Back to Blogging!
Photo by Mosier J
Back to Blogging! This is my first blog post for 2009! I’m glad to be back in the ethersphere, continuing with reviews of savvy Web 2.0 tools. In addition, I will throw in some brags about teachers’ exemplary uses of technology integration. If you find an uber tool or know of someone smartly using technology, send me a buzz!
Multimedia Can Dance at The Crefeld School:
Project: Dance & Multimedia
Grade Level: High School
Technology Tools: digital video, imovie (mac movie editing software), and Garageband (podcasting/sound recording mac software)
Sara Narva, dance teacher extraordinaire at The Crefeld School, started with a vision. She set out to involve her students in a dialogue about race through honest journaling and observations, as well as student collaboration. From this visionary idea, a dance about race was born, where students collaborated with teacher in choreographing a thought-provoking, stimulating, and sometimes painfully honest look at how a group of teens feel about race.
Not ony did Sara take on a controversial topic for dance expression, she also challenged herself with utilizing multimedia to help educate and tell the story of the teens’ perspectives. A mix of music, video, and sound bytes echoed throughout the dance performance, brilliantly challenging the audience’s preconceived notions about race, the world in which we live, the beauty of diversity and its challenges, as well as the social injustices.
After watching this dynamic performance, you walk away questioning your own ways of thinking and you have a renewed perspective on diversity.
You can listen to some clips of the student interviews, which were utilized throughout the dance.
Through Our Eyes: A Dance About Race, The Crefeld School
To read Sara Narva’s reflections on her experiences with this project, you can access the Horace journal article, a journal published by the Coalition for Essential Schools.
Image created in Wordle, a creative word cloud editing tool, created by IBM Visual Research Communication Lab.
Director & Producer: Sara Narva (4:00)
Students and teacher granted permission for the publishing of this sound file. It may not be reproduced or distributed without the permission of Sara Narva and her dancers.
Wonderful article! This lesson and dance were truly transforming, for the students involved, and for the other teachers and students at Crefeld. I watched and listened with tears in my eyes, as these young women that I work with spoke and danced about such real and complex issues. The project poignantly made immediate the complexity and diffulty of these issues, and also the power of people to connect with each other with respect and love.
I see your collaboration all over this powerful teen perspective. Crefeld is lucky to have a technology guru who loves to learn, collaborate and move forward in the 21st century.
How would we keep up without the RSS Feed. What a great way to see what you are doing with your students.