Newsletter Archive

Newsletter March 2009

From the Executive Director:

Congratulations to Elisha Durrant, Tincan’s Director of the Inland Northwest Memories Project, on completing her two-year AmeriCorps Vista term. Elisha has now become a regular Tincan staff member, continuing as director of the history project as well as providing research and support for other Tincan projects from evaluation to fund-raising.

Recently, I was at a community meeting where people were talking about a new Tincan video. To my embarrassment, I hadn’t seen the video yet. It was this year’s first subVERSive video, “Street Kids Lullaby” created by teens at Crosswalk. If you haven’t seen this powerful video, you can watch it here. The film has been submitted and accepted by the Media That Matters Film Festival in New York City. A discussion of this video was recently on public radio in Spokane: Listen to the broadcast.

Tincan is working with One in Three: the Regional Drop Out Prevention Summit, to share our insights about Spokane’s drop out issues and solutions. Teens in West Valley School District’s Contract-Based Education program who are participating in the Youth Media program are producing a video about dropping out to be presented at the summit. Tincan will have a table at the summit to highlight the activities we have for teens. The purpose of the summit is to set an action plan for increasing the area’s high school graduation rate to help ensure that Spokane’s young people are better prepared for college, work and life. To register for this important summit, which will take place on April 17 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Lincoln Center, 1316 N. Lincoln Street, go to
http://www.chaseyouth.org/dropoutprevention.html.

Finally, the Non-Profit Technology Network, a national organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes, interviewed me. I talked about the importance of evaluation in understanding program impact and improvement. Evaluation is essential part of Tincan’s philosophy, and the way that we know that our programs are working. NTEN created a podcast of the interview, which is at: http://nten.org/blog/2009/02/11/2009-ntc-preview-karen-michaelson-evaluation.

And as always, please consider donating to Tincan to help us continue our innovative programs.

Donate online now!

Karen L. Michaelson, Ph.D.
Executive Director

SPRING BREAK TEEN FIVE-DAY FILM CHALLENGE

Tincan will host our First Annual Five Day Film Challenge over Spring Break (March 30-April 3). Teens ages 13-19 can apply to participate in this intensive 5-day institute that will produce a short to be shown on the web and also sent out to film festivals. We will spend two days learning how to operate the equipment, and how to create exceptional film. The rest of the event will be spent working as a group to create a finished, polished film. The event will run all five days from 9am-5pm at Tincan’s offices at 827 W. First Ave, Ste 121, Spokane, WA and is totally FREE. Join with other like-minded teens and make a film. To apply for this Spring Break event, please call Joseph Comine at 509-744-0972 or email him at joe@tincan.org. Applications are due Monday, March 23, and there are only a limited number of openings left.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

Teens in three Spokane middle schools are creating video games in intensive after-school clubs. Funded by a small grant from the LEGO Foundation, the teens learn Multimedia Fusion2, a non-programmer game engine, and then create the games. Commenting on the program, Carlos Santalogo, Intervention Specialist at Sacajawea Middle School said “To see how excited they were and still are about going to the class, is wonderful. They are creating stories for the games, exchanging ideas, learning the technology and working towards the completion of a goal. The way that your team teaches allows students to try without the fear of failure and this frees them to enjoy the process, instead of worrying about making a mistake or for that fact, earning a grade. We have a diverse group of students, at different educational levels, but they are all engaged and enjoying the experience. This is a great way to get to students who don't normally join the traditional clubs, to participate with others who have similar interests."

TINCAN YOUTH MEDIA CONTINUES TO EXPAND

As the school year continues, Tincan’s Youth Media program has expanded into new venues. Students at Havermale High School have just finished their video “The Havermale Career Center” which will be featured on the schools JAG TV and also on Tincan’s website. Rogers High School students have completed a video on hearing loss and how headphone types affect it. They are now brainstorming their next video. A group of teens meeting in Tincan’s downtown office are developing a video on child abuse. And, after the huge success of the SubVERSive Poetry Program at Crosswalk this winter, Tincan will bring the Youth Media to Crosswalk to build on their interest in creating powerful documentary film.

As an integral part of our Youth Media program, SubVERSive engages groups of teens that have experienced prejudice and discrimination to produce a collaborative poem and a video about those experiences. The teens work with professional poets as well as learning the art of filmmaking, to produce their work. Crosswalk was the first group to participate this season, producing ‘Street Kids Lullaby’. Five other groups are either finishing up or scheduled to participate between now and May. The videos will be compiled and taken on the road to be shown at in different venues throughout the community. The SubVERSine program is funded by a grant from the Inland Northwest Community Foundation.

Another new activity for Tincan Youth Media is documenting Spokane’s Battle of the Bands (BOB). Teens from the Youth Media program will go to concerts and film bands, interview participants, and capture the process that makes this event an important piece of Spokane’s teen music scene. Teens 13-19 are invited to participate on this team. No experience is required. Training and equipment are provided at no charge to participating youth.

SCIENCE JOURNALISM KICKS OFF ACROSS THE STATE

Teachers from ten middle schools across Washington State kicked off the Science Reporters project in a four-day workshop in January by learning to be critical journalists and mastering video production basics. The teachers, who are from four schools in the Puget Sound area and six in Spokane, learned to take apart a science news story from Knight New Media Fellow Jessica Partnow, and about the impact of digital media on journalism from University of Idaho professor Rebecca Tallent. They immersed themselves in the mechanics of video production, from learning the parts of the camera to framing shots and developing interview questions. The teachers are applying their new skills in after-school Science Reporters Clubs for middle school girls. The clubs began in February, and by the end of the school year these young science reporters will have analyzed a news story about water resources, interviewed science professionals to get more accurate scientific information, and conducted science experiments to illustrate their research. Each club’s final product will be a more scientifically accurate video news story about the water resources they addressed that will be published online. The program is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s ITEST program.