My students need a durable cart to hold a TV as well as remote-controlled electrical outlet adapters to run a multimedia booth to present their accomplishments to their peers in a public space.
My students and I attend a low-income Title I school in Honolulu, Hawaii that is comprised of students from a wide range of ethnicities, cultures, socio-economic statuses, and worldviews. Having the Papakolea Hawaiian Homestead community in the direct vicinity of our school contribute to the high percentage of Native Hawaiian students enrolled at our school. In our community, 47.2% our our student body receives free or reduced lunch.
Hawaii is a melting pot and diaspora of so many cultures and languages, and with that comes a variety of starting points in English Language Learning.
Although more than half of the students speak English as their primary language at home, 32% of the students primarily speak another language at home. Some of the languages considered as primary home languages are Marshallese, Chuukese, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin. In our Reading Workshop class, we practice reading and listening comprehension strategies, verbal fluency, and close reading.
My Project
This year, I asked administration if I could become the Social Media Coordinator of our school because I wanted to revamp and reinvigorate how students perceived their peers. Earlier this year, I started Stevenson Media Hawaii, a photography and videography club that helps students become the photojournalists of our school. By taking photos, creating videos, and showcasing student involvement, I hope to build a tighter-knit community of pride. Stevenson Media Hawaii is at all of the school events on campus, off campus, during the week, and on the weekends in order to document the talents and achievements of Stevenson students. Because we know that much of the student body has limited mobility to attend these events, our goal is to make these events, awards ceremonies, and activities as accessible as possible.
Although many students have access and permission to use social media, not all do, so the items I'm requesting--a durable cart to hold a TV as well as remote-controlled electrical outlet adapters--will run a multimedia booth to present student accomplishments (student slideshows, school sports competitions, band performances, etc) to their peers in a public space.
The videos will be looped and placed in a public place on campus so the whole student body as well as any visitors to school can see the marvelous things our students accomplish in and out of school. By showcasing the curricular and extracurricular talents of students and making them visible to the entire school, the hope is that the collective campus will take pride in their peers, increase a sense of community, decrease interpersonal conflict, and help students realize that they have much more in common than not.
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