Adrienne-Reflecting on the Process

                My experience with What’s the Story has been vastly different from my typical classroom experience.  In the classroom, students are passive and have no need for personal drive. With this project, initiative is the key; without personal interest, nothing in one’s project is accomplished.

This course is better than traditional learning in some ways. It allows students to pursue their own interests and create their own persuasive pieces in the form of videos. Students can work independently and then come together to combine their work into cohesive, well-rounded pieces, allowing both individual work and group collaboration. Work schedules are entirely up to the individual, which helps to teach self-discipline and focus.

In contrast with these positive aspects, some students may struggle with the skills so much that their project is not up to their personal standards. While this is not a problem for me, I once forgot about a blog post until Sunday evening, when it required me to converse with a few people and combine those conversations and analyze them. Because of this, I spent the next week preparing for both the late post and the one for the following weekend. This self-directed component, while appealing, has shown to lead to forgetfulness on my part. Those who have trouble with shyness and professionalism may have difficulty conducting interviews or even arranging them. The practice this project provides on that front may help reduce those issues, though. I know that I am often shy, and I was concerned about that aspect of the project from the very beginning.  However, the two interviews I’ve conducted so far have proven that worry mostly unfounded; I feel relatively confident that the interviews went well.

Through this project, I’ve learned that I’m able to take initiative and arrange interviews. However, since this project is only half-done I know I still have plenty to learn about myself.  I’ll try going into further interviews with a bit more confidence. Thankfully I’ve become more adept at remembering my blog deadlines, so I don’t think that that’s a problem I need to be overly concerned about. But I remember during the meet-up in Starksboro I had trouble being patient with the unexpected collaboration. Whether my impatience was due to fatigue or my introverted nature, I know I need to be more patient in next month’s meet-up.

Continuing through this project, I plan to conduct more interviews. In the following meet-ups, I’ll need to be more relaxed and patient with my group members. Other than that issue, I think the remainder of my project will be successful. I’m looking forward to the next meet-up and seeing what my other group members have accomplished!

Marianna-Reflection on the learning process

    This course is very different from any of the other ones that I have taken, either online, self taught or at the high school, I have always had someone there to check in more regularly than this class can provide.  Even with people watching over my shoulder, I have become a very independent learner, so the larger teamwork aspect of this class, while something that I do have some experience with, took some getting used to.  I think that this is very good for me, I have advanced in many skills that might not have been my strongest points.  One of the biggest differences is the notifications just a few days before the assignments are due.  This has made it difficult for me to get them done on time, but I think that I have coped fairly well.
    I think that some of the benefits of this kind of course are getting to learn how to work with a group that does not see each other very regularly. Also working with the deadlines and working out your own interviews and meeting times can be great practice for the real world. You just don't get that kind of experience in regular school. The drawbacks for me are not being able to have regular updates on my progress and grades.  This usually helps me to know when I need to step up my work, and with this class I do not have that ability.
    I already had an idea of how my learning style works.  However this class has solidified that my brain needs to see and hear things in order to remember them.  Another thing that was brought more into the light was that without lists and deadlines I get so off track that it gets very difficult to catch up with my school work or personal life.
    I think that I will apply what I have learned about myself and learning in the form of lists and post-it notes.  In order to stay with the class for the rest of the time,  I will really have to apply myself and start making more deadlines.  I will also have to put myself out there in my group more.  
    In order to keep on track with the rest of the class I will have to continue to make lists of what needs to happen, and I will try my hardest to add the deadline component to my work.  Among the different things that I will have to do differently, I will have to try and stay in contact with the other people in my group more efficiently than I have been.

Lydia Charbonneau- Reflection on Learning Process

Hello to my lovely blog readers! I'm surely enjoying this holiday break, what about you guys? 

