Summer Dreamers Academy

What a whirlwind camp has been! For our culminating event with our campers, we threw a CD release party. Everyone signed and stamped each other’s CDs and cases, and enjoyed some light refreshments too. While listening, one camper remarked how improved their pieces sounded by the end of camp. Here are their final projects – which demonstrate just how talented and thoughtful our kids are. We’ll miss you, Dreamers!

It’s hard to believe that camp will be over in a few days! Now that all the final projects are recorded, we went as a group into the studio to learn about audio editing. With everyone in the room, we discussed issues that concern our youth, such as cyberbullying and friendship. Tomorrow we will have our CD release party and everyone will get to hear the culmination of their work, from beginning to end.

Wow! What a whirlwind it’s been! Only four days left! After all their hard work and effort, everyone has started (and some finished) recording their final projects. We are so proud of the work everyone is producing! Their ideas are original, heartfelt, genuine and excellently performed! Being able to record each of the tracks separately in the studio has been a truly amazing experience. Everyone is putting their best foot forward and we cannot wait to hear the final results! Way to go, campers!

Today we continued working on our final projects. In groups, we spent time in our fully digital broadcast studio! It was a pleasure to have campers in the studio, where we learned about audio editing, sampling and multi tracking.

Today was the start of our final project! Our campers are very talented (although we already knew this). During these last sessions, each group will record in the studio and take away a CD with the end results!

Today we had our first “field trip” outside the museum to conduct interviews! We met with campers from Defenders of the Earth and Positive Spin to get thoughts on their experiences with Summer Dreamers.

Today was a great day of recording! The campers in our first block worked in small groups to prepare questions and delegate jobs for our cross-camp interviewing session. The campers in our second block recorded a piece about an achievement of theirs and/or a time they were hurt.

Today we prepared and conducted our first interviews! It was really exciting to watch our campers go off in pairs and use the recorders – without much guidance from us.

Our Summer Dreamers Radio Campers are sharing their talents as well as their experiences in the city-wide camp called the Summer Dreamers Academy, which is free for all PPS students K-8. Joining us, camper Gabby Johnson and her mom, along with Summer Dreamers Project Manager Eddie Wilson, discussing the 2011 Summer Dreamers Academy and the Pittsburgh Promise – a college scholarship opportunity made available to all PPS students.

We had a great time with our campers today. We were able to write about something that we’ve achieved, or about what it takes in general to achieve. We were awed and inspired by the things our campers have done! Our campers have so many achievements in academics and sports!