mythical status in the local community. Part of it had to do with the fact
that the video looked at the problems of their community square in the
eye and presented them in a public conversation.
“The most amazing thing to me as a teacher,” Mann reflected after the
experience, “is that most diverse classes like this are taken over by the
white honor students. In this class, the leaders were all black, every one.
And nearly every one of them was having difficulties in other classes.”
The Problem at Hand
As Principal Everett wrapped up her summary of the extraordinary
challenges ahead for her and her students, we reflected on why we felt so
optimistic and inspired. The curious synergy between videomaking and
problems/challenges was certainly part of it. And we wondered why
video had worked so well as a solution to so many school problems.
Part of it could have be the novelty of it. Video is still a very new thing in K-12 classrooms overall, but who is to say whether this novelty will
last as video becomes more accessible to students of all ages.
Another reason could be related to the self-reflexive eye that video
provides in helping to better see and critically examine problems in a
way their eyes individually cannot.
But this problem of a school basically designed to fail was pretty big
compared to the others. Was video capable of standing up to a problem
this deep and this large?
The X-Factor.
As we left the meeting with the principal, we were all
in agreement that the Smart Kids Visual Stories Project was where it
belonged at Bingham. If there was an “x-factor” in the past problems we
used videomaking to help solve, it was teachers with a lesson plan. In the
case of Bingham, it was Principal Karen Everett. She wasn’t just talking
about the problems she faced; she was also talking about ideas for solu-
tions to these problems.
She’d already been the object of audible student complaints, the most
popular of which was, “This place is like a prison!” Karen smiled know-
ingly and said, “I can handle that.” They need to know that this is a safe
place for learning and if that looks and feels like a prison compared to
what they had before, so be it. But once they start to realize that that’s the
Solution
xlvii
way it works around here, and it’s all about learning, moving closer to
the things they want to do in life and feeling a sense of pride in their
school, they aren’t going to feel like it’s prison anymore.
And like the other problems that video had worked with in the past,
this one had the makings of a success story, partly because of video, but
more because we were working with a principal who had a vision for
success, was a real fighter, and truly wasn’t going to give up. This prob-
lem was going to meet its match in more ways than one.
EIGHT
Integration
Even though it was a research visit, it felt more like a safari. We were
stalking a not-yet-seen species in the realm of K-12 videomaking: the
integrator. This was not a typical school visit, as most of our work is
connected to media use in public schools, and most often disadvantaged
ones at that. We were visiting an elite private school in Manhattan. What
relevance could there possibly be for typical public school K-12 students
and teachers in exploring a well-to-do school with more resources, less
constraints, and little to no mandates from distant government entities?
The hope was that within this environment, certain “best practices”
might be gleaned from a largely successful media and technology unit in
a school setting. And from what we had heard from the person we were
visiting, it was a tremendously successful example of how technology
and education can work together. Was it all because of the factors of
privilege? Or would there be other factors that could actually be benefi-
cial and easily applied to public settings? Our expedition would provide
the answer to that question, and we were optimistic.
We showed up a little early for our 8:45 a.m. appointment, early
enough to get a sense of the school from the front entrance. Coffee in
hand, we watched from a park bench directly across from the school
entrance as parents and school buses dropped kids at this pre K-5 school
near Manhattan’s Columbus Circle.
Maybe it was the beautiful, late spring morning sunshine with a little
extra glimmer and glow, but it seemed an extraordinarily happy and
positive place to be. Children had a spring to their steps, and mothers
and fathers were smiling. The whole picture of the school was very pris-
tine and warm. Inside the building it seemed that even the folks at the
check-in desk were more taken by the beautiful day than any sort of
imminent security threat.
xlix
l
Chapter 8
Sarah Moore-Fontaine was a little late coming out of her meeting—
typical of these meetings, she explained. It seemed only yesterday we
were wishing her best of luck ahead from the graduation podium—12
plus years ago!
