EDUCATION (Tech App, STEM/STEAM, Knowledge Visualization, Fine Arts, Digital/New Media, Photography)

Sound Editing: The Production of Electronica Loops ELECTRONICA LOOPS (tomrchambers.com) Eighth grade students at Raul Yzaguirre School for Success, Houston, Texas were tasked to work with an existing piece of music [public domain (free), downloaded from the Internet] to create their own sound as "Electronica" loops. They honed their skills with Audacity, sound editing/mixing software as they became aware of this genre of music that artists/musicians are creating worldwide in academia and at the workplace. Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing. Genres such as techno, drum and bass, down tempo, and ambient are among those encompassed by the umbrella term, entering the American mainstream from "alternative" or "underground&quo

  Tom R. Chambers taught Technology Applications for  Raul Yzaguirre School For Success  [charter] in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. (2007-2013). He also taught and advised Digital Photography, Digital/New Media Art and Broadcasting. His students' projects and accomplishments over a six-year period follow: Mr. Chambers' Letter of Reference excerpts re: nomination for The Library of Congress Literacy Award/The David M. Rubenstein Prize (2013) Comment from Mr. Raul Yzaguirre, U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic about PANTHER NEWS and Mr. Chambers' teaching (2013) 2012-2013 : Facebook Search/Research - Immigration : Immigration is in the news as the American Congress deals with this issue in the context of an estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Seventh grade students were tasked to search/research Immigration via Facebook, and then copy/paste their findings along with their comments into Microsoft Word to create a report. The exercise was a &q

Tom R. Chambers gave a PowerPoint presentation at the ePals booth/TCEA 2013 convention (Austin, Texas) re: the NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission 2014/Space Weather Raul Yzaguirre School for Success/Dublin ISD Student Digital Art Workshop. http://tomrchambers.com/epals_tcea.mp4

"9/11 Tribute [10th Anniversary]" Seventh grade students used PowerPoint to create presentations to pay respect to those victims who died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The year 2011 marks the Tenth Anniversary of the tragic events, and several of the presentations were shown at a special ceremony in the Junior Academy, Raul Yzaguirre School for Success, September 9. The PowerPoint presentations are a selection from the 7th grade class. Most of the students were only two or three years old when these tragic events took place. The classroom exercise of searching/researching the 9/11 events, downloading pertinent visuals, and putting together slide shows in PowerPoint along with their writing was one of creating a greater awareness within these young minds/hearts of a monumental human tragedy in American history. Just as The Holocaust [and other human tragedies] should be remembered in a generational sense, so should 9/11. 9/11 Tribute Presentations - Tenth Ann

To know one's parents ... RYSS student parent interviews (tomrchambers.com) To know one's parents is an important aspect of everyone's life, and the teacher [Mr. Chambers] regrets that he never reached out to his mother and father to know what kind of individuals - human beings - they were. His parents passed away in the 1980s. All he knows is that they were "mother"/"father" figures, and he will never know their interests, desires, fears, beliefs, expectations, disappointments, accomplishments, likes/dislikes, hobbies, family relationships, friendships - and the list goes on. He mentioned to his enrichment class [sixth, seventh and eighth grade students] that he had a big "hole" in his heart because of not knowing who his parents were, and he didn't want them [students] to have the same regret. Mr. Chambers believes that this project - "To know one's parents ..." - moved the students towards seeing their parents in a differen

Panther News, 2012-2013 Students from grades 6-12, College Prep Academy, Raul Yzaguirre School for Success (Houston, Texas) participated as newscasters for "Panther News" . They broadcasted "live" via the Web 2.0 tool, USTREAM twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) from 8:05-8:10am (USA, CT). The premiere broadcast was on September 13, 2012. This process not only provided media literacy for the student team, but it is also enhanced their skills of collecting and assimilating information for public consumption, not to mention their skills of being able to articulate ("speak"). The fact that the student population was watching their peers "deliver the news" on a regular basis created an excitation/motivation factor of sorts. This "buzz" amongst the youth led to more "kinetic" involvement at RYSS. "Panther News" was a viable vehicle to nurture "school culture". Coverage [10-12-2012] of "Panther News" b