials and print ads, PSAs are created to persuade an audience to take a favorable action. PSAs can create awareness, show the importance of a problem or issue, convey information, or promote a behavioral change. Whether you have a cause of your own or you are an educator, PSAs create a forum for learners to actively participate in a project that allows them to become stewards of — and advocates for — social change.
PSAs came into being with the entry of the United States into World War II. Radio broadcasters and advertising agencies created a council that offered their skills and facilities to the war effort, creating messages such as, “Loose lips sink ships,” “Keep ‘em Rolling” and a variety of exhortations to buy War Bonds.
Today that same council, the Advertising Council, now serves as a facilitating agency and clearing house for nationwide campaigns that have become a familiar part of daily life. “Smokey the Bear” was invented by the Ad Council to personify its “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” campaign; “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” raised millions for the United Negro College Fund; the American Cancer Society’s “Fight Cancer with a Checkup and a Check” raised public awareness as well as funds for research and patient services.
Yet the most recognized PSA consisted of only an egg, a frying pan and these 15 words: “This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”
This PSA, created in 1987, went on to be named one of the top one hundred television advertisements of all time. Its message could be seen printed on t-shirts, being parodied on television and in films, and it even spun a sequel nearly a decade later staring actress, Rachel Lee Cook. This only goes to show the massive impact PSAs have on our culture and our society. You can make an impact too!
Getting Started
- Choose your topic. Pick a subject that is important to you, as well as one you can visualize. Keep your focus narrow and to the point. More than one idea confuses your audience, so have one main idea per PSA.
- Time for some research – you need to know your stuff! Try to get the most current and up to date facts on your topic. Statistics and references can add to a PSA. You want to be convincing and accurate.
- Consider your audience. Are you targeting parents, teens, teachers or some other social group? Consider your target audience’s needs, preferences, as well as the things that might turn them off. They are the ones you want to rally to action. The action suggested by the PSA can be almost anything. It can be spelled out or implied in your PSA, just make sure that message is clear.
- Grab your audience’s attention. You might use visual effects, an emotional response, humor, or surprise to catch your target audience. Be careful, however, of using scare tactics. Attention getters are needed, but they must be carefully selected. For example, when filming a PSA about controlling anger, a glass-framed picture of a family can be shattered on camera. This was dramatic, but not melodramatic. Staging a scene between two angry people to convey the same idea is more difficult to do effectively.
- Create a script and keep your script to a few simple statements. A 30-second PSA will typically require about 5 to 7 concise assertions. Highlight the major and minor points that you want to make. Be sure the information presented in the PSA is based on up-to-date, accurate research, findings and/or data.
- Storyboard your script.
- Film your footage and edit your PSA.
- Find your audience and get their reaction. How do they respond and is it in the way you expected? Your goal is to call your audience to action. Are they inspired?
Through a Public Service Announcement you can bring your community together around a subject that is important to you. Will your PSA be on education, poverty, drunk driving, or maybe even Haiti disaster relief? For ideas and examples, check out the Ad Council and the Ad Council Gallery. Keep your message clear and simple, and target your intended audience. Take advantage of your interests, and practice important critical thinking and literacy skills because you will be spreading important social, economic, and political topics.
Spread the Word to End the Word
Across the United States and around the globe, young people have joined a movement of mutual respect and human dignity called Spread the Word to End the Word. The goal: get people to stop and think about their hurtful and disparaging use of the word “retard” and pledge to stop using it.
Spread the Word to End the Word was created by youth with and without intellectual disabilities who participated in the Special Olympics Global Youth Activation Summit at the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games. The motivation for the campaign was driven by a united passion to promote the positive contributions people with intellectual disabilities make to communities around the world combined with a simple call to action – a pledge to stop using a word – that also symbolizes positive attitude change and a commitment to make the world a more accepting place for all people.
We found that almost all youth have heard the r-word and most have heard it used by a friend or a student at school. We also found that youth react differently to the r-word if it is directed at a person with a disability or if a friend says the word.
Half of youth (51%) said that they felt bad or sorry for the person being picked. Some responded that they either laughed or didn’t care when they heard the r-word and many (39%) said that they did nothing. Some youth (33%) took a stand and told the person it was wrong to say the r-word.
What YOU Can Do
Join he cause and the Spread the Word to End the Word’s Project UNIFY movement in schools around the U.S. Motivate your friends to get involved with a variety of fun youth activities. You can even contribute five minutes to take the Spread the Word to End the Word pledge.
Get in the game by joining Special Olympics Unified Sports®, where people with and without intellectual disabilities train and compete together on the same team.
Know someone with an intellectual disability? Refer them to a Special Olympics program nearby, and for more information, go to http://www.specialolympics.org/.
