tms@themodernstory.com

digital storytelling
24
Jun

1

Classroom News, Daily Updates

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Kelly’s Railway Reflections

After one week in moderately hot and sporadically humid Hyderabad- Dana, Emily and I have finished with the formal introductions – to students, teachers, commute routes, and culture. We have been left with the template of characters and stages that will be the basis of the story we tell over the next six months as teaching fellows with the Modern Story. On a personal note, I am surprised at how familiar the idiosyncrasies of India feel to me this time around – from the traffic exemplifying the potential for order in chaos, to the startling variety of human experience co-inhabiting the space of the streets. Wealthy, poor, Hindu, Muslim, Christian- boundaries between self and other broken- beckoning the foreign eyes to recognize the meaning of the Namaste greeting, an honoring of the place in each of us where we are the same.

We will be carrying out the Modern Story curriculum at a total of five government schools. Thus far, we have only begun classes at the Railway Girls School located in the Secunderabad area of Hyderabad, and will begin at the other 4 this coming week. All three fellows teach at Railway School, and then the tasks are divided up between the remaining four- with Dana and Emily co-teaching at two, and myself teaching at another two, called Sultaan Bazar and MGM. Initially I was struck with the distinct personality each of these schools had, and impressed with the quality of the computer labs that the students have access to. The greatest challenge I anticipate of our duties for the next six months is overcoming the language barriers, and finding a way for the students to actualize their creative potential despite the hurdles of communication. I enter this journey in a recognition that I must expect the unexpected, and that each school will present its own unique difficulties, but ultimately, and hopefully, through this will come a variety of voices in the media projects of the students.


Reading over the ‘script’ of our introductory videos with the girls of the Railway class.

We are blessed with the help of two inspiring teaching assistants at the Railway School, named Asma and Neha. Dana and I, co-teaching, work with Asma, while Emily works with Neha. I am struck by the calm maturity of Asma in the classroom and as an individual. The strength and determination I see in her rings to an age well beyond her young years, and I feel so fortunate for the opportunity to work alongside her. There is a strong network of support at the Railway School, and a dedicated interest in the program from the staff, that has been helpful in assuaging the anxieties of our first days. I am quickly growing fond of the students, and find myself needing to consciously keep the walls of student-teacher erect when I get swept by the instinct to just befriend the wide-eyed and attentive group. I am hoping that we will be able to harness their energy and direct it through their passion in a specific topic to produce nice media projects together.

This week was spent introducing the students to the Modern Story curriculum and what is meant by digital storytelling. We set rules for the class, reminding us to respect each other, listen to each other, and to not be afraid to share our own voices. We are orienting towards two goals, the technical product aspect of the digital component – technological literacy, camera, and writing skills – as well as the empowerment that comes through the process of creativity. We began with the questions of ‘What is a Story?’ and encouraging the students to recognize that everyone is a storyteller and they, themselves, are the lead character of their own individual, unique stories. The following is a slideshow of the student’s drawings done in a classroom exercise to practice connecting words with images. I am interested in the study of religion, so it grabbed my attention when many of the students responded that the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is pray to God, or the first thing they see is nature. The religious diversity of Hyderabad is dramatically visible, and I am wondering if there is potential for exploring the topic of religion more closely throughout our time together.

‘When I wake up in the morning, I always…’

As the sun sets on Sunday and thus the weekend,the three of us are anxious to see what the next week has in store for us. The journey continues…

Until next time,
Kelly

13
Jun

2

Pre-Departure, The Modern Story Fellowship, TMS Fellow Updates

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Kelly Adams, 2012 Fellow Introduction

Namaste,

My name is Kelly Adams and I am one of the 2012 teaching fellows with the Modern Story.  I rest tonight at the home where I grew up in Lebanon, Pennsylvania- in a state of, at once, reflection and anxious anticipation for the journey of challenges and triumphs that await upon my arrival in Hyderabad in the coming days. I would like to take this time to introduce myself.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work on behalf of the Modern Story, and towards the mission of integrating technology and narrative in the classroom and encouraging students to engage with their personal, social, and natural environment in a proactive way. I hope to facilitate experiential learning through the Modern Story curriculum and production of film projects that will extend from language development, technological confidence, and career planning to personal empowerment, cross-cultural education, and creative discipline. I am also excited to develop along my own course of digital storytelling in this unique opportunity to bring awareness to the lives of urban, Indian youth on a global scale, through the voices, images, and productions of those concerned.

