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It's hard to imagine an eight-month-old baby doing more than drooling and banging on an iPad, but The Early Learning Institute has discovered that kids this young can benefit from app-based therapies -- and so can their parents.
 
The Institute got a grant from the Verizon Foundation to buy 10 iPads to pilot a study of occupational, physical, speech and developmental therapies used with the 1,100 kids in their Early Intervention Program, which treats children experiencing developmental delays from birth to three in Allegheny and Washington counties. The idea is to help them achieve normal developmental milestones.
 
As a result, says Kara Rutowski, executive director of The Early Learning Institute, the kids have increased their vocabularies, learned to take turns, improved their balance, learned to make good decisions, increased their attention spans and expanded their abilities to express and understand language.
 
They've also to follow directions, match items, answer yes or no questions and identify family members, objects, colors and pictures. The eight-month-old is learning fine motor skills, to improve grasping and the use one finger at a time and other skills that will prepare this child to write, color, cut and perform other pre-school tasks.
 
The program uses mostly free apps so that each child's parents can use them at home to reinforce a kid's goals. Parents can also take their own smart phone or iPad in to the Institute between sessions to practice with the therapists. In addition, the Institute uses iPad learning for babies and toddlers in its socialization group, the Social Butterflies program.
 
"It's never too early to work on these skills," Rutowski says. "The beauty of it is, children are having fun. They don't realize they are working while they are using these things."
 
Do Good:
Searching for additional ways to help kids with special learning needs? Volunteer at the Children's Institute.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Kara Rutowski, The Early Learning Institute

Visual arts students in the Ellis School took home more than 10 percent of the recent regional Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards -- and art department Chair Sara Sturdevant is not surprised.

"We're lucky," she says. "The school was really supportive of the program. I feel like the school does a great job of treating the arts like a regular subject. The arts are integrated with the school. Kids are encouraged to take part in it, whether they are 'arty' or not. "
 
Ellis has 171 students in grades 7 through 12, who were eligible to enter the annual contest, and 60 submitted works, resulting in 100 awards. They submitted sketches and paintings, clay sculptures, digital and black and white photography and digital videos.
 
Scholastic received 2,000 entries from 952 students across the region, and awarded Silver and Gold Key Awards, honorable mentions and their American Visions Award, which goes to the best work in any single category or age group. One Ellis student, Sophia Sterling-Angus in grade 10, was nominated for one of only five American Visions honors for her short video. She was nominated for a work of art last year as well.
 
Of the 524 honorable mentions, Ellis students earned 41. Thirty-seven of the 376 Silver Keys went to Ellis, and 22 of the 242 Gold Keys. All Gold and Vision awardees will be competing in the national competition in New York City in March, and those winners will be displayed in a May show in that city.
 
"We're just a little school, so we're mighty proud of that," says Sturdevant.
 
These Ellis regional winners will be honored at a Feb. 24 ceremony and exhibition at LaRoche College:
 
