Student Hall of Fame

A few samples of projects that I've collaborated on with students and teachers through the years...

2nd Grade Student Book Reviews - this is a project I did back in 1998 at 38th Street School in the Milwaukee Public School when I was a computer lab teacher. Many of these student book reviews published here are from students who were learning English as a second language. It was so exciting to have one computer in the school connected to the Internet via dial-up and our students were so thrilled to share their reviews on this site. Amazing how the opportunities for student authorship and publishing have exploded since then. A big 'thank you' the Ann Arbor Public Library and the World of Reading.org site for keeping this student work published for all of these years.

5th Grade School Tour Podcasts - students worked in small teams to create a short little tour of the school campus. They collaborated on building a script, traveled the campus taking digital photos, recorded sound, and then did some basic post production editing/mixing. The voice and student creativity in these projects is palpable.

"We Were There"Civil Rights Videos - after learning about various events from the Civil Rights movement in the USA, former colleague Chuck Taft had his students create these short, powerful digital stories from the point of view of an eye witness. This project was done back in 2007 and introduced me to the power of YouTube as an authentic publishing platform for student work. Three years after being published, some of these videos have well over 20,000 views! Be sure to check out the Greensboro Sit-ins and Cesar Chavez Videos.

Programming Projects: In the spring semester of 2008 I used Scratch to teach programming in a 7th grade elective course. I was simply amazed at the kinds of projects our students created in this class. Here are just a few: 3 Days Grace Music Video, Mario Experiment, and Etch a Sketch.

Gator Radio Experience: I worked with a team of high school students at Castilleja School to produce over 25 live, interactive webcasts using a radio show format. Our students moderated live interviews with individuals from Australia, Japan, Canada, South Korea, and the USA. Students also created a music segment where they featured a band from Myspace near the end of each broadcast.