Being the Media Arts instructor at a highly impoverished high school in the city of San Francisco has been quite challenging. The students that I teach are immigrated Latino or African American and struggle to maintain their safety outside of school. Often this has lead to high student disengagement to the curriculum. As an instructor that relies heavily on images and film, I have found my job challenging due to the lack of resources at our High School.
As an outside film maker, I learned how to create enticing lessons that integrated music, powerful photographs,and visual aids to capture students attention on lessons ranging from History to English.
The reality here, however, is that there is a severe shortage of technology available to both teachers and students. Outside of my video camera, there exists little to no resources for students to view their visual work. These works include but are not limited to: A short documentary of their lives, a visual research that depicts their relationship with their community, and a information video on how to study in High School. Being that there is no medium for the school to view, I am the only other person that has access to their work.
As a request, the students could benefit from a LCD projector along with an additional video Camcorder. This would allow me to bring social history and media awareness to their life as well as enable them to continue to view other students work. Bearing in mind that many of my students are both visual and auditory learners,these components would certainly assist their learning.
I would utilize the LCD projector on a daily basis for all of my classes and for a range of learning activities. The video Camera will be used weekly by the students to create the school's news and aid in their efforts to produce project documentaries outlined above.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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