This collection of videos spans nearly a decade and includes content created for the Charles Butt Foundation (ie. Charles Butt Scholarship for Inspiring Teachers, Raising Blended Learners, Raising School Leaders, and CBF Connect), Raise Your Hand Texas, Texas Center for Blended Learning, and the Teachers Can statewide initiative. The videos are broken up by categories to help communicate the intended purpose for each video and outline my specific contributions.
Project #1: The Power of Blended Learning
Category: Animated, Educational | Raising Blended Learners
Purpose: The Raising Blended Learners initiative aimed to demonstrate the exponential power of blended learning to facilitate and scale student-centered learning. Explore how school districts in Texas are already using the power of blended learning to personalize instruction for all students.
Contributions: Storyboard, creative direction, illustration, audio recording, and animation
Tools: Adobe After Effects, Premiere, Audition, Illustrator
Project #2: How Public Schools in Texas are Funded
Category: Animated, Educational, Policy, Advocacy | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: In Texas’ complex school funding system, when local property values go up and tax collections increase, local schools do not receive more funding. Instead, the state contributes less money, even though more state funds were originally budgeted and intended for public education.
Contributions: Storyboard, creative direction, illustration, audio recording, and animation
Tools: Adobe After Effects, Premiere, Audition, Illustrator
Project #3: Tax Credit "Scholarship" is Not Philanthropy
Category: Animated, Educational, Policy, Advocacy | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: The use of tax credits to reimburse donations for private school tuition is a shell game. It is intentionally designed to mislead the public by making a government subsidy for private schools funded through a corporate tax break look like philanthropy. Just like in three-card monte, this shell game is rigged through gimmicks and misdirection to ensure private schools and insurance companies win. Taxpayers are set up as the mark to foot the bill.
Contributions: Storyboard, creative direction, illustration, audio recording, and animation
Tools: Adobe After Effects, Audition, Illustrator
Project #4: Texans For All
Category: Empowering, Inspirational | Raising School Leaders
Purpose: “Texans For All” was the theme for the Raise Your Hand Texas Leadership Symposium in 2020. The video description reads as follows, "What makes public education special? We. Are. For. All. All students. All teachers. All families. All communities. We are Texans for all futures. Because the future of Texas is in our public schools."
Contributions: Storyboarding, script writing, videography, audio, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Audition, Illustrator
Project #5: They say those who can’t, teach.
Category: PSA, Empowering, Inspirational | Teachers Can
Purpose: #TeachersCan is a statewide initiative supported by more than 150 business, community, association and university partners, all committed to elevating the teaching profession and honoring the critical role teachers play in the success of Texas. Their jobs are getting harder. More teachers are considering leaving the profession. They aren’t being rewarded and respected to the levels they should. Something needs to change. That’s why #TeachersCan was formed.
Contributions: Photography, creative direction, script editor, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, Audition, LeiaPix
Project #6: Conversation with Dr. Ruth Simmons (TxEd Talks)
Category: Inspirational | Charles Butt Foundation (TxEd Talks)
Purpose: The first installment of our TxEd Talks digital series featuring Charles Butt President, Dr. Shari Albright, and Dr. Ruth Simmons, President Emerita of Prairie View A&M University, Smith College, and Brown University. The two discuss Dr. Simmons’ journey to her current position, the current state of public education in Texas, and how educators deserve more respect.
Contributions: Videography and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition
Project #7: Charles Butt Scholar Recruitment Video
Category: Promotional | Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers
Purpose: The Texas teaching profession is at a crossroads. While the quality of preparation varies in Texas, an emerging body of research indicates the type of training and support teachers need to succeed. We can and must do a better job of recruiting, developing, and retaining great teachers. The future of Texas depends on it. That is why The Raise Your Hand Texas® Foundation (now the Charles Butt Foundation) launched Raising Texas Teachers, which includes The Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, partnerships with Texas universities to improve teacher preparation, and a statewide campaign to enhance the status of the teaching profession.
