How do we help students tell the stories that matter to them? Where can that lead when we do?
What stories do your students want to tell? If we give students a chance for their stories to be heard, what does that look like and where might it lead? Join colleagues from public, private, and charter schools from across greater Milwaukee as well as some folks from outside of K-12 to explore these ideas and make the connections that can help bring student stories to life.
5:30 – 6:00 Grab something to eat and drink, say hello
6:00 – 6:30 Introductions
6:30- 8:30 Let’s explore some ideas
Food and beverage will be provided. There is no charge for participation but space is limited!
Karen Ambrosh — Teacher, Audubon Technology and Communication High School
Karen has been teaching English, Media, and Communication courses for 23 years in Milwaukee Public Schools. She is President of The National Telemedia Council and an editorial board member of The Journal of Media Literacy.
Adam is an independent based in Milwaukee, who works at the intersection of community and communication. Carr’s work ranges from writing to media, public art to in-depth tours.
He is the Deputy Editor at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and has been on staff since 2012. He was co-chair for the Coordinating Committee of March On Milwaukee 50th, which commemorated Milwaukee’s Open Housing Marches with a 200 Nights of Freedom in 2017-2018. In 2016, he authored the children’s book Explore MKE: Your Neighborhood, Our City, working with five 3rd grade classrooms throughout Milwaukee and SHARP Literacy. He has collaborated on neighborhood-based public art projects in Milwaukee, including Listening to Mitchell in 2014 with artist Sonja Thomsen and TypeFace in 2013 with artist Reginald Baylor. Carr has collaborated with filmmaker Wes Tank to produce two short films featured in the Milwaukee Film Festival and was the producer at 88Nine RadioMilwaukee from 2008-2011.
Emily Scheider Berens — Program Coordinator, UWM’s ArtsECO
Emily is a faculty member within the areas of First Year Program and Digital Studio Practice at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts; she also serves as a contributing faculty member within UWM’s Immersive Media Lab, and as Program Coordinator for Milwaukee Visionaries Project (MVP), an after-school filmmaking program for middle/high school students from throughout the City of Milwaukee.
Emily’s research focuses on designing accessible, digital literacy-driven programming. She has delivered community-focused workshops regionally and internationally, serving artists hailing from a diverse variety of backgrounds. Throughout these experiences, Emily looks to help artists discover new techniques for archiving inspiration, re-mixing found materials, and crafting rich narratives through digital storytelling.
Wendy Harrop — STEM/Library Integrator, Summit Elementary School (Oconomowoc)
Wendy runs the school’s makerspace and teaches STEM classes to all students K-4. This past spring she received a grant from the Oconomowoc Public Education Foundation to develop STEM and Storytelling programming at Summit. This programming involves two main components. The first is focusing on problem based design in the makerspace by integrating literature – identifying the problem in a story and using the design process to create a possible solution for the characters. The other component is using coding as a means to tell a story – using coding programs and/or robots, students are creating characters, plots and settings and then animating them through coding.
Dominic Inouye — Founder and Director, ZIP MKE
Dominic is a former teacher of 22 years at Marquette University, Pius XI High School, and The Prairie School in Racine. In October 2016 he founded ZIP MKE, which has collected over 2,000 photographs celebrating and connecting faces, places, and experiences from all 28 ZIP Codes in the city of Milwaukee. He is also the lead City Organizer for Jane’s Walk MKE, which celebrates the legacy of urbanist Jane Jacobs by organizing free, citizen-led neighborhood explorations and building community connections through observation and dialogue, education and storytelling, and collectively reimagining and changing the places in which Milwaukeeans live, work, and play. He writes a monthly column for Milwaukee Independent, telling the stories of change-makers throughout the city, and recently began work as an educational consultant at Vel R. Phillips School at the Juvenile Detention Center, where he is helping teachers collaborate with students on individualized, interdisciplinary research that will likely involve submitting podcasts to NPR. He is looking forward to learning from all of you.
Megan McGee — Co-founder and Executive Director, Ex Fabula
Ex Fabula is a nonprofit that strengthens community bonds through the art of true, personal storytelling. Since its grassroots inception in 2009, the org has engaged over 29000 teens and adults at 400+ workshops and StorySlams held all over the Milwaukee metro area. Especially powerful stories are shared with an even broader audience via Ex Fabula Radio on 89.7 WUWM, which attracts additional thousands of listeners each week.
Megan is bilingual and has an MA in Literature in Spanish; spending a year living in Mexico inspired countless stories. She also has a degree in Theatre, which she uses while writing, performing and directing in the all-female sketch comedy group broadminded. She leverages both scholarly research (neuroscience of storytelling; learning zone model of pedagogy; vulnerability) and feedback from community members in order to create live storytelling events that connect individuals, foster empathy, and amplify underrepresented voices and stories. In 2018, she received the Public Allies Changemaker Award for her efforts to build a more just and equitable society.
Dr. Cara Ogburn — Programming & Education Director, Milwaukee Film
Milwaukee Film hosts the Milwaukee Film Festival, a 15-day festival boasting annual attendance around 80,000 for over 300 films (shorts, features and VR shorts), and operates the historic Oriental Theatre year-round. While Cara’s role at Milwaukee Film has evolved to include more than just Education, those programs (serving young people in and out of school contexts as well as their educators) continue to be her happy place!