2005 Computerworld Honors Program

	Learning with Multiple Intelligences Echo Horizon School Culver City, CA USA Year: 2000 Status: Laureate Category: Education & Academia Nominating Company: Apple Computer, Inc.
	Students engage core subject matter through video production, multimedia design, dance, music, drama, and visual arts, ensuring more equitable access to children with different learning styles.
	For sixth months, students explore a concept in a variety of subject areas including language arts, social studies, science, music, dance, visual art, and drama. Examples of such themes are: Mars2030, Change, Reflection, Yosemite, Greece, American History, and Africa. Technology is used to enhance their studies in each subject area. As students approach the chosen concept from various angles, they gain a deeper understanding of the ideas being explored. Approaching subjects from a variety of modalities ensures more equitable access to children with different learning styles, including our mainstreamed hearing impaired students. Students learn video production, multimedia design, collaboration skills, and self-expression through dance, music, drama, and visual arts in addition to traditional core subjects. The project culminates in a production performed for parents and students at the school. The content of the show comes from the students. Student-made videos, multimedia projects, dance, drama, visual art, and music are woven together as students show (part of) what they have learned during the integrated exploration of the theme.
	Our project has been successful in reaching students with a variety of learning styles. Given so many means of expression, all students were able to define their individual strengths. Some students who have not excelled in traditional learning settings have thrived in this arts/technology based arena. With its emphasis on the arts, our project helps students to look at issues and solve problems in non-traditional ways. It helps them to recognize connections between traditional subject areas and the arts, as well as commonalities amongst and between the arts themselves. By using visual, audio, and kinesthetic modalities, students gain a deeper understanding of the subject at hand. By giving presentations at professional conferences, we share our vision for integrating technology and the arts to increase understanding in other subject areas. We hope that other teachers and students will see the value of and can benefit from this style of thinking, creating, and communicating. As a result of this project, students have developed technology and collaboration skills that are necessary and valued in the 21st Century work world. They have learned to plan, shoot, and edit videos using a digital video editing system. They have also gained skill in using the Internet, video cameras, digital cameras, laser discs, word processing, illustration programs, and abstract and concrete animation to design multimedia presentations that communicate a message.
	Technology was an integral part of this learning experience. Its use was woven through every subject area. In addition to books, the students used videos and the Internet to research the concept they were studying, and they used multimedia and video production technology to communicate the concepts they learned. Each year we find new and innovative ways to integrate technology into the project. Here are some examples: Students selected images from a laser disc to illustrate a dramatic reading of The Gettysburg Address and a Civil War poem titled "The Unknown Bugle Boy." They designed a Hypercard stack with links to the appropriate images and as the class performed the speech on stage, the images flashed on a big screen TV next to them. Students used HyperCard to design realistic animations to illustrate a narrated musical piece. As some students spoke about the trials of the westward movement and others played the instrumental background music, the projected animation gave a visual interpretation of the experience. Students shared the "Space Race" time period in American history with a combination of original drama, video from a laser disc, concrete animation, and music. A big-screen TV and projection screen were part of the set, and students interacted with the projected images as though they were present during these historical milestones.Students designed abstract animations to interpret Ancient Greek music. They listened to the music and discussed colors, images, and movement that it evoked. They then created a storyboard and used Kid Pix, a graphic illustration program, to animate their ideas. Students communicated via email with fellow sixth graders in Athens, Greece to learn about similarities and differences in their cultures. During the performance, sections of their letters were read by students accompanied by background music. On a field trip to Yosemite, students explored different patterns in nature, such as spirals and ripples. They took photographs, shot video, and sketched examples of such patterns. When they returned, they wrote and performed original music based on their experiences to reflect these patterns. They then designed dances and videos to accompany the music, providing a visual, kinesthetic, and audio interpretation of each pattern. In language arts, students wrote personal memoirs. They then extracted a piece of their writing and designed a one-minute video to illustrate their words. Students used Avid Cinema, a digital video editing program, and combined photographs, drawings, and current and past video footage to communicate an aspect of their life experience. Students studying the concept of change explored the evolution of flight in social studies and dance. They researched the Internet and videos borrowed from a local flight museum to determine milestones in flight. In dance, they explored the movement of air, ancient birds, modern birds, kites, and aircraft. They then used footage from historical films and popular movies to design videos depicting not only the evolution of flight from ancient to modern times, but through to predictions of what flight might be like in the future. They used music to enhance their videos and dances. In their free time, several students elected to create a video chronicling change in sports over the years. With little teacher input or supervision, these students coordinated the project during recesses and produced an impressive film that incorporated music, narration, and historical sports footage. Students learned to use these technology tools very quickly. The focus of the project was not on learning to use the technology, but on using it and other modes of communication in order to realize and relay a message. Students learned a variety of technology skills, including word processing, Internet research, email communication, computer illustration, multimedia design, and video production. They learned the necessary skills as they were needed and were quickly on their way to creating multimedia presentations to explore and express their ideas.