Contributions: Storyboarding, videography, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Audition, Illustrator
Project #8: The Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers
Category: Promotional, Inspirational | Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers
Purpose: The Charles Butt Scholarship selects talented and diverse aspiring teachers who demonstrate leadership potential, and ensures they are supported financially and professionally throughout their journey to becoming a teacher.
Contributions: Videography, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition
Project #9: What is Blended Learning?
Category: Promotional, Educational | Texas Center for Blended Learning
Purpose: Blended learning has become common in K-12 education, but what does the term actually mean? And what do these teaching and learning strategies look like in best practice? At its core, blended learning combines the best of in-person teaching with online technology to personalize instruction. It is a practice designed to address individual student needs by providing each child access to rigorous grade-level content while also addressing gaps in prior learning. In other words, personalized practice to mastery. But it's so much more than that. Watch now to better understand the components of a strong blended and personalized learning framework.
Contributions: Storyboarding, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Audition, and Illustrator
Project #10: Welcome to CBF Connect
Category: Networking, Informational, Promotional | Charles Butt Foundation (CBF Connect)
Purpose: The purpose of CBF Connect is to create a strong, connected community of educators across Texas who are united in their efforts to serve all students, to learn and improve together, and to collectively advance the perception of public schools. Members must be a part of the Charles Butt Foundation alumni network in order to participate.
Contributions: Storyboarding, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Audition, and Illustrator
Project #11: The Power of Pre-K Day at the Capitol (Stop the Yo-Yo)
Category: Grassroots, Advocacy, Policy | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: Thank you to our partnering organizations, legislators, and Texas pre-K classrooms for making our Power of Pre-K day at the Capitol such a success! Check out our recap video to see all the action from March 25, 2019 – including professional yo-yo performances and powerful messages to legislators during our press conference.
Contributions: Videography, creative direction, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition
Project #12: Three-Legged School Funding Day at the Texas Capitol
Category: Grassroots, Advocacy, Policy | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: What is the most crucial leg of a stool? The one that is missing. A strong Texas recovery starts with the recovery of our public schools. Right now, Texas has only secured two funding legs out of three desperately needed by our teachers and students. Billions of federal stimulus dollars intended to provide pandemic relief to our state’s public schools have not yet been committed to our schools. Texas schools need a strong and solid foundation supported by all three legs — a foundation that must hold both our recovery, and our future. Because when our schools recover, our students recover. Our families recover. Our communities recover. Texas recovers. Our students get it. Now legislators must act on it.
Contributions: Videography, creative direction, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition
Project #13: Measure What Matters Campaign (Year in Review)
Category: Grassroots, Advocacy, Policy | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: Texas public education students are more than one test on one day. For more than two years, leaders from Raise Your Hand Texas, alongside the Measure What Matters Council members and local community leaders, have called for reforms to the state’s #STAAR test and the expansion of indicators to the public school accountability system. We spoke to 15,600 Texans, including educators, parents, community and business leaders. We also hosted a conference, press events, published recommendations, and advocated at the Capitol and across the state. At our Measure What Matters Capitol Day, more than 2,600 rulers were displayed that shared Texans thoughts regarding our accountability system and why new legislation is needed.
Unfortunately, HB4402 became mired in voucher negotiations and our students and schools continue with the status quo. The work continues...Raise Your Hand Texas supports public policy solutions that invest in our students, encourage innovation and autonomy, and improve college and workforce readiness.
Contributions: Videography, photography, creative direction, editing, and animation
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Lightroom, and Audition
Project #14: Texas Pre-K Teachers Engage in a Social Sharing Campaign
Category: Social Media, Campaign, Inspirational | Raise Your Hand Texas
Purpose: This past spring, we asked pre-K teachers to share the work their students were doing with #ThisIsTexasPreK. The response was overwhelming, and they were over 1,000 posts! So we sifted through and compiled a few of our favorites to show Texas legislators now is the time to commit to funding full-day pre-K!
Contributions: Creative direction, illustration, animation, and editing
Tools: Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition
