Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Dawson Middle School Teacher Accepted as Educator Fellow with TAMI

Dawson Middle School history teacher Josh Ault was recently accepted as an educator fellow with the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. Founded in 2002, the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization working to discover, preserve, provide access to, and educate the community about Texas’ film heritage. TAMI partners with the Office of the Governor’s Texas Film Commission to administer the Texas Film Round-Up program, which provides free digitization for Texas-related films and videotapes, online access to a selection of the contributed materials, and statewide public programming, as well as creates educator resources using these newly digitized Texas media in the classroom. Ault is one of two educators accepted for TAMI’s inaugural fellowship program.

As an educator fellow, Ault will be going through TAMI’s 50,000 hours of archived video and finding videos that pertain to his classes, specifically Texas History. He will be breaking them down and giving comments how if we think they will be affective or if they will be good to use in classes, as well as helping TAMI create lesson plans and projects using the videos they have in their archives.

“I am so excited to be working with TAMI to better serve my students,” said Ault. “I know using their archival videos in my lessons will enrich my activities and give my students a view of what different eras in Texas looked like. It will also allow me to create projects that impact my students in a more meaningful way and allow them to have the opportunity to research a wide range of topics. I hope my experience with TAMI will better assist other teachers in teaching more thoughtful lessons.”

A native Texan, Josh has a Bachelor of Broadcast Journalism degree from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA. He completed a teacher institute at Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, VA, and participated in a teacher development program with Limited Resource Teacher Training (LRTT) in Kathmandu, Nepal. Before becoming an educator, Josh was a journalist, working as a reporter/photographer for several television stations. He enjoys the outdoors (hiking, camping, and road trips) and has climbed Guadalupe Peak, the tallest point in Texas, twice.

“I think having an unlimited supply of videos in Texas history will allow our students to see things they might have not seen before,” said Ault. “I know it will allow us to be more creative with our lessons, and let students use their researching skills to find videos that apply to things they learn in the classroom at Dawson Middle School.”

An image of a family bowling and dining

Photo of a solar eclipse