I really enjoy this type of learning. In my school we are forced to do what the teachers have assigned, whether we like it or not. But in What’s the Story? there's a little more freedom. And I think that's where kids would benefit from. At my school kids have little freedom. That's what makes it so hard to learn. Especially if a kid doesn't enjoy the subject being forced upon them. Kids learn different ways. There is no “normal” way of understanding, they all are different. I know this because for me certain subjects are harder than others for me to grasp. Like math for an instance. But that's why I like this way of teaching better. The teachers and helpers at What's the Story really want to help you and take your time understanding. At my school it's a little harder with 24 kids each period, twice a day. And that's another benefit. Since there aren't a lot of students in What's the Story, all individuals can receive the time and help that they need in order to understand better. For example in the beginning Lauren, Colleen, Bob, and just about everyone wanted to help me understand better since I was the youngest. And that really helped me a lot because I didn't feel excluded from the older kids. So thank you all for doing that for me. ❤️  But believe it or not, there are some drawbacks that could occur with this type of learning. When kids are given too much freedom they might abuse it. And this could very well happen in What's the Story. For example, we have two weeks to complete a blog post, that's a lot of time to write 400-500 words. And that leaves a lot of open room for errors. But at my school we have a given date. No what if’s, ands, or buts about it. Honestly, that's really the only drawback I can think about. 

I have grown a lot with What's the Story.  And I'm not just talking about height (because I haven't grown at all) I'm talking about writing. Ever since I began What's the Story I have seen writing and everything in a different sense. For example, when we get the constructive criticism after writing these posts, I don't only try to apply them to just next week's post, I try to apply it to my school work. And this experience has helped discover who I really am as a learner. I am someone who has different strengths and weaknesses. Writing I like to think is a strength (I could be wrong) and math is a weakness. But I am also someone who likes to go fast. I don't enjoy reading directions. And when I go fast I don't always really grasp what I need to grasp, and this is why I have trouble understanding things. That's who I am as a learner. And with knowing these things about myself as a learner, I want to try to really slow down and take my time when I'm reading something or writing. I think that I will not only use these things that I have learned about myself as a learner, in the rest of this course but I will also use it in the classroom. 

I really want to succeed. Not just because everyone says I need to but because I want to. I want to get into a good college. I want to get a good job. I want a successful life. And in order to do so I need to change do things and continue to do some things. I am really going to try harder to slow down and take my time. Not just rush through everything. I also am going to try to really pay attention. Sometimes when someone is talking about something that might not be really interesting to me, I will just space out and think about something else. But I am going to really try hard to not do that. But on a positive note, I think that there are some things that I do well that I need to just continue doing. For one, I am good at just talking. And I do it a lot. That's what makes it easier for me to have a casual and informal conversation on and off the paper. Not to toot my own horn, but I think also am very good at just answering questions. For some people it's hard to really understand the question and develop an answer to it. But for me it's really easy and I can answer in all sorts of ways. I can answer in a one page essay or one sentence. And I think that if I change those few things and continue with those few things, I will become extremely better! 

Have a great rest of you're break guys! And Happy New Year!!!!!!

Post 12-13-15

While reading Michael Moore’s 13 rules for making documentary films I learned a lot.I will use all of this while creating my movie but I want to take this time to share only some. I found the most important one to me was to make it funny. I can relate to this because I know that I personally like my funnier teachers better than serious ones. When they add a joke or a hint of sarcasm here and there I automatically like the class and the teacher better. But it’s important to know what sort of things you can’t make funny. You can’t be talking about rape or murder and make a stupid Jeffrey Dahmer joke, it’s just not right. There are also things you can make funny, like the 2016 presidential race. There’s Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton. What's not funny about that? Another tip I found to be really important is that short is better. People don’t want to be listening/watching something for 8 hours.(unless it’s Star Wars) Try to pack all of your information in a small time slot. You don’t want to bore your audience by having them watch for a long time. You know that saying “short is sweet but long isn't a treat”. Next tip that I found to be important is show why people aren’t talking about the subject. Why it’s not in the media, why it’s not being talked about. I didn’t really think about this tip until I really realized what it was saying. It is basically saying “why are people afraid to bring it up”. And as I get older I start to realize that there is a lot of things out there that people neglect to talk about. They keep it a secret or leave out the details. And your viewers want to know why. In social media all you hear about is celebrities and other public features. No one talks about things that might be important to your audience. It’s like when there’s a car accident the news they don't give every detail. Final tip that I thought was really important was exactly what I have been doing this whole blog post. Make it personal. Don’t make it all about you but tie some stuff back to yourself. This way the audience will try to relate to your topic. The more the audience can relate, the more they understand and enjoy the film. I really enjoyed reading this article. I learned a lot from it.

