P.I.E. Alliance Network's mission is to ignite students' interest in technology through its curriculum, while creating a permanent school-based technology program that is self-sustaining. Founder Jason Dare started P.I.E. to help fill the lack of technology classes available to students. P.I.E.'s flagship Mobile Media Club was launched Fall of 2012 at Pollicita Middle School in Daly City. The program goes beyond teaching technology skills, it helps to boost confidence and builds important life skills such as self promotion, effective communication, leadership and problem solving skills. P.I.E. Alliance Network's vision is to make technology education accessible to all students through Mobile Media Clubs and change the course of computer technology instruction while transforming the lives of today’s young people.
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Utilizing Free Cloud-Based Tools to Create a Mobile App Club members utilized App Inventor to create Android applications. They personalized their applications by adding additional media while learning how to save from the web, the significance of file types, and the importance of file management. With their new-found knowledge, excitement in the club members grew as they realized the power they now had to create something that was previously a complete mystery to them.
P.I.E. supports free cloud based services and open source software. Students can "freely" explore the skills learned at a Mobile Media Club at home on any computer with Internet access. View a list of free resources at http://piealliance.tumblr.com/P.I.E-learningmodules
Quiet on the Set! Club members shine! We discovered quickly which of our members loved being on camera and which preferred off camera roles as videographer or director. Members learned the fundamentals to produce, film and edit a video. Teams were given creative freedom to develop their own plots and plan their video by storyboarding. Members took turns filming different perspectives, directing and acting. They quickly learned the importance of "Silence on the Set" and lighting as our days shifted because of Daylight Savings.
Thank you staff and volunteers who generously loaned students their personal digital cameras for the project. Videos were uploaded and edited online for free using YouTube.
View student's videos.
Giving Students a Voice Club members were introduced to participatory media, by analyzing blogs written by other teens and writing a blog post of their own. Teams collaborated independent ideas into a single cohesive blog post. The enthusiasm generated by the blogging activity inspired several club members to begin blogs of their own. One such student, began writing about the difficulties associated with her move from Guatemala and her perspectives on growing up as a Guatemalan-American. To further promote self-expression and engagement, the club members maintain a blog for the school with new postings weekly.
View student's blog
Spreading Holiday Cheer 21st Century Style Club members used Google’s Presentation service to spread holiday cheer by making holiday cards. Members were encouraged to create their own images from the basic drawing tools available. Animations were used to create twinkling stars and blinking lights. Presentations were packaged and sent, and the spirit of the holidays was instilled in all of us.
Happy Holidays and we look forward to next year!