Sarah was a student at our communications school in the late 1990s. In
her senior year she had produced one of the most memorable films bring-
ing together original music—produced in her music recording class—
with her thesis project—produced in her advanced production class. She
worked tirelessly on this project and it came out great. She demonstrated
that she could pull off the seemingly impossible and this reflected well on her potential in the film industry.
It was surprising, therefore, when we realized she had gone in an
altogether different direction than we thought she would. Though in
retrospect it makes so much sense. After a brief stint in the entertainment production industry, she landed at USC picking up a master’s degree in
education and like many others who pursue a career in entertainment,
found fulfillment in more educational applications of entertainment sto-
rytelling practices.
When she left USC she went on to work at a small private school in
Los Angeles, and that is where she began her experiences in bringing
education and media together as director of technology. Her culminating
experience centered around the school’s trip to the 2009 Obama inaugu-
ration, which she and the group of nine students made into a two disc
DVD set documenting their experiences at this historic event.
We met in Sarah’s office for about an hour discussing everything from
the four schools in her current school system, to their educational philos-
ophy, to pasts, presents and futures of technology usage in educational
settings. She introduced us to her boss, Trent McMorrow who was the
Director of Technology for the schools.
Trent didn’t just talk about what they did there at this school. He
talked a lot about their very particular model of technology and educa-
tion. This was when we had our first sighting of the Integrator. It turns out that Sarah herself had been given the title, frankly because Trent was not
able to think up any be
tter (or more true) word to describe what the
person in this position actually did.
Basically an integrator’s job was to work with teachers and help them
integrate technology into their classrooms and lesson plans to make their
lives easier and their teaching better and their students smarter. They
identified their approach to technology very closely with Chris Lehman,
principal at SLA, Science Leadership Academy, in Philadelphia who
championed the merits of technology integration in education. Lehman1
compared technology to oxygen: “ubiquitous, necessary & invisible. . . .
When was the last time we took students to a pencil lab?”
Trent and his integrator Sarah saw these two figures as great educa-
tors who provided inspiring visions of what school in the twenty-first
Integration
li
century could be. They saw it as their responsibility to apply these ideas
to their particular purchase and application of educational resources. The
job of an integrator was to stand by the students and teachers, truly get to know them, earn their trust, and lend a hand in improving the learning
process and making the teacher’s job easier and lesson plans more fulfill-
ing for the students.
The main tool of the integrator was technology, but there was also
another that we discovered when we looked very closely—call it a blend
of ingenuity, creativity, and courage. Knowing technology was simply
not enough for an integrator. To work consistently and effectively, tech-
nology had to be adapted with nuance and delicacy to the very particular
nature of the learning activity it was applied to. Trent explained that this made the integrator a breed apart from technology expert or trainer. From our media industry perspective, it was a very similar skillset we look to
build in storytellers. Teaching filmmakers how to do any part of the
process doesn’t matter unless it can be connected to a story. The best way
to train a film director or editor is to give them a story to direct or edit.
The story will inform a very particular use and application of technology.
Sarah and Trent did their integrating with passion and high energy.
They were genuinely excited about their work and the frontiers of yet
unrealized possibilities, as were their colleagues in their Bronx campus.
But as with any educational setting, all was not completely perfect in this heavily endowed private school (35K/year tuition).
They had some of the same problems all school systems face including
personnel issues, slow/fast technology adopters, leadership problems . . .
yes, they were human. But the operating principles behind their day-to-
day work integrating technology into classrooms really seemed to work
well! From what I observed, the majority of their success stemmed from
their model of integration. The reason for their success was not complete-
ly due to privilege.
Apart from the swelling pride we felt for a student of ours and her
impressive success at this school, we realized our student-teacher roles
had been reversed. The Integrator had taught us a lot about the synergy between learning and technology.
Teachers ask us all the time about how they should conceive of, man-
age, and deploy technology, and the answer is never simple because it
depends on the unique nature of the learning environment and resources
they have. One fairly universal aspect of educational settings is that they have limits. When it comes to technology in K-12 environments, those
responsible must do a lot with comparably little resources. Given this,
there is a certain efficiency and cost effectiveness inherent in the idea of the integrator. The integrator allows for a learning-driven application of technology, where teachers can focus on teaching and technology people
can focus on inventive applications of the tools at their disposal as they
meet the needs at hand.
lii
Chapter 8
There is also a biological basis embedded in the idea of the integrator.
