Track Managers: 
Rob Williams  -- (rob.williams (at) madriver.com)
 Colin Rhinesmith -- (colin (at) acmeboston.com)

Check in 4 p.m.-9 p.m., Thurs., June 29 / 7 a.m.-8:30 a.m., Fri., June 30
Program ends noon, Sat., July 1

Readership and viewership of newspapers and broadcasting is slowly declining among U.S. teens and young adults. Students have a sense of powerlessness -- that even if the news affects them, there is little reason to read, watch or listen because they can't have an effect. Media executives, journalists, teachers and professors must join together to come up with new ways of telling important stories -- across multiple platforms, inside and outside of classrooms, in a manner that engages students and allows them to discover ways to improve and change their world rather than merely accept it.

Teachers, academic researchers, media-literacy proponents and should join us in this track. The hands-on workshops emphasize the "hows" and "whys" of connecting media literacy and education generally with the news production and multimedia distribution processes. When harnessed effectively, new media technologies - blogging, podcasting, e-TV, independent film, digital video production, web streaming and the like – offer students and citizens exciting new possibilities for affecting civic and community life. This track will tell stories of some projects that are working, and how you can adopt or support them in your school or media organization.

Click HERE to register online.

Preliminary program as of June 20, 2006 / subject to change

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Special Event –– THURSDAY AFTERNOON ONLY – OPEN TO ATTENDEES OF THE FRIDAY/SATURDAY “Educating  Smart Media Consumers” track. 

12:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.   Special registration: $40 for afternoon; no food; Filmmaking track only CC168-C

CITIZEN MEDIA FILMMAKING WORKSHOP & FESTIVAL CONVENERS: Aldon Hynes, Ned Lamont Senate Campaign; Steve Garfield, RocketBoom.com. As digital video cameras become more popular, as people start taking videos from their cellphones, and as new sites emerge online to distribute these videos, citizen filmmaking is taking off. Many people will be simply sharing home movies. Others, however, will want to create documentaries, political advertisements, and citizen journalism. The Workshop & Festival will celebrate noteworthy citizen filmmaking and provide workshops for those wishing to learn how to become more involved.

Friday, June 30, 2006

TRACK FOUR:   Educating Smart Media Consumers/Creators 

7:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.	Conference check-in, Campus Center Concourse level
7:00 a.m.-8 a.m.	Continental breakfast for summit participants  (Campus Center lower concourse)
8 a.m.- 9:15 a.m. GENERAL SESSION CC Reading Room	Report from Thursday’s summit:   “Setting the scene: What’s the future of the web and news?” CONVENERS:  Dale Peskin, The Media Center at API; Lee Rainie, the Pew Project on Internet & Society; Tom Rosenstiel, Project on Excellence in Journalism. A news-industry  futurist, , an Internet demographics researcher and a key observer and facilitator of online multimedia news trends forecast the next year and the next decades for the Fourth Estate. How should media executives, citizen journalists, political strategists / public officials, educators and technologist prepare and collaborate?
9:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m.	Media Café break
9:30 a.m..-10:45 a.m. Media Café TRACK FOUR	Education – Media Café Collaboration – Informal convening with Rob Williams and Colin Rhinesmith of Media Educators to discuss their goals, curriculum and projects.
10:45 a.m.-11:00 a.m.	Media Café break
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. TRACK FOUR CC162-175	Education:  “Building Bridges with Blogging  — a Case Study” CONVENERS: Catherine Moore, Rob Williams and the M.E.D.I.A. team of 20 high school students from Vermont and Jordan. Bringing together high-school students from Vermont and the Middle East, three nonprofits — Project Harmony, the Action Coalition for Media Education, and Champlain College — are pioneering an effort at teaching media education, digital video production, and cross-cultural youth leadership skills. Hear from their students about what they’re learning through this “media education.”
Noon-1:15 p.m. CC 165-169	SPECIAL EVENT – “Is it time to build the New England Common?” CONVENER: Christopher Lydon, Open Source Radio. Does New England need a virtual meeting place for discussion and action on politics, culture, environment and living?  Could the Massachusetts governor’s race be a catalyst to establish one? An idea session. More info: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Newengland
12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m.	Media Café break
12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Campus  Center Auditorium	Buffet lunch (CC Auditorium or Campus Center Ballroom)  “Is Media Performance Democracy’s Critical Issue?” SPEAKER: Tom Stites, Center for Public Integrity;  INTRODUCED BY: Chris Peck, Memphis Commercial Appeal. Thirty years ago, if your policy message was on the three networks, The New York Times or the Washington Post, it spread quickly across America. We are now in an era of micr0-media – blogs, email, dozens of networks and cable channels, multimedia chaos and creativity.  Political strategists who disagree on issues often agree that media structure and performance is now their No. 2 issue.  Has the state of our media become the most important threat to participatory democracy? Why?
2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. TRACK FOUR CC162-175	Education –  “Creating Digital Video For Classrooms –  a Case Study” WORKSHOP PRESENTER:  James Valastro, MemeFILMS, Vermont (www.memefilms.org). Fusing  media education and digital video production in the K-12 classroom, MemeFILMS has been working with Vermont schools for three years. Explore how to make mini-DV media and public health/news stories with K-12 students in this exciting hands-on workshop.
3:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m.	Media Café and free ice cream social, courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc.
4:15 p.m.-5:30 p.m. TRACK FOUR CC162-175	Education – “Morphing from Music: iPods enter the Classroom” CONVENER: Colin Rhinesmith, Action Coalition for Media Education, Boston chapter (www.acmeboston.org); Mark Frydenberg and Elizabeth Ledoux, Bentley College.  The how's and why's of sending downloadable audio files over the Internet -- how is this being adopted by educators?  How can a Internet news operation serve the need for classroom-ready podcasting material?
5:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m.	Media Café  -- networking / discussion
5:45 p.m.-6:30 p.m.	Campus Center Reading Room – reception and hor d’oeuvres for all attendees. (Spill out into CC Concourse)
6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. DINNER   7::30 p.m.-8:15 p.m. SPEECH       8:15 p.m.-9:30 p.m. DISCUSSION	Dinner and discussion, CC Auditorium,  Campus Center        SPEAKER: Dr. Rob Williams, president, Action Coalition for Media Education; professor, Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont:  “Why Doesn’t Johnny Care? How Media Can Bring Young Adults Back Into The Public Sphere?”   Young adults have abandoned the news as presented in traditional forms. Newspaper and TV users are aging. But they are heavy media consumers.  What will put public affairs back into their diet? And why does it matter?  DISCUSSANTS: Andrea Frantz, Wilkes University; Melissa Krodman, Project Think Different; Mark Lopez, CIRCLE .
9:30 p.m.-11:00 p.m. Campus Center  CC Auditorium	Media Café Extra: “War Stories – Avoiding Other’s Mistakes” An informal session for all participants able to share “war stories” from the trenches of citizen journalism. What has been your worst experience? Share your nightmares and tales of woe over beer, wine or whatever.

