Students and teachers at two San Juan Unified high schools are using 21st-century tools to connect their classrooms with professionals in the field. Both have used the videoconference site Skype to enhance recent projects.

At Mira Loma High School, English, art and government instructors spent weeks working with seniors on architecture projects, designing hypothetical renovations to campus facilities and learning from community leaders about how to make their ideas work in real life.

Their projects culminated with presentations to their fellow students - and to professional architects, who offered constructive criticism via Skype.

Allison Roberts, who teaches international studies art, said the assignments “not only teach them about concepts of building architecture but how to involve the community, how something starts from the ground and how you build it up to the final project.”

Senior Alina Barsukova said she relished the chance to show her team’s finished work to an industry professional.
 
“It’s actually a really amazing opportunity,” she said, “because if they really like our ideas … there’s a little chance they’re going to like us, and maybe they’re going to want to hire us.”

The web conference presentations were a chance for the Mira Loma students to display their team work, planning and problem-solving to an expert audience beyond their classroom walls.

“The architects are actually listening in to the student presentation … of something they’ve been watching build the past several weeks,” Roberts said. “So it’s very exciting.”

At Bella Vista High School in Fair Oaks, advanced composition students used the web to speak to an author whose book the class just finished studying.  

“One of the things with using Skype is that the kids know how to use it. They’re on Skype all the time,” said Geni Aymeric, who teaches advanced composition. “So I thought if they actually got to see an author ...  ask them questions and get those immediate responses, it’ll make them value the book or the novel that we’re reading even more.”

During the class, author Susan Breen shared her insight as a professional writer. And students used a small web camera to ask her question after question about her life, her career as a fiction writer and the meaning behind her work. 

Later, the author offered encouraging feedback of the students’ own written work.

“Their eyes just lit up, like ‘Oh! They’re talking about me!” Aymeric said.

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