Our Story

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Background:

It all started Freshman year – 2018 – at Columbia High School. Our school was trying a new type of learning that could make education much better. I was a part of the test group for this new learning style. We were told to use a new platform never used here that would make all our schoolwork available online, while we were still taught in person.

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A Problem is Seen:

Being such a new program, there of course were many who were against using it because it was unfamiliar, hard to understand, or people did not know how to use it. One of the students who was not against it, in fact saw the possibilities of enhancing education for all, was shocked to find so much animosity to this new and better program. This student realized that the problem was that people did not know how to use it to the best of their abilities. The student went to a teacher who he thought knew the most about Summit and told her his idea – to find a way to help students understand how to use the program.

 

A Solution is Found:

This teacher, who became one of the advisers for our team – Mrs. Stevenson, came up with the idea to have a sort of committee of students who knew how to use the program to help students in a study group kind of way, as well as to help show those who came to see what the program was about and if it would work just how well Summit worked. Since our test group did well Freshman year, the school decided that the program would roll up with our grade until the whole school would use Summit for their main classes.

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A Team is formed:

Freshman year was just about having a committee showing others what Summit is about. Sophomore year is when we added more members to make an actual team that could help the students. That was also the year where this team became more than volunteers, but an internship. The team was inexperienced and struggled to produce videos, but the team was there and somewhat organized. That year was all about learning how to lead ourselves, learn how to work together to produce something we had never done before, and helped us learn how to problem solve and communicate.

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Advancements Were Made:

Junior year, the team became better organized, with more members who began to do more than just finish the crude videos from Sophomore year. The team became diverse, with many people doing other things to help the team move along. Co- team leaders, Curtis James and David Kraemer, were officially in place who led the team, and the student Samantha Rikstad provided access to Screencast-o-Matic, which was used to screen record without a logo in the video. This year, we also added Zack Dent to the team, who made our website from scratch, as well as helped organize the team online. That year, both Zack and Avery Clot did the most amount of work moving the team along. Avery did the most amount of work in producing the videos. This was the year where the products were finished and published onto the newly created website.

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Improvements are in the works:

This year has been all about looking back to the videos and editing them to look better, making the website better, cleaner, more interactive, and easier to use, and trying to make our team and our work public to the school. This way, our students can easily access our videos and learn from them, as well as emphasizing students to join the team so it will continue after us.

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Into the Future:

No matter what happens, our team’s legacy will continue. We persevered through our trials to provide the students of Columbia High School with a resource to help them with their education. If the team does not continue, then the school will benefit from what we created. If the team continues to go on, then it will continue to provide more resources in the future.