Claire Akers, grade 10, Honorable Mention
Laila Al-Soulaiman, grade 12, 3 Honorable Mentions
Camille Allen, grade 11, Silver Key
Lauren Baker, grade 10, Honorable Mention
Emma Bisello, grade 7, 2 Honorable Mentions
Noori Chishti, grade 12, Honorable Mentions
Evie Clark, grade 11, Silver Key
Marie Concilus, grade 11, Silver Key
Eleni Contis, grade 11, 2 Silver Keys, 2 Honorable Mentions
Abby Cox, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Lucille Crelli, grade 12, 4 Silver Keys, Honorable Mention
Houston Curtis, grade 10, Gold Key
Karina Dandashi, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Nadia Dandashi, grade 8, Gold Key, Honorable Mention  
Julia DiPietro, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Lauren Drake, grade 9, Gold Key, Silver Key  
Ana Eberts, grade 9, Gold Key
Alainna Edwards, grade 12, Silver Key
Brittany Ellis, grade 10, 2 Gold Keys
Alexandra Foster, grade 10, Silver Key
Kate Foster, grade 8, Silver Key
Carley Fritsch, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Evely Geroulakos, grade 7, Honorable Mention
Annie Gordon, grade 10, 2 Silver Keys, Honorable Mention
Mackenzie Haney, grade 10, Silver Key
Heather Harrington, grade 10, 2 Gold Keys, 2 Silver Keys
Eliza Jimenez, grade 11, Silver Key
Madison Kalson Kalson, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Suzanne Kazar, grade 10, Gold Key
Breatrice King, grade 10, 2 Honorable Mentions
Shae LaPlace, grade 12, Silver Key
Talia Leshko, grade 9, Gold Key
Mary Lynch, grade 11, Silver Key, Honorable Mention
Carolyn Manuck, grade 11, 2 Gold Keys, Silver Key  
Maeve McAllister, grade 11, Silver Key
Zoe Merrell, grade 10, 2 Gold Keys, Silver Key  
Pallavi Muluk, grade 8, Silver Key
Sruthi Muluk, grade 10, Silver Key
Caroline Muse, grade 12, Gold Key, Silver Key  
Olivia Muse, grade 9, Silver Key
Emily Oblak, grade 12, Gold Key, 3 Silver Keys,  3 Honorable Mentions
Claire Priore, grade 10, Gold Key
Korryn Resetar, grade 10, Silver Key
Anna Elaine Rosengart, grade 8, Honorable Mention
Dayna Rouse, grade 9, Silver Key
Shauna Runco, grade 7, Honorable Mention
Lizzie Shackney, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Ashna Shome, grade 11, Gold Key, 2 Silver Keys
Andrea Stepney, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Sophia Sterling-Angus, grade 10, Gold Key, Silver Key , 2 Honorable Mentions, American Visions Nominee
Helena Sturdevant, grade 7, Honorable Mention
Sarah Thornton, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Olivia Turer, grade 11, Silver Key, Honorable Mention
Natalia Valdes, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Emily Walczak, grade 11, Honorable Mention
Jaisa Watkins, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Emily West, grade 10, Gold Key
Erin West, grade 12, Honorable Mention
Emily Wolfe, grade 9, Gold Key, Honorable Mention  
Yiqing Zhang, grade 10, Honorable Mention
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Sara Sturdevant, The Ellis School

Three teachers and the principal from Woodland Hills' Dickson Elementary have led their fourth graders to multi-year science score improvements on the state's standard test. As a result, they were invited to represent Pennsylvania this year as a Title 1 Distinguished School, one of two from the state sent to the Title 1 National Conference in Nashville, Jan. 21-24, out of 113 qualifying schools in the Commonwealth.
 
The improvements have been dramatic. In 2010, only 35 percent of the school's 4th-grade science students were proficient or advanced on the state's PSSA test. The next year, 58 percent achieved those levels, and by 2012 it was up to 87 percent, with no student rating below basic. The Title 1 Association recognizes overall growth in scores as well as schools that are closing the achievement gap.
 
The three teachers leading the effort are Lori McDowell, instructional coach, and two fourth-grade teachers, Mary Margaret Gleason and Laurie DelRosso, working under principal Allison Kline. On Jan. 28, they also attended the Title I Improving School Performance Convention at Station Square, presenting their methods for drastically improving scores.
 
"It wasn't a new curriculum," says Kline. "I gave the teachers collaboration time with the coach [and] everything was hands-on experiments. They used a lot of Bill Nye, the Science Guy videos. They made rhymes and songs, for instance, to learn the phases of the moon.
 
"And the other thing," she adds: "They used leveled readers. The kids all read about the same concepts but they got it at their reading levels."
 
Title 1 schools are those with a higher percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, which describes 83 percent of Dickson kids. In fact, Woodland Hills is a Title 1 District.
 
"There's a push district-wide for hands-on and more real-world performance tasks," she says. The improvements at Dickson under Kline also helped her students overall. "Their science scores went up, but they also had the highest increase in their reading scores too. So it trickled down to other subjects.
 
"I have a plan," she concludes. Her student will begin learning subjects relevant to the Common Core, to which state testing standards are shifting. "I've already added extra collaboration time to our fifth-grade reading teachers," she says.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Allison Kline, Dickson

Introduction: "There's such a range of how writers interpret the idea of diversity in their own lives," says Jim Daniels, Carnegie Mellon University English professor who oversees the Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Awards for high school and college students. "I thought we had a diverse group of winners."
 
Kidsburgh is pleased to print one of the winning essays here, a first-place high-school winner by Sarah Ryan called "My Soul and I."
 
"We're trying to extend the reach of the awards beyond Martin Luther King Day," Daniels says. The annual contest is also trying to reach more schools and more of the community with the winners' prose and poetry. Recently, two of the winning poems were used in the Emanuel Episcopal Church's Sunday evening jazz service themed on race and difference, held at their North Side facility. On July 11, Daniels is hoping that award winnings essays will be read at the Chautauqua Institute in New York.
 