Neuroscientists studying the ways that the brain learns (CERI, 2007) de-
scribe the process of integration as the “neural base of learning.”
The neuroscientific definition of learning links this process to a biologi-
cal substrate or surface. From this point of view, learning is the result of integrating all information perceived and processed. This integration
takes form in structural modifications within the brain. Indeed, micro-
scopic changes occur, enabling processed information to leave a physi-
cal “trace” of its passage.
Today, it is useful, even essential, for educators and anyone else con-
cerned with education to gain an understanding of the scientific basis
of learning processes.
In the end we had found the integrator in the person of our former student. But even though we were leaving this particular integrator at her
school, the idea of the integrator was going far beyond exotic settings we
had discovered it in. In considering the potential of the integrator, the words of Edward R. Murrow, describing the emerging technology of
television in 1958, come to mind:
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even in-
spire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to
use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignor-
ance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be
useful.
And this weapon of the integrator could be useful as well in the challenge to improve education through artful application of technology.
NOTE
1. See
http://www.edsource.org/today/2013/chris-lehmann-tells-san-francisco-
crowd-technology-cant-replace-teachers/25629#.UQWzaErjky4
for
some
context
around this eloquent idea.
Destination and Journey in Video
Production
Life’s a journey, not a destination. Although the exact origins of this
quote are murky (with attributions to Don Williams, Jr., Aerosmith’s Ste-
ven Tyler, and Ralph Waldo Emerson among others), that it comes up
time and time again in popular culture is a testament to the enduring
relevance of the sentiment. The quote reminds us that life isn’t about a
particular achievement or reaching a particular goal; rather, our lives are defined by the experiences we have along the way.
This philosophy offers some key insight when it comes to introducing
video production in the K-12 classroom. Namely, while it is important for
video production to be motivated (to have a destination), the process by which students produce their videos (in other words, the journey) is equally important. The stated outcome of a video project may be the
same for all the students in the class (for example, to create a short film), but the process by which different students achieve this goal will be
largely influenced by their individual interests, subjective experiences,
and varying levels of skill.
It’s important to note that these factors are descriptive rather than
predictive. In other words, there isn’t any specific interest, experience, or skill level that guarantees a successful outcome to this process. While
students need to be
provided with the appropriate time, resources, and
support in order to be successful in their video production endeavors, it’s equally important that educators allow them the time, space, and room to
pursue a process that is personally meaningful. Furthermore, the pursuit
of this process might involve an allowance for certain occurrences that
are not traditionally popular in K-12 learning such as productive failure
and a loose, fluid learning environment.
Productive failure refers to the idea that student processes that may initially seem to fail according to conventional standards (for instance,
accuracy, efficiency, and performance quality) may actually possess some
hidden value in terms of future productivity (Manu, 2008; Manu and
Kinzer, 2009). Productive failure holds that students who are allowed to
fail learn from their mistakes and, thus, are more likely to be successful in similarly structured future endeavors. Of course context is key, and the
potential benefits of productive failure are likely to be diminished if failure is associated with the threat of punishment. Instead, if students are
liii
liv
Destination and Journey in Video Production
not only allowed, but encouraged, to stumble along the way, they stand
to gain much more from the exercise than just a passing grade.
Similarly, although a certain degree of structure and rules may be
important for classroom-based learning, creativity and innovation tend to
flourish in learning environments that emphasize openness, fluidity, and
are adaptable towards students’ specific interests. An activity as simple
as identifying and incorporating students’ expertise or special knowledge
into a classroom exercise may encourage students to develop a sense of
ownership and a personal stake in the outcome. Allowing students to
partially dictate the terms of the project creates a learning environment
where students feel self-motivated to create, innovate, and learn.
Making allowances such as these may not be something with which
educators are immediately comfortable, and that’s okay. Discomfort, as
Unlocking the Moviemaking Mind Page 6