Moore, Michael. "Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films." Indiewire. Michael Moore, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

I think that there could be a few different messages for our story but I think that only one really makes sense and stands out. I think that the message/ story of the DCF project would be that it’s an actual problem. And make people aware of these problems within the foster care system. On our last visit Alex brought up a good point while checking out the Vermont DCF website. Alex noticed and brought up that there may be a reason why there was no place to give or get contact information. I found that to be interesting and weird at the same time. We all came to the conclusion of “maybe they don’t want us knowing or contacting them”. And that made me think that maybe they are hiding something. Maybe they aren’t giving us all the details. Another reason why I think we should have our message be that it’s an actual problem is because people don’t talk about it nor know about it. I started to talk to my friends and some high school friends and they had no idea about the DCF system and that there was a problem. Clearly teens and kids don’t even know what DCF is and that there is even a problem. Last reason why I think our message/story should be that it’s an actual problem is because if people don’t know or believe that it’s a problem then there is no way to solve it. You can’t solve something without help. And if people don’t know its a problem then they aren’t going to help. That’s why I think our message/story should be that it is an actual problem.

Alex-Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

This speaks to the quality of the teaching we have had here in this program, but in watching Vimeo's “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview,” in realized that we had already learned everything they were saying! The only real piece I got out of that video was that it is a good idea to "ask your subject if there is anything they would like to add" at the end of the interview. This makes a ton of sense to me, as the interviewee will at this point know what types of information you are angling for and will doubtlessly have a few pieces of information that you had no idea ever existed and that would be valuable towards your project. I found Michael Moore's article  well... a bit crass but nevertheless extremely informative. One of the most intriguing and helpful pieces in his article was how to use your viewers emotion to your advantage. Emotions play a huge role in your documentary, in his words, “They don't care whether you make them cry, whether you make them laugh, whether you even challenge them to think -- but damn it, they don't want to be lectured, they don't want to see our invisible wagging finger popping out of the screen. They want to be entertained.” You could be making groundbreaking revelations, but if they come through dry as bones they will never matter to the audience. Emotions directly correlate to memory, that's reason you can always remember those embarrassing moments, those explosive fights, those moments of hilarity, it’s because emotion will always have a place in your long term memory. With thin knowledge in hand you can create a story that encapture the viewers. While Michael Emphasizes the value of laughter, it is not appropriate for this subject, but another emotion he mentioned is, anger. Anger is never forgotten, anger spurs action. “Depressed is a passive emotion. Anger is active. Anger will mean that maybe 5 percent, 10 percent of that audience will get up and say, "I gotta do something. I'm going to tell others about this. I'm going to go look up more about this on the Internet. I'm gonna join a group and fight this!" This subject is perfect to trigger anger in others, humans are hardwired to care about the young and so to hear the shocking issues plaguing the children in our story will bring up the anger and therefore cause others to take action. As a parting thought, “take the audience someplace they haven't been. Show them something they've never seen.” This issue is mentioned again and again on the radio and TV, but you know what? they are beating the same ideas to death, if we bring new and unheard information to the eyes of the viewers, we will be able to truly capture their attention.

With my interests spanning the entirety of this subject, I am open to looking into any/all of the stories, but seeing as two on my compatriots are angling towards the stories of the foster families and the children in the system, I would like to look more at the system itself, how it functions, and the stories of the caseworkers. As Adrienne said in her recent blog post,  “At one point, Vermont’s legislature voted to cut the budget of the DCF, which forced them to cut down their staff. This included social workers, so the cases of those who left the Department were distributed to other social workers. Outside of the DCF, Vermont’s opiate crisis was boosting the number of children removed from their parent’s custody. This put strain on the social workers, who already had too many caseloads.” It is things like this I would like to focus on, the dangers of the job, the stress and the fear for safety. With this in mind, I am very interested to hear the answers Adrienne gets from her interview with St. Albans DCF Director. We all have been contributing potential interview questions on a group email so that everything we want answers on is asked in this interview, and I cannot wait to we the responses.

Moore, Michael. "Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films." Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films. Indiewire, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Hayek, Daniel. "10 Steps to Shooting Your First DIY Interview." Vimeo. Vimeo, 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. <https://vimeo.com/64729691>.