"It is high-school kids wrestling with a subject our society still wrestles with every day," he says. However, he adds, "there've been more students writing about being gay or sexual differences and more students writing about being mixed race. A lot of times, they have the support of the kids' families in dealing with some of these issues, in taking a risk in writing about this delicate subject."
 
The collection of all current winners' work is online here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
 
 
'My Soul and I'
 
By Sarah Ryan
 
She looked at me and said, “You’re black.”
 
Then she turned to my soul and said, “You’re black.”
 
“Yeah, I know” I said.
 
My soul nodded, “yeah,” it said, “I know.”
 
My soul and I had stumbled over what to fill out on the application in the ethnicity category. There was no category for half black-half white. I didn’t want to be the pedantic kid who checked other, refusing to define herself as one ethnicity, righteously protesting categorization. Because I don’t care. I know I’m black; when you mix two colors together, the darker one wins out.
 
My soul, however, tried to mask its surprise. It didn’t know it was black. But why? It wasn’t that it thought it was white. It thought it was self. It thought it was special, different, unique, indefinable. Obviously not. It was black. How could it go this long without knowing?
 
I had grown up in a very diverse environment. Everyone had labels like, black, white, Hispanic, Indian or Asian. On our first day of school we had tags to tell people our names. My sticker said, “Hello, My name is Sarah.” My skin said, “Hello, I’m black.” We didn’t wear our name tags the second day and everyone forgot, but we kept our ethnicity on, so that no one would have to ask. I knew people saw that I was black and because of it, knew things about me. They knew my ancestors we slaves. They knew they struggled and fought for freedom. They also assumed things about me. At first, the assumptions could shove me down. I would trip, their words like gravel, tearing into my palms and knees and peeling my skin back until it began to sting and foam blood. Eventually I grew calluses, hardly feeling it at all.
 
My soul never grew calluses. It did not know that everything being said applied to it. Not that everything was offensive, but it meant that people would rather group all black souls together than get to know my soul personally. Up until now, my soul thought it was being judged on merit. My soul wondered why the application readers needed to know it at all. The application had sections for grades, extracurricular activities, recommendations, a personal statement, and finances, for aid, but what would race tell it? How do skin color and heritage weigh in to the decision? These were neither accomplished nor earned.

Marking down black on an application could be to my advantage when I apply to college. If there are two students with identical applications applying they will often go with the minority, or so I’m told. I do see that there is some unfairness to this, but when I apply to school I will do anything to make myself look better. If they pick me to boost their minority numbers, that’s fine. I can show schools my talents once I am already there.

My soul does not like to ask for help or to be given an unfair advantage. When its fortitude and determination pay off, my soul is reassured of its abilities and feels talented. Thinking that it did not earn all of its opportunities crushes it. Did people see its talent? Its hard work? All its life my soul had thought it was given opportunities because of its effort. My soul lost confidence.
 
I saw my soul on the ground nursing its skinned knee, sipping air, trying to keep composure. I helped it up. I told it that time heals all wounds; my soul just needed some time to adjust to its new label, to being defined. After all, my soul and I live in a very diverse and accepting community. On my dad’s side I have first cousins that are red haired Irish and others that are half Korean. We all look alike still with the same nose and face shape. We are family. In my life it is rare that my ethnicity is ever even discussed, except, of course, on applications. However, I am occasionally confronted by prejudiced people and remarks. When this happens, I use my thicker skin to protect myself. I’ve gotten strong. My soul would learn eventually, but right then, in that moment, my soul could only think about how it was not going to cry.
 
I checked the box labeled African-American nonetheless. I can’t protect my soul’s feelings forever. At some point it has to learn how the world works. My soul will have to grow calluses too.

The last Kids+Creativity network gathering was great enough to merit a highlight reel, put together by The Sprout Fund/Spark and available here.
 
This local movement is all about meeting and collaborating with innovators in learning and creativity. The next Kids+Creativity event, a "Primer" on Feb. 8 at Carnegie Mellon University is sold out.
 
However, as those in charge of the movement have written: "Whether you're a superintendent, principal, or teacher; a librarian, museum director, or exhibit designer; a roboticist, technologist, or gamer; an early learning educator, afterschool director, or summer learning teacher; or an artist, entrepreneur, or multimedia producer -- if you care about connecting with local kids and youth in ways that ignite their passion for learning -- you'll want to be there" -- at least for the next Kids+Creativity event.
 
