Published: May 19, 2008 10:54 am         

Southern students produce, film financial documentary

MCHENRY - Keeping up with learning in the 21st century was one of the focuses of Garrett County's School and Business Partnership Luncheon, and students at Southern High School have been given a head start with new video equipment and editing software.

"It took a while to get all the pieces together," Brison Harvey, a senior, said. "Once they got together, it was worthwhile to see the finished product."

Harvey said it was a time-consuming project, but the equipment they got to use when it finally arrived in March was top quality, the same as Hollywood productions like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Spiderman 3" used to edit and produce.

Lisa Bender, marketing teacher at Southern, said in order to teach the students more about technology, the schools received a $58,000 grant to buy video equipment and editing software to create documentaries. This, she said, would allow for $29,000 to go to each high school.

She said that the equipment arrived in March and students in her business classes began filming and then editing their first five-minute-long documentary on financial literacy.

For their first video, students talked to Sarena Rodeheaver, manager of First United Bank & Trust, about the use of a checking account.

"I learned a lot," Cody Colaw, senior at Southern, said. "With the community not being very financially literate and students not either, hopefully, it will help them be more financially literate."

Rebekah Rush, a junior at Southern, said the late start slowed the project down a little, but that they started work on the video the semester before, hoping they would receive the equipment by the end of the year.

Bender said media specialist John Coffman also helped with the production.

Using various forms of technology to incorporate new learning techniques in and outside of the classroom was some of the focus of the presentation at the luncheon.

"How can I be prepared to help these children, these important individuals be successful?" Bender said to the group of educators and business people. "It's important for teachers to understand."

She and her husband, Dave Bender, spoke to the group about how students learn and use technology in their learning.

Dave said that the newest generation of students in school are "natives" to Internet usage, while older generations are "immigrants" who did not grow up with cell phones, Internet and video games available from birth.

He said that now, classrooms are utilizing what is called "Web 2.0," where using the Internet involves contributing as well. He said he tries to incorporate these kind of "wiki" sites into his own site for students, allowing them to upload notes and study guides.

He said other technologies are also helping teachers, as some schools are using the instant response system, where students use something like a remote control to answer a question posed by the teacher and the teacher can immediately see how many in the class have gotten the answer correct.

Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@times-news.com.