About Us Video in Markham Economist and Sun today!

If you live in Markham you've got the economist and sun so check page 7, nice big article and picture!

If you don't get the paper, it's also online, I'll post the article here for you.

(Scanned by Kirsten Andersen)

Award-winning video probes life, technology

BY KEELY GRASSER

Published on Feb 21, 2009

A prize-winning video about how technology affects lives has netted Markville Secondary School students some nifty classroom technology.

The video, created by Grade 12 students Amanda Perkins, Samantha Hutchinson, Nick Francis and Rachel Laird, 10th grader Kirsten Andersen and history teachers Mark Melnyk and Rob Cotey, won the HP MindShare Learning Report Interactive Classroom contest. The school won a variety of classroom technology items, worth $10,000.

It was a fitting prize for a video that examined how technology touches students' lives.

The winning entry was a stop-motion video - which seamlessly put together thousands of photographs - that trailed students during their daily encounters with technology and ended with a thought-provoking scene where students discussed what technology means to them.

The group spent two and a half months discussing how technology touched their lives before they started making the video, they said.

"We discussed whether or not technology is our classroom or technology is part of our classroom," Nick said.

"We debated, too. How much (technology) we should have in our lives and how much is actually taking away from social interactions," Mr. Melnyk said.

"We ended up saying 'it's about us'. It's all about us," Nick concluded.

Coming up with the video's message was the most difficult part of the project, explained Samantha.

That's not to say putting together the video was a breeze.

The students said they took about 3,500 photographs during 20 to 30 hours of shoots for the film, set to a Coldplay song, which Nick said he edited together at home at night.

The scene at the end, where the students are shown writing their ideas about technology on a smart board, an interactive blackboard now used in some schools, brings the whole video together, Nick said.

The scene shows the students writing 'technology' on the board. They then erased it.

"Because we didn't want to say 'technology,' we wanted to say what technology is to us," Nick said.

"We wanted to actually have an underlying message to it," Rachel explained.

Contest representatives visited the school and the group said they told them they were really impressed with the concept of the video, as well as the fact the video makes viewers think rather than set out an opinion for them.

"They actually came in and talked to us, talked to these guys. It made them feel validated for what they've done." Mr. Melnyk said.

The prize pack included a smart board, a set of clickers to use for polling with the smart board, a document reader, laptop computer and other items.

Markville's history department is one of the most technology-based in the school, Mr. Melnyk said. "It's something we really buy in to."

You can watch the winning entry at vimeo.com/2565637.

Source: York Region News