Presenting to a group of parents about an upcoming 1 to 1 Laptop Program we are about to launch this fall with our Middle school. On one mid week evening we had invited students to come and share their work they had produced in integration with various projects and tasks they had been involved with throughout the year. One piece of work was a very powerful multimedia piece incorporating movie, music, and keynote (Apples answer to PowerPoint with more mmmff). It was a short 5 minute piece of work which focused on child labor in India and the impact and injustice associated with this situation. This was done for a Social Studies project on Slavery. The combination of timing, music, content, images and the students really understanding the power of the different mediums, there relationship, and how to integrate each applications was extremely powerful. The effect on the audience was emotional and strong. To me it was a delightful confirmation that these students clearly understood their topic, and had the creative power to deliver it in a way that left an impact on the audience. More importantly it was evidence of their deep understanding of not only the applications but how to combine an intense topic and deliver it within a clear and consice medium that they interact and live with in their day to day lives. Standing up on the stage reading the similar topic and concept outload from an essay would have left us all indifferent. The students tapped into their comfort zone, that of multimedia using todays digital mediums which they are exposed to on a daily basis in multiple venues. Nice one!

John@ISTES