In the meantime, you can connect with the network here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine

Hear Me, the CMU project that gathers kids' stories to get them public notice and prompt action on kids' issues, will debut new, more interactive public story kiosks in April, and until then will be gathering stories based on a single theme: school climate.
 
The idea to focus on school climate -- whether students feel safe and engaged in their classrooms -- was driven by community activist groups that have made the issue one of their emphases, says Project Manager Jessica Kaminsky. A new partnership with the Education Law Center will help Hear Me create an audience for student stories among policymakers and local, state and federal government officials.
 
The new kiosks, Kaminsky says, will be "a way to bring that theme out into the community and get people talking about what our students are talking about."
 
Hear Me has been using a can-on-a-string design for its public kiosks, which people can turn over to hear a story. Now they have partnered with local design studios Visionary Effects and Laser Lab Studios to take the can phones and build a more attractive kiosk around them. Illustrated with different cartoon kids, in bright colors, the kiosks also now feature slots that give out and re-collect index cards for listeners to jot down their own stories on school climate, after they've listened to the recorded stories.
 
Another part of the index cards will give listeners an idea for getting involved in the theme issue. If the theme were environment, then perhaps they would be notified of a debate about Marcellus Shale or a cleanup at a local park, says Ryan Hoffman, project coordinator. Hear Me will scan the stories listeners write on the cards and place them on Hear Me's website, Facebook page and Twitter feed.
 
The kiosks will also have a scannable QR Code for people seeking more information.
 
Hear Me will be soliciting school-climate stories from local schools and community groups from now through May. "It's something everyone should be interested in," says Kaminsky. "We are looking for any group of students who want to share their stories on school climate."
 
A few demonstration kiosks are available now at Biddle's Escape in Wilkinsburg, Espresso a Mano in Lawrenceville and Carnegie libraries, currently featuring non-school climate stories.
 
Hear Me is hoping people or groups will sponsor some of the kiosks that will appear in the future, at $100 a kiosk, which will give each sponsor the chance to pick stories to feature in their kiosk. The sponsor will also be recognized on the kiosk. The official launch party for the new kiosks will take place in April at Big Dog Coffee on the South Side.
 
Hoffman hopes some of the new school-climate stories will lead to public policy changes. Says Hoffman: "It's going to be a great way to start community dialog on issues kids are actually concerned about."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Ryan Hoffman, Jessica Kaminsky

At last year's international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition, one group of college students entered the contest with a bit of synthetic biology that broke down glutens into sugars in the stomach, potentially defeating their harm to the gluten-intolerant. Then the project came to the attention of a pharmaceutical company.
 
"They looked at the students' project and decided it was better than the product they had spent millions of dollars developing," reports Tom Richard; the students' project has since become part of the company's research protocol.
 
That's the great potential of these synthetic biology creations, says Richard, a Penn State professor of biological engineering who led a team, and helped organize, the eastern North American regionals of iGEM at Duquesne University on Oct. 13 and 14. Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pennsylvania and more than 35 other teams with 275 undergraduate students from Canada and the U.S. also competed.
 
Richard has seen undergraduate team projects with practical applications in medicine, nutrition, energy and the environment, plus games and puzzles. Biological mechanisms can map the most efficient route among stores for deliveries more easily than can computer programs. His PSU team developed a test device that signals whether the body's normal response to oxygen shortage -- creation of more lactic acid -- had started properly or not.
 
Ideally, more projects will turn into ideas businesses can use, he adds. iGEM has just started an entrepreneurial division to match venture capital with students' projects.
 
"The biology is something that has taken our civilization a long time to figure out," says Richard, "but once we figured it out, it's not so complicated." In fact, iGEM has also just begun a high-school division. About 40 high-school students from seven high schools in the Pittsburgh region and across the state attended the competition.
 
"Hopefully some of these schools will have teams competing next spring," he says. "It's a fantastic hands-on science and engineering project for high school students. Most high schools don't teach engineering. Engineering is about design and making things. We're really excited to be able to push science into high schools. We know that in our society, to be successful over the next 100 years, we have to create more people excited by science, technology, engineering and math subjects."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Tom Richard, international Genetically Engineered Machine Competition

A group of 36 Pittsburgh high school students underwent journalism boot camp training to better report on numerous stories from the four day One Young World summit. See the Pop City story about Pittsburgh Youth Media here.

See all their stories here.

"There's a lot of negativity displayed in the media toward the Hill District youth, and I wanted to give Hill District youth a chance to be better than the stereotype," says 17-year-old Dynae Shaw, leader of a group of 12 high-school students who together form the first Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI).
 
