We were so happy to have won a spot in Dr. Toy’s Best Vacation Children’s Products 2009 awards!
“For nearly twenty five years, Dr. Yoy has been awarding children’s products her seals of approval. These items have distinguished themselves over other products in quality and excellence, providing both lasting value and lasting learning. And of course, providing lasting fun.”
Here is an email from Aletta Sauer, CA
“I teach technology education and business education at a rural high school in - Southern Humboldt County (in Northern CA). Since I see all the 9th graders in Computer Literacy class, I decided to order all three of your current episodes, to help me teach a unit on Copyright, Web Ethics, Plagiarism and Internet Safety. So far, I have used the Case of the Plagiarized Paper to introduce lessons on avoiding plagiarism, and I have used Adina’s Deck to help with lessons on Web Ethics, Web Etiquette, and Internet Safety. I spent two days on bullying because we are a Gr 8-12 high school campus, and the 9th graders still have memories of their time as 8th graders as well as the benefit of moving 1 step up in the campus pecking order. We use the Community of Caring model for character education, so the Adina’s Deck footage was especially appropriate. Our discussion on bullying was one of the most open that we have had all year - my students were totally cued into what cyberbullying is all about and our discussion ranged from what happened at Columbine to vandalism between classmates on our school wiki. My timing could not have been better - as it turned out, the day before we had our pre-video discussion, we had our own horrendous incident involving cyberbullying. 2 younger female 8th graders vandalized another female 8th grader’s locker with fake blood, wrote messages like “whore” and “bitch”, and then sent cell phone pictures to the victim of a third student trying to look scary with knives also dripping with fake blood. It was truly a memorable teachable moment, and gave us all an opportunity to understand just how offensive mental bullying can be. Also, I have an investigator from the DA’s office coming to meet with my students about Cyber-safety, and we’ll use the Case of the Online Crush then!
Thanks for the note, Aletta!
Adina’s Deck Episode 2 will be screening at “Pasadena Learns” click the link for more information! This is part of the Kid’s First Film Festival.
Aidna’s Deck Episode 3 will be screening at the Danville International Children’s Film Festival!
Come watch “The Case of the Plagiarized Paper” on Sat. May 16th, 2009. Perfect for children, english teachers/classes, history teachers, technology eduators, feild trips and anyone else who is educating their 9-15 year old students about Internet Cheating!
Amelia Varni “Adina” and Stephanie Cameron “Melody” hosted an event in Modesto, CA. They showed the cyber bullying mystery (the first film) and signed autographs! Here are some pictures from the event.
Actress Stephanie hosts the event, Amelia is on the right
On Sat. March 7th, Jason and I will be screening episode 1, “Adina’s Deck: Solving Cyber Bullying Mysteries” and leading a session about Cyber Bullies, Internet Safety and our research. We hope you will be able to attend! Here is more information about the CUE Conference. Our session is at 12pm.
Also on Sat. March 7th, Amelia Varni, “Adina” and Stephanie Cameron, “Melody” will be MC’ing a Girls Event, “Live Your Dreams” put on by Soroptimist of Modesto, CA. For more information, check out this link!
Check out Adina’s Deck at the Reel Fun Film Festival this Thursday, Jan. 19th at 12:00pm! The entire Adina’s Deck series will be playing there. Special thanks to Cathy McKee, festival director for inviting Adina’s Deck to be shown at the festival!
Check out this months edition of Six78th Magazine for a special feature story about Adina’s Deck! Check out the magazine for interviews with the cast and filmmakers. They are offering 10 lucky readers a copy of Episode 1 through their contest!! Check it out!
Thanks to Christine Holbaum for this great review of the new Adina’s Deck episodes!
Read the entire article here!
While everyone else in my family was stuffing themselves with turkey stateside, I was attending a public relations conference in Munich. The topic was the role Web-based audio and video PR will play in the future. I didn’t learn anything new, but I did realize we are all on a path of no return. The World Wide Web, and all its technical wizardry, is here to stay.
I’m a wee bit of a technophobe. It’s not entirely true, but I tend to view gadgetry as an ersatz for truly living. So whenever someone approaches me with anything that can only be enjoyed with a plug or batteries, I falter and resist.
Life for our children looks a lot different than it did for us as we grew up. They have to learn how to deal with computers one way or the other.
Enter Adina’s Deck, a Nancy Drew meets Ghostwriter teenage foursome who solve cyber-mysteries at school. Whether it’s online dating, plagarism or cyber-bullying, this series addresses some real-life issues like no other show I’ve seen.
