Multimedia project creates link between school, community

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This article was published 13/11/2002 (8442 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE history of St. Vital and the stories of young Winnipeggers who fought for freedom during the Second World War will come to life over the next three years in an ambitious project involving students and teachers from Glenlawn Collegiate, with co-operation from the St. Vital Historical Society and local veterans.

Minich Nowrang, a social studies and computer science teacher at the high school, says the Clarica Glenlawn Leaders Project creates a link between the school and community.

“Both sides will get an appreciation of the other as a result of this,” he says. “It’s a great project. It gives the kids an opportunity to work with seniors in the community.”

History, multimedia, computer science, art, drama, English and other subjects come together in the project, which will also create a video resource for use in next year’s Remembrance Day ceremony.

“That’s why we like this project,” says Nowrang. “It’s all-encompassing.”

In one part of the project, history students will interview three St. Vital-area veterans. The interviews will be videotaped and edited by students in the multimedia class, so they can be used in the future in the school’s multimedia Remembrance Day ceremonies. They will also be used in web-site material being created by other students.

As a result, a single component of the project will give students an opportunity to learn lessons in history, interviewing skills, videotaping and editing, and creation of multimedia sites on the web.

Nowrang is working with veteran Art Diffy to identify other veterans to take part in the interviews.

Having a Remembrance Day focus to the project is no coincidence. The St. Vital high school is known for moving Remembrance Day ceremonies, involving vignettes featuring its drama students that bring tears to many eyes, says Nowrang.

The motto of the project is “respect the past, grasp the present, enlarge the future.”

Students will also take documents in the St. Vital Archives and digitize them so that their images will be available on-line. They will also scan historic photos and create a site that allows for a 360-degree view of objects in the historical society’s collection.

In effect, the multimedia project will become a “virtual museum” of life in St. Vital, says Nowrang. The virtual museum will be available for teaching students about the area’s past. The school is in touch with the Virtual Museum of Canada and the Canadian Heritage Information Network in developing plans for putting the community’s history on-line.

The project is also intended to give students a chance to build on their leadership, teamwork, problem solving and communication skills, as well as develop the technical skills required to create the on-line resources.

Students working on the project will learn and practise skills that designers and computer professionals use in the work world, from designing streaming video to storing information in databases. Artistically inclined students will get an opportunity to exercise their creativity with new technology.

“We’ve got kids who are artists who are great with PhotoShop,” says Nowrang.

The project recived a $7,000 grant from the life insurance and financial planning company Clarica, as part of the firm’s national support of efforts to encourage young people to learn about leadership. The funding will be used for computer hardware and to bring in trainers to introduce student to some of the new technology they’ll be using.

Eva Vida, a financial advisor for Clarica, says the company will donate $360,000 to schools across Canada through its Leaders for Tomorrow, Building Skills for Today program.

Involving students with the broader community is a great way of fighting misconceptions and stereotypes about youth, says Nowrang.

“It skews your vision when you read about teen crime stories, so it’s great for them (students) to be out there working on this project in the community. People get to see the good news about teenagers.”

PHOTO LINDA VERMETTE/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS