New tech programs help kids create art

By Kara Swarbrick
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Step back Crayola. Kids today are replacing their old paper and crayons with more high-tech forms of artistic expression.

Programs across the country offer media communication training classes for youths and give children the experience of what it is like to think up and create a piece of technological art.

Independent Student Media Inc., or ISM, is one such program. Started in 1999, it "is an interactive, cross curricular, educational program specializing in and structured around the art of filmmaking, according to the program's website (www.ismfilms.com/).

Subject areas include Art, Drama, Stage Crew, Photography, History, Music, Textile, Fashion, Creative Writing, Business, Marketing and Advertising.

The State of Utah Board of Education adopted ISM's filmmaking curriculum in June of 2001 and started teaching through distance learning and the Internet, trying to discover a better method of instruction than the standard method, according to the website.

ISM's website, their "Interactive Online Textbook", (www.ismfilms.com) allows educators and students to learn from interviews of leading filmmaking professionals at any time, according to ISM. "The success and interest of the site opened the door to providing hands-on filmmaking workshops for teachers, empowering them to return to their classrooms armed with a working knowledge of the filmmaking process."

Another program is the 911 Media Art Center, which runs out of Washington state. This organization has a special program called the Young Producers Project.

"The mission of the Young Producers Project is to provide multimedia production and education workshops to young people," says the 911 Media website (www.911media.org/youth). "We offer classes that introduce middle and high school students to alternative forms of media production as well as providing video editing facilities, multimedia authoring stations and a screening venue for finished productions."

The Community Media Project (CMP), another program, was established in 1985 and has grown from there, according to the association's website (www.uwm.edu/PSOA/CMP/workshops.html).

"The Community Media Project CMP offers artistic and educational programs to Milwaukee residents, particularly serving its young adults."

The program started developing video and filmmaking areas in 1991. The group also conducts workshops with organizations such as the Mary Rayan Boys and Girls Club, Hillside Boys and Girls Club, The Wisconsin Black Historical Society Museum, the Mid-Town Neighborhood Association, Hartford Avenue School Neighborhood House of Milwaukee Inc., and the Holton Youth Center, according to the CMP website.

The workshops that the CMMP put on are aimed at teaching kids "creative, critical, practical and social skills." This is done through hands-on experience that allows the kids to "operate camcorders and 16 mm film cameras to conceptualize and create their own projects" and the group has also "incorporated a video editing workshop into our curriculum as well as letting students edit their video projects."

VidKids is one program like this that is aimed at elementary age children, and so far four schools are involved with kids from first through fourth grade. It is an outreach program that was initiated by the UCR/California Museum of Photography in 1992 and gives students "an opportunity to learn the technical and creative aspects of video and related media," according to the VidKids website (cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/education/vidkids/introduction.html).

VidKids prides itself on the goals of its program, which are to "emphasize process rather than product." In the process of doing so, the program "puts kids behind the camera, helps children discover that there is more to video than MTV, utilize technology as a multidisciplinar learning tool, and encourage kids to watch television with critical eyes.

The main theme that seems to appear among these programs is that they are learning tools used to offer children and adolescents a hands-on, creative way to better understand the world they are living in, whether it is the society at large or their own backyard.

"In a world that speaks to youths as mere consumers of image, The Young Producers Project is dedicated to teaching young people the critical viewing skills it takes to be creators of their own identities," says the 911 Media website.

The CMP takes their projects further, into the competitive arena, and the results have been more than positive.

"Teenagers involved in our video making programs have produced three broadcast length video documentaries that have won national awards," according to the CMP website.

Children have opportunities to broadcast their work on public television through a special program of 911 Media Arts Center's Young Producers Project called "reel Grrls," which is in partnership with Seattle's YMCA Metrocenter and KCTS, the public network.

"Teen participants have had invitations to attend film festivals, have had opportunities to represent the city of Milwaukee and the state at a youth forum nationally broadcast over public television and have presented their work at local schools, universities and conferences."

According to the CMP site, these events have helped to gage the success of the program and the positive outcome for the teenagers' involvement in the video workshops.

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