Community Cares: CCE C4 Media Arts Program

The Center for Creative Education’s C4 Media Arts Program brings arts and technology education to at-risk students

By combining the arts and technology, The Center for Creative Education’s C4 Media Arts Program is ready to help launch students of all ages into the digital media arts (cinema, graphic arts and coding). The center is staffed with the latest equipment and teaching artists that use art activities to teach art skills and reinforce classroom studies.

The Center for Creative Education is an educational nonprofit that was created more than 20 years ago to strengthen the presence of the arts in the classrooms of Palm Beach County, Florida. Today, their teaching artists work with thousands of children in schools

The majority of the students they work with live in economically and socially challenging circumstances and are considered “at risk” of educational failure. The arts-based programs CCE provide is a very powerful way to improve these students’ chances of success; both academically and personally. CCE also works with advanced students who benefit from the opportunity to delve deeply into subjects through the arts and develop their creative thinking and problem solving skills.

For all children, working together on these art-based projects encourages exploration, inventiveness, team building and cooperation, and changes the way they think about themselves and about school.

At their center, in the Northwood Village section of West Palm Beach, CCE provide arts instruction for children and adults. They host art shows in their gallery space and serve as a base for many community activities.

Much of their in-house programming is targeted at people who would not otherwise be able to afford exposure to the arts or arts-based education. Classes at their center are open to all.

CCE C4 MEDIA ARTS & TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM

CCE offers in-house programming for at-risk students combining the arts and technology to support their academic, social and creative development. Branded C4, these multimedia storytelling programs promote the “4 Cs” of the 21st Century Learning model: collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity.

CCE’s Programming staff combines decades of experience in the areas of education, curriculum design, child development, program management, media production and the visual and performing arts. CCE recently completed the final phase of buildout at their center and invested $7,500,000 on purchasing, construction,

equipment and software to provide highquality programs and resources to the most economically disadvantaged students in Palm Beach County. Many of these resources were specifically designed for the C4 Media Arts and Technology Program.

The C4 Program is divided into 3 age groups: EXPLORE (grades 3-5), CONNECT (grades 6-8) and CREATE ( grades 9-12). In Explore, students gain hands-on experience in Drawing, Sculpting, Theater, Music Comprehension, and iPad integration, learning the power of each to tell stories and

communicate ideas. CONNECT students focus on building upon their storytelling skills to create impactful stories of personal, cultural and social relevance. Moving from the creative development of fictional stories in EXPLORE, Connect students work together to form a better understanding of real issues affecting their lives. They continue to build on their technology and media arts skills to develop their projects in a variety of formats: videos, promotional materials, websites, all to be collected in their own, digital portfolios. In CREATE, students begin to master the skills of digital media production and gain real-world experience preparing them for post-secondary education and a multitude of career paths. Parent Orientation for the C4 Program is August 16 and Week 1 of classes are set to begin on August 19.

For more information about The Center for Creative Education go to www.cceflorida.org/ at-the-center/ email info@cceflorida.org or call 561-805-9927.