Director and producer Debbie Heimowitz sent me the first three in her series (the others are pending financing). Even my son, who tends to grow impatient with ‘real-life’ programming, as opposed to cartoons, loved it. My daughter, who is taking a short three-hour course about how to use the Internet tomorrow, enjoyed the themes throughout the series, too. It makes her feel grown up to type on a keyboard, like her mom. She has grown so fond of my old laptop that I’ve promised to give it to her if she keeps up her grades this year.
Thankfully, we have insightful directors such as Debbie to lean on when our children’s minds seem filled with online chatter. A group of positive role models, the clan in Adina’s Deck fosters honesty, integrity, and the type of problem-solving lacking in most television programming today. Recommended for children ages 8 to 13, this award-winning series promises to help us parents unlock the mysteries of today’s tweens with a nice dose of ethics tossed in!
Today at 3pm, Ciera Trussell, “Clara” will be volunteering to host a screening at the Boys & Girls Club in Placerville, CA
. Come watch the new episodes, meet Ciera and learn about the show!
For more information and directions, visit: bgce.org
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Cyber-bullying, chat room predators and the lure of engaging in online plagiarism are all potential hazards facing young people today. A new educational DVD to help kids cope with these issues is being shown at schools and youth organizations across the country, and parents can check it out for free this weekend.
Called “Adina’s Deck,” the stories revolve around the efforts of a group of middle schoolers, led by the tech-savvy Adina, to investigate their classmates’ online dilemmas. The name comes from the deck of cards members must pull from in order to discuss their problem. It’s also a reference to what Adina’s parents gave her after taking away her computer for getting kicked out of school for cyberbullying.
The first in the series, “Adina’s Deck: Solving Cyber Bullying Mysteries,” was released last year and dealt with the story of a popular but “stuck-up” girl who was being harassed online. The ensuing investigation revealed that the culprit was her supposed best friend.
Two new half-hour episodes dealing with online predators (”The Case of the Online Crush”) and the prevalence of cutting and pasting homework assignments from the Web (”The Case of the Plagiarized Paper”) make their Bay Area premiere Sunday at the Cerrito Speakeasy Theater in El Cerrito.
Shot in the Bay Area with a volunteer cast of local actors, “Adina’s Deck” is the brainchild of Debbie Heimowitz, who developed the series as part of her work on a master’s in education that she received last year from Stanford.
Before Heimowitz and writing partner Jason Azicri, who’s getting his master’s in family therapy at Santa Clara University, begin work on a new script, they research the topic. They say they often find that issues are misunderstood. For instance, for the online predator episode, they discovered that most men who target young women in chat rooms don’t lie about their age and are attractive.
“A lot of females think they won’t be hurt by someone who’s good looking,” Heimowitz says.
In the show, the investigation reveals that not only is the online predator exactly who he says he is, but he’s also carrying on an e-mail affair with another club member.
For the show on online plagiarism, Heimowitz said she strove to counteract the attitude she found among young people that copying essays and other material off the Internet is wrong only because you could get caught. “It’s not wrong because you can get in trouble. It’s wrong because you’re stealing someone else’s work.”
To illustrate this point, a character in the show actually gets away with plagiarizing from the Web, only to have her artwork stolen and turned in under someone else’s name.
2 p.m. Sun. Free. Cerrito Speakeasy Theater. 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400. www.adinasdeck.com.
- Paul Kilduff, 96Hours@sfchronicle.com
to see the original link on the SF Chronicle website, click here.
Title: Screening of Episodes 2 and 3!
Location: El Cerrito, CA
Description: Come watch the new Episodes at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater
Start Time: 2:00pm
Date: 2008-11-16
Title: Adina\’s Deck new site launch
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2008-11-03
End Time: 23:00
Adina’s Deck was honored with the award for Best Short Film for a Young Audience, 2008 by the Eugene, Oregon International Film Festival! We want to thank Mike Dilley, President and Director of the Festival for organizing this fantastic event. We were so disappointed we couldn’t make it (as it conflicted with the Kid’s First Film awards of which we’d previously committed to attending).
This plaque is gorgeous! Thank you again Mike, and Congratulations Ep. 1 Cast & Crew!
Here’s a sneak peak of Episode 3!!
trailer edited by: Mike Heimowitz
Announcing… the trailer for the first Adina’s Deck sequel!
 Adina Amelia Varni |
 Clara Ciera Trussell |
 Skye Kelcie Stranahan |
 Melody Stephanie Cameron |
 Michael Sam Ison |