Marianna-Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

         For this weeks post, I watched most of the footage that was provided for us, as well as read the other articles.  My favorite one was “Michael Moore’s 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films.” .  It highlighted a lot of things that I had not really thought about before.  Not having watched a lot of documentarys, it was very interesting to learn about what he thought about how they should be made.  After reading this article I watched the “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview."What really made this great for me is that I could see quite a few of the points that Michael Moore brought up in his article in this short little instruction video.
       In this paragraph I will review  “Michael Moore’s 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films.”   This article was my personal favorite to read.
        One of the things that he talked about that I found most interesting was the use of humor in documentarys.  This was never something that I had ever considered; when I thought of documentarys I thought of a long, boring lecture, there was never any humor involved in these films.
       Thinking back on the videos that were provided, humor played a huge role in these.  Without it, they would have been dull and I would most likely not be writing about them.  And I do understand that sometimes there needs to be a more serious aspect to these topics, it is wonderful to have a laugh at them sometimes.
                         “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview” Vimeo Video School.
                                      “Video 101: Shooting Basics” Vimeo Video School.
                     “Michael Moore’s 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films.” Indiewire.com.

         The story that I would like to pursue more is foster parents and foster kids experiences with the foster system.  So far I have only interviewed two people with very different perspectives on this topic.  The first person I had an interview with had experience with the system that she described as not very positive.  However, she was an older lady, and was telling me about experiences that happened up to 40 years ago.  The other lady that I spoke with is a very recent foster and adoptive parent and she says that she has had nothing but positive experiences with them.  Now, these two could not currently have any more different stories.  However, I would like to see a pattern emerge within the story that we are going to be telling about how the foster system has evolved over the years and how it has advanced to what it is today.  I also hope to talk to some social workers who might be able to tell me about what they would still like to see changed with how the process works.
         While this is a side of the story that I would like to do more with, there are many other different paths that this could take that would be fasinating to go down.

Adrienne-Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

                Regarding Boyechko’s advice on shooting B-roll footage, I found some of it difficult to understand due to lingo. Phrases like “slider shots,” “monopod,” and “white balance” make very little sense to me. Despite this, the article gave me ideas for potential B-roll shots like entrances, buildings, and interviewee’s arrivals. I’m not sure if I should try to get any footage during my interview on Monday because I’ll only have my shoddy iPod camera, but I might make a few attempts.

                I found Michael Moore’s tenets for documentaries to be interesting, especially his advice to use humor. I don’t think I’ll be able to incorporate humor into the project, but I think a more light-hearted tone would come across better. I also found his advice on audience reaction to be particularly poignant: “Depressed is a passive emotion. Anger is active. Anger will mean that maybe 5 percent, 10 percent of that audience will get up and say, "I gotta do something. I'm going to tell others about this. I'm going to go look up more about this on the Internet. I'm gonna join a group and fight this!" To evoke this sort of reaction, I’ll need to present my audience with evidence that change is needed, preferably emotionally-charged evidence, and then a set of individually feasible solutions. I will need to give my audience their own way to “do something.” Moore also warns against assuming your audience is completely ignorant about your topic. This would be particularly obnoxious for me to do, because I only discovered the issue of the DCF through my local news. It’s guaranteed that many others saw the same broadcast or a similar one. While of course it’s important to introduce the topic with clarity, I’ll need to avoid being heavy-handed with my explanations.

Boyechko, Slavik. "How To Shoot B-Roll." Transom. Transom, 29 Jan. 2014. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Moore, Michael. "Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films." Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films. Indiewire, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

                There are a few stories I’d like to tell and learn about: I’d like to tell the story of what life can be like in foster care, good and bad, the story of how adopting a child from foster care has affected the lives of parents, and how the DCF has found itself in this crisis. My first interview with my Human Services teacher revealed to me a lot about the DCF’s  recent history. Unfortunately I don’t have my notes from that discussion on hand, but I’ll do my best to recount what I know.

                At one point, Vermont’s legislature voted to cut the budget of the DCF, which forced them to cut down their staff. This included social workers, so the cases of those who left the Department were distributed to other social workers. Outside of the DCF, Vermont’s opiate crisis was boosting the number of children removed from their parent’s custody. This put strain on the social workers, who already had too many caseloads.  

Alex’s blog post from October 11^th cites that the Office of the Child Advocate has conducted research that shows “more than two-thirds of social workers said their job had caused them emotional or mental instability…” It’s clear that social workers operating under such stress cannot do their job as well as they could. To ensure the well-being of Vermont’s children, the conditions under which Vermont’s social workers do their job must change.

Bickart, Alex. "Whats The Story? The Vermont Young People Social Action Team-Alex Bickart." Whats The Story? The Vermont Young People Social Action Team-Alex Bickart. Alex Bickart, 11 Oct. 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Wiggin, Sal. Personal interview. 8 Oct. 2015.