I come from a background in Anthropology and Environmental Earth Science, and align my academic focus to the junction of these two disciplines, where the nature of human experience meets the human experience of nature. My senior thesis in Anthropology concerned Native American sacred lands, and the reality of religious freedom and self-determination for the Native American population of the United States. Writing this paper was as much a process of self-discovery as it was an academic project, and I was left with a new respect for the true beauty in diversity of ways of being, seeing, relating, understanding, and defining human life that co-inhabit the cultural sphere, and with a determination to serve the sustenance of cultural and ecological diversity on planet Earth.

I am a firm believer in the power of the film medium as a tool to enhance recognition, promote self-determination, and serve the empowerment of disconnected and disenfranchised people, communities, and cultures of the globe. This will not be my first experience in India – in fact, I have only recently returned to American soil after an 11-month trip abroad that began June, 2011.  I spent 7 months living and working in Pune, Maharasthra on behalf of a new media online documentary film festival, whose mission is to raise awareness and evolve human consciousness towards a more integrated and holistic paradigm. Upon completing my obligations with this festival, I took an extended layover in Cappadocia, Turkey where I had my first practice run at the creative construction of my own documentary project, which I entitled ‘Landscape Biography: Cappadocia” – something that I would like to pursue further in my future studies.

I am so excited to return to India, and feel that I would need to be a poet to communicate the emotion that this country awoke in me. Although I was initially disoriented in this country, by the overwhelming colors, sounds, smells, and tastes, there is a spirit that infests its air that has profoundly touched me.  In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘India is a bundle of contradictions, held together by strong but invisible threads,’ and it is a powerful place to confront the true unity in diversity of life on this planet. I have grown so much from my experience in India, and am excited for the chance to give back-  hands on, on the ground, and immersed in this culture daily.  If there is one thing I have learned in India, it is the extent of education that occurs outside of the classroom  – with this in my heart, I am grateful for the opportunity to enter the classroom and have a holistic, reciprocal, learning experience between fellows and students.

 

I am also excited to share this experience with all of you in the Modern Story community! We will be sure to keep you updated on the activities and projects of the students!

 

Until next time,

Kelly Adams

Jan, 28

0

TMS Fellow Updates, Videos

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Final Videos from Communities Rising Workshops

Arriving back from Pongal break last week, Ilana and I jumped into a long task list in our final push to complete projects and classes. We took the Railway girls on a field trip to the Google office in Hi-Tec City and had our last class and celebration with the boy at APRS. The students at Railway and Sultan Bazaar have been working hard to finalize their videos, and we’ll have screenings and celebrations with them tomorrow and Monday.

Before all the Hyderabad hubbub, though, I completed TMS workshops at Communities Rising in Tamil Nadu, and also had a final screening and celebration there. I am proud of the projects the students created in such a short time frame, so this morning I’m taking a few minutes to share them here.

At Communities Rising I worked with three different sets of students. The first video was envisioned and produced by Siva, a participant in the staff workshop I conducted. Siva is a computer teacher at CR’s after-school program in Periathachoor village. The video addresses the issues of fear and corporal punishment in schools and will be used by CR as a tool for promoting positive disciplinary tactics. Siva made both an English and Tamil version of his project.

Fear (Bayam) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

As Ilana and I have experienced in our other classes, having a committed local teacher involved with TMS activities exponentially improves our effectiveness as digital storytelling instructors, both because of translation and the ability for the youth involved to continue learning when our program ends. After his own training, Siva played a crucial role assisting me as I taught photography, video, and editing skills to two groups of children in the Periathachoor after-school program. All of the equipment and software we used belongs to CR, and I know that Siva will continue guiding his young students through creative video projects in the coming months.

In the two projects below I created lesson plans that focused on practicing English skills while learning digital technology. My goal was to provide a model for meeting two of CR’s educational objectives–they emphasize literacy, math, English and computer skills–in an engaging way.

The following video shows two of five emotion dramas performed and filmed by 6th through 8th class students.

Emotions from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

The next video focuses on the English alphabet. Fourth and fifth class students explored letters visually with the cameras and verbally by reading on film.

ABC Movie from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Communities Rising’s college volunteers created the final three videos, in which they discuss their life experiences and perspectives on CR’s role in education for youth in rural India.

Fire at Communities Rising from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

An Engineer from a Village from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Education at Communities Rising from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Apr, 26

0

The Modern Story Fellowship

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2009/2010 Fellowship Application is now OPEN!

