Imagine having your team's, grade level's, or school's own Oscars! A film festival can electrify a learning environment with unprecedented excitement. However, just giving students a computer and a digital video camera does not a quality product make! In fact, in all probability, few people realize how focused a learning exercise making a movie is. Many who have tried to initiate a project of this type have met with frustration or perhaps ended up with products that did not meet their expectations. Don't dismay! You and your students can do this! Or perhaps you simply want to take the products your students are creating to a much higher level. This workshop is for you, because with projects this complex, systematic training is a must!

Dr. Tyson, who began the Mabry Film Festival in 2001, personally did most of the initial training each year for the students, and parent and teacher sponsors that participated in the annual school-wide festival. This workshop is the substance of that all-day training session. Numerous student-created examples are carefully studied (in several instances scrutinizing just a couple of seconds of a finished product) as examples of best practices. This workshop can be customized to meet a variety of needs, from the basics of movie-making in the educational setting (as a tool to empower learning and contribution), to designing and setting up a school-wide film festival project that spans several months. The most exciting workshops are those in which students, parents, and teachers all attend together. But this workshop can also be used for teacher-created products (hosted on your website or blog, DVDs or closed circuit TV system) as well as a new and enticing medium for student projects. Participants leave the session with many student-created examples to continue their own study of what works best.

Practical, flexible, and informative, this workshop is a must for project-based learning environments!