YPI participants, ages 13-18, come from the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation’s School 2 Career Program and are looking for young entrepreneurs to support in the Hill, Uptown and West Oakland. The group raised $614 this summer and program co-sponsor McAuley Ministries, part of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, matched it 5 to 1.
 
"When I found out about the money I was really excited," says Shaw, a Garfield resident and senior at Pittsburgh Obama, "because I really wanted to help the Hill District. Youth should be decision makers. We wanted to make sure it was for bettering the Hill District, so we want little projects that can turn into something big." She envisions youth with artistic talent teaching classes in inexpensive or donated spaces, "or a lawn business to make the Hill District look more appealing," she says.
 
Grants of $500 or $1,000 will be given to applicants, who must attend a two-hour workshop on Oct. 27, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Hill House Association. The workshop, run by Hill-based UrbanInnovation21, will help hopefuls devise their business plans and learn to run a thriving business. Applications will be due on Nov. 19 at 5 p.m. via the POISE Foundation.
 
YPI members spent the summer getting acquainted with the grant-making process and are learning now how to evaluate applicants' presentations.
 
"I hope that it will inspire other youth to stand up and follow their dreams," Shaw says about the YPI program. "This will give them not only the chance to do something they haven't been able to do without the money, but to tell them that people care about their community." Shaw hopes YPI will be done again in the future, and that perhaps it will expand to East Liberty and other neighborhoods.
 
"We're not looking at overnight change," she adds, "but we hope people will look at the businesses and say, 'I can do that.' We hope they will look for other grants or say they can volunteer in their community. We also hope to inspire other businesses and other foundations to give youth a chance."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Dynae Shaw, Youth Philanthropy Initiative

In honor of the United Nation's international Day of the Girl, the students of The Ellis School were asked, "What do you wish that adults would work for to make the world a better place for girls?"  See thee range of responses in this unscripted video then help share their message. What will you do to make the world a better place for girls and young women? 

Click here to view the video.

The Pittsburgh Promise has completed its fourth year of awarding scholarships to Pittsburgh Public high-school graduates with a clear sense of accomplishment and "a ton more to do," says Executive Director Saleem Ghubril.
 
PPS now has a completion rate of 71 percent, up from 63 percent in 2007 (the year before the Promise began). The immediate goal remains to graduate 85 percent, which would exceed the national rate of 70.5 percent, and Pennsylvania's 79 percent average -- although Ghubril cautions that high schools across the state are only now standardizing how they count graduation rates. Some previously weren't counting those who left in 9th, 10th or 11th grade, for instance, but only those who started and completed their senior years.
 
So far, 59 percent of the scholarships have gone to girls and 41 percent to boys, while whites have received 53 percent while blacks have received 41 percent, with the remainder going to others. The Promise announced an effort to further diversify the recipient pool by attracting more Latino families to a city notoriously low in diversity. Immigrant-focused VibrantPittsburgh is leading this effort, with the Allegheny Conference on Community Development promoting the local jobs picture and the Urban Redevelopment Authority offering a guide to local affordable housing. Another new initiative to promote the $40,000 Promise scholarship is adding informative placards to area homes' "For Sale" signs, cluing non-city residents in to the opportunity that comes with moving here.
 
The Promise also introduced its first class of Executive Scholarship recipients. These scholarships for the highest-achieving high-schoolers come with the sponsorship of local corporations and nonprofits, representing an effort to connect students with prominent local organizations to increase student access to jobs and community involvement.
 
The Promise also reported that it helped increase retention rates 9 to 18 percent in schools with Promise Scholars, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center.
 
Overall, the Promise, say Ghubril, is "bearing fruit [although] we were building the plane as we were flying it. I feel remarkably good about [being] four years into it. I can, with integrity, say we are fulfilling the Promise."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Saleem Ghubril, Pittsburgh Promise

The merchandise says it all. At the new Mad Science Supply & Surplus pop-up shop at Assemble in Garfield, you can buy make-your-own-monster kits, stuffed kittens with detachable heads (mix and match 'em!), Emergency Eureka, "I [brain] PGH" buttons, magnets, and t-shirts, Terror-ariums, Perpspectacles, Skulls N' At, Thought Bubbles, Robot Intestines and Nut Cases.
 
But the new shop is also part of a slightly more serious endeavor, The Literary Arts Boom (or The LAB), a pilot project created by Paula Levin for kids 6-18, which aims to show that writing is both a creative and a practical pursuit. All of its projects -- including the store -- combine fun and literacy training.
 
