DSA sophomores traveled to Soda Springs on Saturday with the purpose of becoming a closer-knit group of students as they begin their new project and look forward to “living together” until graduation. But, bonding on this day took the form of a snowball fighting, tackling, and wrestling free for all. It was a glorious way to spend a day in the Sierras.
And, now, it feels even better to be a member of this big family.
There are 150 more pictures in our Flickr album for the trip.
The newest installment of the DSA’s Speaking of I.D.entity project hit Vimeo today. Check ‘em out!
(We’re still waiting on a few videos, so if the one you’re looking for isn’t here, check back Monday)
Speaking of I.D.entity 2010 on Vimeo
Jessylyn Los Banos “Rose Colored Glasses” from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
Gustavo Gomez & Felipe Carias “Don’t Give Up” from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
Join us as The Digital Safari Academy presents the 3rd Annual “Speaking of I.D.entity” showcase where the DSA class of 2011 celebrates their families, their cultures and their individuality with two free evenings of peace and love. The evening features an inspired blend of video and music mixed with live poetry, spoken word, singing and hip-hop – all written, produced and performed by the students of the DSA. It is a remarkable collection of student performances celebrating the diversity, community and individual voices that make us one.
See our Vimeo Channel for videos from the class of 2010’s performances.
Karla Penuela “Gotta Get It” from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
Michelle, Nick and Susannah formed the winning team from Solargize!
The 5th Annual Digital Safari Innovation Fair that took place on Thursday, January 21 received regional coverage in the Contra Costa Times yesterday. The article does a nice job of capturing the spirit and intensity of the competition and provides nice quotes by a number of DSA students.
In addition, CCTV will broadcast their coverage of the fair at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, and 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19. CCTV can be found locally on Comcast Channel 27. (CCTV’s program description)
Finally, you can check out the photos from this year’s competition on the DSA’s Flickr page.
For more information on the Digital Safari Innovation Fair and GreenBizz Competition, please visit www.innovationfair.org.
The second semester will be a busy one for DSA students with many dates already on the books and many more to be added. So, get out your calendars…
February 17 – 10th Grade visit to U.C. Berkeley (Randy and Ms. Stirton’s alma mater!)
March 6 – 10th Grade Snow Trip!!!
March 16 – 10th Grade Career Exploration Visit
April 1 – 11th Grade visit to San Francisco State
April 3 – 10 – Spring Break!!
May 8 – Junior/Senior Prom
May 10 – 14 – Junior Peer Education
May 16 – 19 – Junior Camping to Big Basin State Park
June 2 – Legacy of Imperialism 10th Grade Competition
June 9 – Senior films at Brendan (tentative)
June 11 – Senior Celebration!
Add in all the due dates for papers and projects, time for meetings and trips to I Love for spicy chicken and you can see we’ll be as busy as ever in the DSA. Ready?
Come see the best students in the Bay Area this Thursday evening at Centre Concord.
48 outstanding digital stories honoring family and the journeys that have lead to today are now posted at in the DSA Histories of Our Families album at Vimeo. These 48 stories comprised our 2 day festival of 10th grade stories for 2010. The DSA Digital Story Festival is now in its 6th year.
Britanny Castillo – HOOF, 2010 & Rodolfo Meda – HOOF, 2010
from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
The 6th annual DSA Histories of Our Families Digital Story Festival will take place in the MDHS library on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, the 12th and 13th from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
The festival will the first public display of work for our 10th grade class – the newest members of the DSA. And, thus, represents their unofficial initiations into the academy.
Please join us. Past experiences show this to be an amazing night of storytelling and togetherness as families and students share their past, their traditions and their hopes for the future.
Stay tuned later this week to see the uploaded videos on the DSA Vimeo channel.
In training and preparation for the creation of videos for their own recordings, DSA juniors have completed videos for several popular songs. 12 new videos in all were posted for music from John Legend, The Mountain Goats, The White Rabbits and many others. The results are a good representation of the teenage world view. And, as always we are proud of our students’ efforts.
See all 12 videos on our vimeo channel.
Stay tuned for the Class of 2011 Speaking of I.D.entity project videos coming soon.
Thirteen from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
Tell Me Something Good from Digital Safari Academy on Vimeo.
As we approach the winter break, a mere 2 weeks away, students are beginning to feel the intensity of our 1st semester projects. The sophomores are currently working on their family history digital stories. This project gives the students a chance to create a memorable project in which they share some part of their family’s history. It asks them to explore how their family got to be where it is. For most of us having some understanding of our family helps us to have a better understanding of ourselves. The students have been collecting photographs to include in their story and they have written their story. Now the students are recording their story and putting the finishing touches on their digital story, including composing the music. Originally the students were going to present these stories to their families this month. However, that has been changed to January. Once a date has been decided we will post it.
The juniors are working on their IDentity projects. In this project we ask students to explore their own identity. As part of that exploration, they are creating a history scrapbook. The scrapbook has them display images of their own history, while at the same time researching and presenting images of what was going on in American history during their lifetime. They also need to do a written reflection of their scrapbook. They have been turning in parts of the scrapbook throughout the semester. The final draft of it will be due in January. In addition to the scrapbook, they wrote a personal memoir in English. To help prepare them to write this memoir, they read and discussed different memoirs, such as The Bell Jar, Always Running, & The Color of Water. Reading these memoirs helped prepare them to write their own. Finally, students wrote a monologue that they will be performing. Some wrote songs to sing, some wrote poems, and some wrote spoken word. Currently, the students are working on composing the music to go with their monologue and recording them. They will also be filming a video to go with their monologue. A showcase of these monologues will be in February. It is a wonderful celebration of all the hard work students did this semester.
The seniors have been hard at work on GreenBizz. In this project students are asked to develop an idea for a product (it can’t currently exist on the market) and build a company around that project. They needed to research the opportunities available for their product to be successful in the market, their potential competitors and their target customers. They have been writing various parts of their business plan and developing their marketing materials. Additionally, they have met with mentors several times to discuss their product and business plan. This project culminates with a competition. On the morning of January 21 they will be presenting to potential investors. Those investors will assess the students and rank the students. Then, in the evening of January 21, at Centre Concord, students participate in the Innovation Fair. They will set up booths displaying their products and business plan. Families and friends will have an opportunity to “invest” in the companies as well. Based on the morning competitions and the Innovation Fair, the top five groups will present again, before a new panel of judges. Those judges will make final determinations and choose the ultimate winner of the competition. This year we are lucky to have students from the International Hospitality and Tourism Academy and the Arts and Humanities Academy joining in our competition. It adds another level of excitement to the project. This evening is great fun so put it on your calendar!