Schools

Todd Students Premiere "Our Year in Second Grade"

Second grade class helped create a film shown at Pleasantville's Jacob Burns Film Center.

Briarcliff Manor second graders from may be younger than your average Hollywood director, but that didn't stop them from taking a walk down the red carpet on Saturday.

The premiere of Our Year in Second Grade at Pleasantville's came after a yearlong effort by Dorene Tomaskovic's and Claudia Sullivan's classes.

"Mrs. Tomaskovic is participating in a groundbreaking, two-year professional development program at the Media Arts Lab called Teaching and Technology in the Digital Age (TTDA)," according to a press release from Jacob Burns Film Center. "This program is designed to inspire and teach K—12 educators to master 21st century literacy tools and then implement these tools with students at all literacy levels."

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Tomaskovic said her students were enthusiastic about the project and worked well together to bring the film to life.

"All students participated fully in the process of filmmaking," she said. "They were respectful of each other and thoroughly engaged in the curriculum through the use of digital technology as a means of self-expression."

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The TTDA program encourages creative use of technology in the classroom, and as a result, editing video clips proved to be easier for the students than editing their own stories.

"Reviewing and editing their video clips was effortless for them, compared to the task of revising and editing their written stories," Tomaskovic revealed. "The students embraced the subject matter in each experience and put forth their best effort with amazing results. That is their greatest reward."


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