In November, for instance, 5th and 6th graders at the LAB will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, adapted as an after-school activity. "Next week we will be setting our word-count goals … and we'll have a celebration on Nov. 30," says Levin -- after which the kids' efforts will be published later as chapbooks. The LAB also recently started Tuesday drop-in homework help from 3 to 6 p.m.  -- snacks included -- that offers homework mentors and games. Its Thursday workshops are just concluding a series on comics. One week, the kids played Frieze, for which some of them struck a pose to be drawn, while others had to figure out a narrative that went with it. For Portrait, they drew people and their alter egos, signified by a change in facial expressions or props, then imagined in writing a meeting between the two.
 
The Mad Science store, Levin says, "is a really cool opportunity to enhance the space, draw people in and down the line have artists involved -- have them doing portraits and storefront [art] to display the quirky, mad scientist aspect of it."
 
MAYA Design created many pieces for the shop, and the grand opening was itself a typical LAB lesson, including letting kids "Einsteinify" themselves by making mustaches, eyebrows and safety goggles out of felt and paper. Levin hopes the store will be open once a week, maybe during Assembly's Saturday Crafternoons. It will definitely be accessible for the December and January Unblurreds, she says.
 
"Even when we're not open, folks can see it" when they're in Assemble, she notes -- and that's a good thing. It's all about "connecting people to the program who might not find out about the program."
 
Writer: Marty Levine

When Dawnell Davis-White was filming her one-minute video Future Newscaster as part of a Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (CMOP) video workshop this past summer, no one knew she would end up in the hospital that night. But it didn't stop her from completing her video.
 
Dawnell has sickle cell anemia, says JuWanda Thurmond, CMOP's youth program manager, and she shouldn't overheat. On one particular workshop day in July, says Thurmond, "she filmed all morning long -- we had a great day." But Dawnell hid from everyone that she had not been feeling well all day, Thurmond says. "She hadn't wanted to tell us -- she was having such a good time."
 
So Dawnell's videographer -- the kids worked in pairs -- went to the hospital to help her add audio. And now Dawnell's video is a finalist in the "oneminutesjr" video contest created by the One Minutes Foundation and UNICEF. Dawnell and her mother will be headed for Amsterdam for the Nov. 24 prize announcement, flying with funds CMOP secured in a grant.
 
Dawnell was one of 14 kids who attended the fourth annual summer video workshop at CMOP put on by two videographers from New York and two from Amsterdam, sponsored by UNICEF and One Minutes. It teaches the kids, from 13 to 17 years old, how to capture subjects and bring them to life, and how to add sound and special effects. Although One Minutes does such workshops all over the world, Pittsburgh and New York City are the only two U.S. locations. All the Pittsburgh videos can be seen on YouTube.
 
This year's theme was "Who am I?" which the kids story-boarded and then filmed. One acted as videographer and producer while another was the director for each video.
 
Concludes Thurmond: "We just feel that, because we deal with a lot of at-risk youth, there was an opportunity to do something different and something they might not do otherwise. It made for a rich experience."
 
Writer: Marty Levine

Teens are still getting used to what is available at TheLabs@CLP (digital media labs at four Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh branches), says Corey Wittig, the Labs' digital learning coordinator -- and that's understandable, he adds.
 
At the main library branch in Oakland, where the Labs opened at the end of September and maintain their most extensive hours, "I think there's a little bit of a warm-up period where we become familiar faces," he explains. "It's important for teens to get familiar with new staff."
 
That includes two new part-time mentors for the kids: Molly Dickerson, who has a background in photography and a University of Pittsburgh library degree, and Andre Costello, a local musician who studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
 
The other Labs are housed at the Allegheny, East Liberty and South Side branches. All offer computer equipment to help teens undertake filmmaking, photography, graphic design, music and animation projects. 
 
The Labs' October workshops focused on making videos, with a scary movie challenge for which teens wrote a scene and created trailers. In November, workshops will center on music and audio recording, including podcasts and other projects. December's "Holiday .Gif" theme will teach ways to create holiday-themed technology gifts -- including animated .gif files. January's theme is photography, while February will focus on graphic design and March on programming.
 
So far, the Lab in Oakland is the only one that also has open hours for any project a student cares to pursue. There, for instance, one group of teens spent October shooting a video of an X-Files-type thriller. Says Wittig: "Even in a workshop, depending on whoever stops by, it can take any number of turns."
 
Writer: Marty Levine