	This project is exceptional in its successful marriage of the arts and technology, along with the integration of traditional core subject areas at the elementary level. It is the result of a yearly collaboration between forty students and ten teachers in language arts, social studies, science, technology, special education, visual art, music, dance, and drama. Over seven years, 280 students and eighteen teachers have participated in this project. We are not aware of any other elementary schools which offer such a sophisticated experience. At the beginning of the project, students and teachers select a rich concept which can be addressed in all subject areas. Teachers meet weekly in a think-tank forum to develop students' ideas for integrated activities. These activities ultimately culminate in a performance for the school. This project has evolved over the course of seven years. It started with two teachers and three subject areas: technology, music, and social studies. Over the years more teachers have become involved to provide a full complement of subjects and expertise. With time, students' technological skills have also evolved as we have embraced new applications, including the use of the Internet, animation, and digital video production.
	Our project has exceeded its original goals. When we started seven years ago, we never envisioned the extent of teacher and student involvement which we have today or the depth of learning the project has provided. Our primary goal is to foster integrated learning and promote the marriage of technology and the arts with other subject areas. Each year we have found new and original ways to accomplish this goal. We view the arts and technology as continually evolving disciplines. In this respect, the project is and always will be a work-in-progress. We continually strive to achieve further integration, further understanding, and further involvement. Our entire school community, including parents, students, faculty, and staff benefit from this project. Over seven years, 280 students and eighteen teachers have been directly involved in this project. Even those who do not participate in the creation of the show, benefit from seeing an integrated interpretation of a concept. We have also shared examples of our project and how it is accomplished with the educational community at numerous professional conferences. Therefore, children in other schools have also benefited as their teachers have taken back our ideas and interpreted them in their own classrooms. Student, parent, and teacher quotes: "It was a fun learning experience. We got to do stuff on our own. We learned independence, really used our imagination, and we had to work together."--Allison Karic, student "Technology turned our show from a simple singing and dancing performance into a multimedia production."--Cara Rifkin, student "The sixth grade show combined everything we've done or learned about into a compilation of technology, dance, music, and drama. The technology really added a visual explanation and further detail of what we learned and presented. I learned that making videos is not a one-step process. It is a gigantic process that requires a high amount of thought, detail, and work. Now when I see a movie I know how complex the process of making it was."--Perry Factor, student "Taylor Wishman, Alex Diamond, Eric Rosenblum, and I brought in all kinds of sports videos to find good clips to show changes in sports this century. It took a lot of hard work and thought and when we were finished, it felt really good. We were excited with the final video and that everyone got see what we made in the show. I'm taking a computer class in middle school right now and out of all the kids in the class, I'm probably the most educated about using technology because of what we learned at Echo Horizon School." --Gregg Marmaro, student "I was amazed! What the kids were able to accomplish with technology was so far beyond what I am able to do. It was fabulous how they combined so many different technologies with historical information, music, movement, and drama to relay their ideas. They tied together years of their education with one great project that used technology to make it possible." --David Factor, parent "Many times it's apparent that the kids will understand something from one subject area that hadn't been so clear until they explored it in another subject area." --Cathleen Wolff, teacher "Participating in this program provides an ideal environment to put into practice many of the current standards promoted by The International Reading Association and National Council of the Teachers of English. Incorporating so many modalities allows students to experience the interplays between spoken, written and visual language. The use of technology enables not only the communication of ideas, but the creation of them. "--Marci Vogel, teacher
	We have been fortunate in that our administration has always fully supported this project, both in theory and in practice. Our principal believes in the importance of integrating technology with the arts and all other subjects; she has provided the financial and organizational support that we need to make the project successful. A project like this requires a great deal of cooperation and compromise. We are also lucky to work with a dedicated and talented group of teachers who are effective collaborators and experts in their field. The only technical limitation we've experienced is that the ideas of the students are sometimes beyond what is possible with our current technology. They are always pushing the envelope, asking "Can't we do this?" when it is sometimes not yet possible. This is a welcome problem, because it causes us to move forward, explore new possibilities, and discover new ways of using technology to create and communicate ideas. Online Resources: http://www.ehs.pvtk12.ca.us