Stop Motion Animation
In this day and age where everything entertainment seems to be wrapped in CGI (computer-generated imagery), it is easy for audiences to forget how film special effects found their start — Stop Motion Animation.
Stop Motion, or what was first known as “object manipulation” dating all the way back to 1889, involves photographing an armature, (a pose-able puppet), or inanimate object in order to bring it to life on screen by breaking up the figure’s motion into increments and filming one frame of film at a time. Although this technique is time consuming, stop motion animation is simple and fun for all ages. You are only five simple steps away from creating your own Stop Motion Animation and no expensive equipment is required. All you need is a digital camera, some creativity and a story to tell.
Step 1: Develop an idea
When thinking of creating a stop motion animation, keep it simple. What will the characters/objects be doing? Write out a script with action in a story line and storyboard your ideas. Limit yourself to one or two objects/ characters to move if you are a beginner. Plan well. It is important to have the motions worked out in advance.
Step 2: Create an armature*
An armature forms the skeleton of the characters you can create for your stop motion animation. Armatures were perfected by stop motion animator Willis O’Brien, a pioneer in the special effects industry. He began using models with wire frame skeletons and movable joints. The wire and joints made the figures easy to move. Then O’Brien covered the frame with clay and paint to create lifelike models, his most famous being his iconic King Kong from the 1933 classic film. King Kong was a challenge for O’Brien. He brought the giant gorilla to life on film using eighteen inch high models constructed on metal skeletons with ball-and-socket joints, padded with foam rubber and cotton, and covered with rabbit skins to simulate the beast’s fur.
To create your armature, use light weight wire or strong pipe cleaners. Be sure to twist your armature materials together tightly in order to make your character have a strong frame. Any part you want to move on your character should be easy to bend. Add tin foil to the armature to give it mass and shape. Then, use a thin layer of non-drying modeling clay over the structure to add details and decoration.
* Armatures are optional and used when creating figurines you want to animate. Other good choices include clay, wire, Legos or similar building block figures, small dolls with a lot of flexibility, etc. Even household objects and people are great! Be imaginative in the types of objects and figures that might work for your movie.
Step 3: Create your background/set
If you are using armature models, consider creating a setting for them. Use a shoebox or cut a display board into halves. You can even use a cookie sheet as the floor of the set (consider putting magnets in the clay armature’s feet so it will easily stand). You can even use elements from the outdoors to create your scene. As for lighting, use continuous, direct light from desk lamps. Finally, color and paint the background or use printed pictures. Finish off your set by creating accessories or use small toys.
Step 4: Film your scene
Place your camera in front of the “set” and your characters/objects. Check that the camera can view the entire frame. It is very important to support the camera or place it so that it is sitting steadily and cannot shake as you take the photos. Otherwise, the end result will appear chaotic and lack continuity. Keep in
mind that the more photos, the smoother the video results. If you do not have a tripod, good alternatives include balancing on solid books, poster tack on the surface of the set or a piece of solid furniture at the same height. Now, begin the movement sequence. Move the figure/object bit by bit – very small movements each time. Take a picture after every movement and repeat the movement sequence until your action step is completed.
You can even use stop motion without models. Think “Bewitched” and “Wizards of Waverly Place”, where magic happens at the snap of a finger or a twitch of the nose. For example, an elephant appears in the room. The camera filming the scene would be stopped and the actors would “freeze” until the pachyderm was in place, then filming would resume. The result is an elephant that “magically” appears in an instant. Consider how you can use Stop Motion in live action scenes as well.
Step 5: Make your movie
Import your pictures into the desired program, such as Stop Motion Animator, Frame Thief, iStop Motion, Stop Motion Pro, Video Blender, or any video software editor you might have available. Make sure the pictures are at a very small duration so they flow very fast, start at a rate of .5 seconds. Adjust the film speed rate if it needs to move slower or faster. Add audio, titles and credits if you would like: sound effects and music will add to your story.
Movies, TV, and even music videos have all found a place for stop motion thanks to animators like O’Brien, Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts ), Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit ), Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, (Robot Chicken) and Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach). They have brought this unique style of animation to the masses, and now you can do it too. Stop-motion animation is one of the simplest, most fun animation techniques. With creativity and some patience you can create something truly unique.
19 Days and Counting
Only 19 days left to register for the Young Minds Digital Times Student Film Competition. We have fantastic prizes for our winners, including two Grand Prize packages to attend the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Other first place category winners will take home $200 in cold, hard cash. The teacher with the most student film entries, and the school with the most student film entries in Track One: Young Filmmakers Doing Good, will each win $1000! But you have to register first!!
Registration is open until February 19th. The competition is free to all student filmmakers grades 6-8 and 9-12. Film entries are due March 19th. And check the rest of our blog posts for filmmaking tips and tricks.