We are pleased to announce that the 2009/2010 Fellowship Application is now open and accepting applications.  Please read through the Fellowship page for more details and submit your application online today!  We look forward to hearing from you, and if you have any questions, please forward them to:  themodernstory@gmail.com

offerings, boy's school intro 003, India Gate, IMG_0222

Mar, 2

1

Photo Stories, Pilot Semester

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Photo Stories by the Boys

To View the Photo Stories Full Screen, click on the slideshare Link, and then click “full” in the lower right-hand corner.

Group 1:

[slideshare id=290439&doc=group-1-about-school-1204567028609533-2&w=425]

Group 2:

[slideshare id=290438&doc=group-2-about-school-1204567028629939-3&w=425]

Group 3:

[slideshare id=290441&doc=group-3-about-school-1204567036127183-2&w=425]

Mar, 2

1

Daily Updates, Pilot Semester, Reflections

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The Wave

Tuesday, February 26
After two intense days of computer focused lesson plans, the boys in Nalgonda are off and running with the Final Cut video-editing software they’re using for their “A day in the life of” projects. Most of our classes begin the same way: Our 12 push through the dense ring of boys that has circled us in the computer classroom. Numerous PC’s are turned on, and traditional and disco-esque house music plays through the speakers of a couple computers. Everyone, including our 12, huddle around the computers, clicking, making elaborate posters with their names in artistic fonts using powerpoint, and playing around with the half-dozen songs they have uploaded to the computer and can now access through Windows Media Player. This all happens in the first 5 to 15 minutes before class starts. The boys pass off control of the mouse like passing a bag of M&M’s, everyone gets a few clicks, completes a few tasks, and then the mouse is passed… or grabbed. Personal space around the computer is not the issue; they are all just trying to get a peak at the screen, at the programs, at the technology.

The rush in and absorb as much of the computer as they can before being kicked out so our class can start. At the end of our class, around 4:30pm, the same scenario plays out if there is not a high-profile cricket match to watch in the courtyard. But, still, even then there is a throng of boys rushing in to switch on the computers and watch what our class has created during the time they’ve been IN THE COMPUTER CLASSROOM! I mean, really, the place is like a posh club scene with lines out of the room; several bouncers guard the door and regularly toss unruly individuals out, while the “cool few” march in and get access to the computers that are quickly turned on. The boys come to observe, ask questions about “everything technology” that they see in the classroom and in our bags, and practice their English.

IMG_3164 (1)

A week ago, I had a discussion about computer memory with a group of class 10 boys who always eagerly approach me when our class is finished. They saw Piya hand me her pocket flash drive (aka “stick” flash memory drive – USB) and asked what it was. They told me that they were interested in computers and a couple wanted to be software/hardware engineers. I handed the flash drive to them and was floored at how attentive they were while I talked about nano technology and the future of flash memory drives in computers. The boys wanted to see more technology, to use it more often. They wanted to absorb more, to learn, to participate in the larger discussion that could just be about computers, or could be about global jobs, opportunities inside and outside of their country.

The computer room is open to students during their “computer class” period. Unfortunately, the oldest students in the school – class 10 – who are the most fluent in English and are consistently the first to greet us when we arrive, are not allowed to use the computers. Their computer education stops after class 9, as class 10 spends the entire year studying for their final Class 10 Exam, which, depending on the score a student earns, basically decides if and where the student has a chance applying to college… the opportunity to move forward in their education.

I started this post by saying that the boys in our class are off and running with the Final Cut software, and I mean it. As I half-expected, much of my instruction on the first day fell on deaf ears – the program engulfed their senses, and the group of six huddled around the computer looked at me like a smudge on the wall, I was there on the wall and that was about it. Toward the end of class, my voice was getting through, but, really, most of the learning was done through trial and error with this particular group. I watched as they found the different tools on the screens, differentiated between single and double-clicking for certain commands, and noted the various ways that video clips could be placed on the storyboard, cut, and overlapped. The boys were hands-on, using a tool and figuring out just how it acted and what it could do. The boys were editing.

The second day using the Final Cut software was quite inspiring. The boys got right down to the business of editing, remembering where and how to make the cuts, and listening to each other as they talked about everyone’s opinion of each clip. There was a genuine Socratic discussion happening around the computer – talking, deciding, and creating, together.
The group’s video of “A day in the life of” is now finished, and they will soon shift to their next and final project that will combine all of the photo, video, and writing exercises they have completed over the past 5 weeks. We’ll be posting a description/ outline soon…
In the short time before and after our class, the boys’ curiosity floods the computer classroom. Students rush in like a heavy set and wash over the computers and the room. Eagerness around learning the computer extends beyond the 12 in the class and into the minds of the boys who continuously make the most of their 5-15 minutes of “computer curiosity”…in the hot club…the computer classroom.