Saturday, July 1, 2006 

7:30  a.m.-8:30 a.m.	Continental breakfast for summit participants ( Campus Center Lower Level Concourse)
8:30 a.m.-9:45 a.m. TRACK FOUR CC162-175	Education:  “Streaming Source Material:  Lectures On Demand?” CONVENER: Donna M. Liu, University Channel, Princeton University. The combination of ubiquitous high-speed connections in schools and archives of streaming and downloadable video/audio lectures and news add new options for classroom curriculum.  Who’s innovating? A survey and demonstrations.
10:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m. (same rooms as earlier sessions)	Media Café collaboration and Track meet-ups for “next step” ideas:   Topic ideas:   POLITICS:  Pitching the big tent TECHNOLOGY:  Making adoption easy CITIZEN MEDIA:  Inviting participation EDUCATION:  Making media cool
11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m. CLOSING SESSION AND BOX LUNCHES  CC Room 101	“What Did We Learn/What’s Next” -- Reports from track managers or designees “Speak to the Group” – Moderated  open microphone session   Closing Talk: “Keeping Participatory Democracy Alive: Talking Across The Divides Of Media, Politics, Education And Technology.” CONVENERS: Norman Sims, UMass Amherst and  principal investigator, Media Giraffe Project;  Bill Densmore, director/editor.
12:45 p.m.	Conference Ends
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Independent meet-ups and outdoor bootcamps	POST-CONFERENCE MEET-UPS:   Independent groups with membership at the conference hold planning or strategy sessions in rooms provided at no additional charge by the Media Giraffe Project and UMass Amherst.   MUSEUMS 10 – at WikiPedia  /   ACTIVITIES/TRIPS:  (LINK: Amherst area)   INDIVIDUAL LINKS:   Hiking: Mount Toby, the Norwottuck Trail Rafting on the Deerfield River (Charlemont, Mass.) Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book  Art  (Amherst, Mass.) Historic Deerfield or Yankee Candle (South Deerfield, Mass.) Amherst College Mead Art Museum (Amherst) Amherst College Museum of Natural History Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton) National Yiddish Book Center (South Amherst) Emily Dickens House Museum (Amherst) Official NBA Basketball Hall of Fame (Springfield, Mass.) Mass. Museum of Contemporary Art (North Adams, Mass.)
Saturday evening	Events in the Five College Area: Tanglewood (BSO-Lenox, Mass. –Garrison Keillor / Prairie Home Companion Live, 5:45 p.m., Sat., July 1)