Leading Educational Innovation in 1:1 Classrooms
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Leading Innovation: Implementing Effective 1:1 Technology Programs at The Friday Institute at North Carolina State University. I was able to participate as both a vendor and attendee and gained fantastic insight from the experience. It’s inspiring to hear from leaders across North Carolina who are connecting with technology to do right by kids in school.
David Warlick keynoted the event, and it’s incredibly encouraging to see so many school leaders engaged in making flat classrooms a reality in their districts. There were valuable connections to make with the other attendees – superintendents, principals and classroom teachers. Educators I spoke with were particularly excited about participating in the Young Minds Digital Times Film Competition and pioneering PlumbBrain Micro-Communities in their classrooms. I’ve been in touch with many of my new acquaintances since the event ended on Friday.
The Friday Institute (FI) provided a paperless institute – the first I’ve been to! Not only is this a fantastic was to conserve paper and money, but they’ve also made all of the resources available to you! Both the institute wiki and Ning are “on-growing” communities where educators and laypeople alike are invited to join the conversation about 1:1 computing environments. You’ll also find all the handouts from the different presenters available through the wiki. Please check them out, enjoy, then invite any like-minds you know!
A large thanks to the FI for including KidThrive.org + OneSeventeen Media in the event!
(Pictured from top to bottom: teachers collaborating during an immersive project-based learning simulation and David Warlick looking on as one district makes their comprehensive plan for 1:1 connectivity in their schools. Photos by Amy Strecker)
This “Social Nitwitting” Stuff is a Hoot!
My mom joined me on vacation last week, and her one goal from our time together was to learn how to “Facebook better.” She sent me this cartoon via snail mail today, and as she notes, it’s indicative of our attempted Facebook lessons. I’m incredibly proud of her for wanting to keep up with technology and working to utilize Facebook. Susan knows it has lots to offer her, but lots of what? The day before she left, Susan asked me, “but why would I want to look at Facebook every day?” and knew that I had failed as her personal ‘net instructor. Our contrasting perspectives on social networking’s value and relevance mirror many parent/child and teacher/student approaches to social media tools: the young folks want it and the old folks don’t quite get it. [Disclaimer: this is a sweeping generalization, but not totally off target.]
At OneSeventeen Media, we’re excited to build the bridge in homes, classrooms and youth organizations between tech savvy kids and the important adults in their lives. We know that our interactive tools can improve the lives of kids and their relationships and communications with adult role models.
(Imaged clipped from the San Antonio Express News)
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Making Social Media Relevant to Learning
From ReadWriteWeb:
“Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom. Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class.”
(Be sure to watch the video to get a feel for how this works.)
I applaud Rankin for her visionary thinking and willingness to dive into social media! Her experiment exemplifies not only her willingness to innovate, but her understanding that lesson delivery must be relevant and engaging for 21st century kids. Twitter is a tool that many educators wrestle with to make useful in classroom settings, and Rankin has worked out a way to make Twitter applicable to academic life.
Through our PlumbBrain Micro-Communities we’re excited about the many ways we can social networking and other social media tools relevant and useful to schools — students, teachers and parents.
Research Reinforces Social Media Key to Reach Kids
Forty-two percent of teens use social networks daily. This statistic, and a slew of other useful ones, come from the most recent presentations released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project: Teens and Social Media (pictured above), Social Network Usage in Teens vs. Adults and Cyberbullying. Check them out; they tell us the teens + tweens continue to increase in their interactive connectivity. EMarketer also shares that 15 million teens + tweens are going to be in virtual worlds by 2013. To reach kids parents, organizations and companies have to meet them where they are — in social media!
Also, Danah Boyd makes a case for why teachers should be able to connect with students in digital spaces saying,
“Most of what teachers hear from students outside of the classroom might be answerable by students’ parents if only youth felt comfortable asking them. Teachers get asked about learning in general (e.g., “Why should I care about Shakespeare anyhow?”). They get asked health and sex-ed questions (e.g., “When will I get my period?”). They get asked for relationship advice (e.g., “How do I ask Alex to go to prom with me?”). They get asked about the future (e.g., “How do I get into college?”). Teachers get asked about the serious and the mundane, the personal and the abstract. But most of it has nothing to do with harm or abuse. Youth turn to teachers because they trust them, because they need advice from an adult and because they think that a trusted teacher might be honest with them. While some teens have other adults they can turn to, this isn’t the case for all teens. And for those teens in particular, it’s absolutely crucial that teachers are able to be there.”
As someone who has had valuable interactions with my own students through social media, I agree with Danah. Unfortunately, there are kids who also don’t feel like they can talk to their parents or teachers. We’re excited to provide a safe space for these kids to come to find accurate information about the big deals and little deals in their everyday lives.
