by Mathew Needleman
I started my Apple Camp blog as a separate entity from my Open Court Reading blog as I didn’t think it was necessarily of interest to my regular readers.
Now that camp is over, you may wish to check out my regular blog which is primarily about teaching the Open Court Reading program but includes tips for infusing any curriculum with technology.
This blog may not be updated again the next Apple Institute.
What Apple, Maxx, and his team do right is that they value educators.
Unfortuantely, teachers elsewhere in the world are just not appreciated. Teachers who integrate technology, in particular, somewhat unanimously are not appreciated in their schools. Sometimes they’re the only ones and other teachers are jealous. Sometimes their use of technology is seen as a distraction from teaching subjects which will actually be tested.
The Apple Distinguished Educator program actually asks teachers what their passions are and gives them a forum to work towards achieveing their own goals. When was the last time you had professional development where you were asked what you cared about?
I met many people who inspired me, encouraged me, who I can turn to when I need help or inspiration. And I feel myself returning home now with a renewed sense of purpose. I’m looking forward to going back to school and feel I have a lot more possibilities than I did before.
I signed up for the Photo Safari to Big Sur, not knowing that 89 other people also did. It was by far the most popular field trip of the day which was not a problem, except that I had Vincent’s voice in my head. My mission was to get the photograph that no one else was getting. And this wasn’t easy when the bus would stop and 89 people would get out with lenses bigger than mine and each trying to take the same shot. I took some of the obvious ones (to show my grandma who used to live in Carmel) but also tried to get the shot less taken.
I went on a long hike with a tour guide at our last stop. The tour guide moved so fast that only five of the 20 people who started with him ended with him at the end of the hike. I was one of those 5. Our last stop was a small museum with these weird looking tools and pictures of a woman who looked like a witch. Then it came to me that I had been shooting the Blair Witch Project part 4. While I couldn’t match others perhaps in a unique composition of shots or superb depth of field with my Canon Powershot automatic camera, I could approach the material with a unique tone. I later cut it together in Final Cut as a strange little pseudo-horror clip. I had fun.
When Trang Lai saw it she said something like, “It’s always death and destruction with you, Mathew.” She knows my work from seeing Tales from the Yard, my horror film with first graders. I hope it’s not all death and destruction but she might have a point.
Our group project turned out well enough. Working in a group is, of course, about compromise. So I think we compromised well and while our project wasn’t quite my idea or their idea, we came up with an idea which had contributions from us all.
Our last night at the Monterey Bay Aquarium was an experience I will never forget.
I had been to the aquarium before but this was not a normal visit. We had the aquarium to ourselves and ate dinner under a 500 gallon fish tank. As I ate, giant turtles and Ocean Sunfish floated by. A steel drum band played. It was a truly awesome and special evening. So special I missed taking pictures entirely. I had my camera. Forgot my battery. Yeah, it was stupid. I hope someone else posts their pictures on Flickr for the aquarium. The experience will not, however, be one that I will soon forget.
Today I attended two phenomenal workshops. One on using Motion and one on using Soundtrack Pro which are both a part of the Final Cut Studio. The classes were taught by Marco Torres who does some phenomenal things with his Los Angeles area high school students and John Woody who teaches at James Madison University.
Although I feel quite comfortable editing in Final Cut Pro, I have only stumbled around with other two programs and it was good to have some formal training, though I’m not an expert after four hours of classes. The classes moved quite fast, so fast I stopped to try and help my neighbor for a second and could no longer keep up with a particular skill. But I got enough ideas that I can extrapolate those ideas and figure out the rest of the programs, I hope.
However, the highlight of the day by all accounts was a presentation by Vincent Laforet. I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t heard of him beforehand but I had checked out his web site. Although I was impressed by his photography I feared that his presentation would be boring and expected him to be a pompous S.O.B. who would come onstage polishing his Pulitzer Prize.
He took the stage and I knew I was mistaken immediately. I had no idea he was so young. So humble. So plain speaking and yet so eloquent. I laughed several times at his wry humor. And I got a little choked up just as he did when he showed his photographs, the first ones taken of Hurricane Katrina to be published in mainstream media and shared his helplessness as not being able to do anything to his subjects and his frustration at nothing being done.
As it related to art, the message was about seeing things in a way no one else does, taking a photograph from a perspective no one else sees, not taking the photograph everyone else does. (His message the next day on our trip to Big Sur was to walk around and look before taking a photo). Hearing from artists makes me want to make another film. But his message wasn’t just about art, or just about teaching, it was about humanity. Vincent’s desire to put a scene of hope in the papers in the months after 9/11. His respect for the people in his photographs. And his attention to detail in the frame as in life.
Day two was long and good. We spent about half the day doing team-builidng activities like improvisation and orientation and the other half was spent at a vendor fair talking with various vendors.
The improv was particularly good. I’ve taken many improv classes, these were by The Improv Lady. I use it as a tool for getting shy English Language Learners to talk but here it was presented as a way for getting educators to collaborate and listen to each other, a useful tool for teachers at a school site.
I continue meeting elementary teachers doing innovative things with technology.
Today will be spent in elective type classes. I’m taking a class on motion and soundtrack pro which I don’t know that well. I could have signed up for Final Cut Pro since I’ve never taken a class in it but since I use FCP all the time I thought it was more valuable to learn the other two.
At night, we had a door decorating contest. Our door turned out pretty cool thanks to my suite mates willingness to hang his mac mini from the top of the door. The results of the contest will be announced today at breakfast which is being served now. I better go…
Day One/Night one are over.
No problems. Good times.
We took a tour of the Apple Campus. It was quite nice but no pictures allowed. We did not see Steve Jobs but were told should we see him that there were a few rules: Do not mob Steve. Do not hug Steve. Do not feed Steve.
It was an hour and a half drive to our dorms on the old Fort Ord base. The last time I was in Monterey, Fort Ord was just a boarded up military base. Now it’s a boarded up military base with dorm rooms. It’s kind of desolate out here though I don’t think we’re far from the city.
Although elementary teachers are in the minority here I have met several doing innovative things with second graders. I saw a really clever clay animation film about bats with original music from a second grade teacher on the bus. I know some people here already from our first meeting in Los Angeles. I was a winner at a bingo game where you have to find people to sign their names to a bingo grid matching a criteria, like “find someone who served in the military.”
I’m up early to beat the rush to the bathroom. The dorm has a large window and I can see a few of the ADEs running around. Some are training for marathons. I hope they’re having fun. I’ll just keep typing. It’s almost breakfast.
On the agenda today seems to be an orientation to this program and what we can expect.
Or at least early evening.
As a new ADE, I’m wondering what exactly lies in store for the next week.
I’m wondering if my G3 iBook is too old and will get me laughed out of camp.
I’m wondering if I should be packing right now instead of creating a blog.
I’m very excited about the coming week. I hope to have a few moments here and there to jot down some notes on the experience and upload some photos. Thanks for reading.
I am very pleased to report that I have been accepted to the Apple Distinguished Educator Program. I have known about this program for some time but they only accept new applicants every other year and I previously missed the deadline for application.
You can see a shortened version of my application film on my Video in the Classroom web site.
