PUSD's 2nd Annual Film Festival

Calling for Video Submissions

This year's theme is 

"Our Students Making a Better World" 

Welcome to our second annual digital storytelling and media arts event here in Pleasanton Unified School District. We come together to celebrate the diverse voices of our very own students. 

Submission Deadline Extended Until
5/8/16

EVENT DETAILS:

WHEN: Wednesday, June 2, 2016

WHERE: Firehouse Arts Center, Pleasanton, CA

WHO: PUSD families & Pleasanton community are  welcome! 

TIME: 6-9 pm

COST: Complimentary

Find out all the details at - pusdfilmfestival.weebly.com/

Logo Created by Matthew Sheeler - PMS

BreakoutEDU

Taking education by storm, BreakoutEdu is a framework for games that teach complex problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills. Teachers hide clues to create a thematic game for students. Students use the clues to open locks and Break into the Breakout Box. This can be a great team building activity for clubs, teams and staff. Finding or creating a game around a specific content area can create a rich learning experience for students. Find out more at BreakoutEdu. 

 Join BreakoutEDU SDR Session

Sign up Here

Google Expeditions

In October, Google Expeditions came to Lydiksen, Vintage Hills, Harvest Park, Hart, and Pleasanton Middle School. It provided an opportunity for students to take a virtual field trip to the Great Barrier Reef, Roman Colosseum, Colonial Philadelphia and many other exotic locations around the world. Students were provided an Android smartphone and fold up piece of cardboard for their expeditions which were controlled by the teachers tablet. Google Expeditions is currently being beta tested, but hopefully will be available later this year. In the meantime, many of the 360 photos and videos are available online. Find out more about Expeditions here.

Pleasanton Weekly's Article

A Day At The UN - With Google Hangout's On Air

Google Hangouts On Air is a great way to bring real world experts into your classroom. On 9/15 students at Foothill High School were able to have a conversation about the Syrain Refugee crisis with Melissa Fleming, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commision For Refugees. Google Hangouts is a video conferencing tool built into Gmail and Google+. The "On Air" feature (Only in Google+) allows the video call to be broadcast to any audience in another classroom or around the world. At the conclusion of an On Air Hangout, a video will be created and sent to the creators YouTube Channel. That may be shared On Demand. 

How To Create and Brodcast a Google Hangout On-Air

Video

How To - Slide Deck

PUSD's First Student Film Festival #Films

The first PUSD Film Festival was a huge success. We had over 120 Films submitted from over 50 different classrooms. Projects spanned many genres and levels, even Kindergarden students got involved. It was incredible event highlighting Student Voice. This opportunity was something that was not possible just a few short years ago, but now with the technology that students have at their fingertips,  it is truly incredible to see the diversity of the films submitted.

On May 15th at the Firehouse Arts Center 48 of our best films were screened using several YouTube playlists that are linked below.

    A Few Of My Favorites

            Weird and Awkward                 Toy Wars 3                     New Beginnings
                  Music Video                              Animation                              Stories

     

The Full Playlists

Trailers/Promo Videos, Animations, and Stories

Public Service Announcements. Documentaries, Spoken Word Poetry and Music Videos

High School Appropriate Films

Creating Meaningful Digital Portfolios

It's time to really think about digital portfolios. They are a place for students to archive work, reflect on their growth as a learner and publish their best artifacts of learning. This is their learning journey in the era of Common Core.

Blog Posts on Portfolio's

The How and Why of Digital Portfolios 

8P’s of Education

On Demand Webinar
Digital Portfolios

More Resources and Example Blogs and Sites
James Sanders
Karen McMillan
Jen Robert
9th Grade English Blog
Megan Ellis
Ramsey Musallam

Portfolio's must also provide a feedback loop from teachers, peers and parents. This helps create student ownership. Clearly this leads to concerns regarding social media and digital citizenship. However the portfolio can be like the "training wheels" for other media platforms that exist. Students will have years of work archived, and  it can help develop social media maturity as they will need to constantly make decisions on what they are adding to their digital footprint.

The portfolio belongs to the student so it is important to have a simple platform that easily allows them to use it across content areas. This requires some type of consensus about what platform to use. It should be easy to organize all subject areas, allow embedding of other work, and provide an audience for the published pieces. In addition, the portfolio needs to easily transition from year to year. As with all technology, there are a million ways to accomplish this. The most obvious being sites, blogs or digital portfolio sites. All have pros and cons.

Sites

• Google Sites 
• Integrates Well With GAFE
• Easy to post digital content
• Free
• Privacy Settings 
• Easy to create templates

Blogs

• Blogger 
• Integrates Well With GAFE
• Creates A Chronological/Thematic Log
• A Public Forum (Kidblog and Edublogs have paid subscriptions that allow privacy settings)
• A Clean Appearance

Digital Portfolio Sites

• Nureva Troove - subscription based digital portfolio site.
• Not Free - An ongoing cost to maintain every year
• Built In Features Like Rubrics
• Software designed for Digital Portfolios

Think about the big picture of digital portfolio's and share your thoughts on this post. What concerns, ideas or suggestions do you have when considering creating a place for students to archive their work for the remainder of their school career?

Readers Theater and Student Created Book Recommendations #ELA

Have you ever thought about having students digitally review novels they have read and cataloging their comments? Ask students to review their books by creating a digital presentation or video, collect their links on a google form and share the results with your class. Students can then use that resource as they decide what book they might be interested in reading next. 

A Pi Day Math Activity! #Pi #π

Not only is it Pi Day, but it is 3/14/15. In Math Terms that is 3.1415. If you want to get really geeky at 9:26 it will be 3.1415926 or π. This week I was invited to watch a math Lesson where students measured the circumference and diameter of objects: A Quarter, Cup, Plate, Bike Tire and several other objects. Then, students entered their information on a class Google Sheet. Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter Circumfrance of a circle divided by diamater = π.  The Google Sheet calculated Pi, the better the students measured, the closer to 3.14 they got. 

Students Measuring the Circumference of a Tire

Math Scavenger Hunt

One of the more interesting math projects I have seen done this year is the "Real World" Math Scavenger Hunt Mrs. Kondrick's Middle School classes created. The whole purpose was to do exactly what it sounds like, find examples of math in the real world. Students shared their pictures on a Google Presentation.

Class Instructions