Project Description: Every Student Has A Story

As a high school technology teacher, I have the opportunity to teach a career prep seminar class for our high school seniors. Each of my students will be required to create a digital portfolio of his or her high school activities and achievements. The challenge is that most students see the portfolio as simply a repository of documents and another assignment to check off of the list. Often, the portfolio is not a significant or accurate representation of the learning that students have achieved. Additionally, many students struggle with identifying their talents, interests or abilities through regular class assignments.

This grant proposes using technology to engage students to explore and understand their learning journey by creating a multimedia video of their unique learning story. The specific technologies to be funded would include six digital pocket video/photo camcorders, six SD cards for the cameras, six card readers, a scanner, 15 flash drives, and a document camera with an 8 GB SD card. With the video recording and documentation equipment, students will be able to collect artifacts, reflect on achievements and celebrate accomplishments that could not be reflected in class assignments or on transcripts. The use of technology would personalize the portfolios with each student’s voice recorded in a personal narrative of selected multimedia artifacts signifying his or her strengths, achievements, passions, hopes and goals for the future. Using multimedia storytelling in portfolio development would create an emotional connection and ownership resulting in active engagement, intrinsic motivation, and understanding.