Campbell, CA (PRWEB) March 21, 2014
DIGISTOR, one of the nation's most acclaimed and trusted providers of data storage solutions recently lent its aid to a California school looking to support new educational initiatives with video-based content. Teachers and students alike have benefited from the increased access to data archiving solutions, giving them the opportunity to leverage user-generated, educational video in new and exciting ways.
Located in San Jose, Calif., Easterbrook Discovery School has distinguished itself as a K-8 educational center dedicated to innovative learning with direct parental involvement. Easterbrook's approach to education places a great deal of emphasis on the individual, and teachers are dedicated to addressing wholly unique needs of their students. This includes drafting customized lesson plans and projects when required.
Administrators have long been interested in taking advantage of consumer devices such as netbooks, tablets and smartphones to create educational content that engages students' minds in fresh, new ways. With their participation in a digital media academy, several Easterbrook teachers had the opportunity to leverage this technology - and its easy-to-use video recording capabilities, in particular - to support the learning process.
The only roadblock to taking this project further was the question of what to do with all of those additional recordings. DIGISTOR stepped in and offered a donation of data archiving solutions to give students and teachers a chance to record as much material as they wish with the peace of mind that it will be securely stored for later use.
With concerns of data storage out of the way, administrators have been free to encourage their students and staff members to pick up their mobile cameras and begin shooting as much video as they like. The school has discovered a nearly endless wealth of applications for these tools, allowing teachers to create more engaging and impactful learning material while also giving students a chance to make their own educational discoveries.
Teachers have used these assets to enhance their ability to conduct authentic assessment. For instance, if educators wanted to impart the concepts behind the water cycle, they could ask students to create videos explaining its various components in their own words.
This ability for students to directly engage content and vocalize their comprehension of it will become even more crucial as Common Core Standards come into effect, requiring students to succinctly explain various concepts and how they derived a solution to a particular problem. Because students today are more comfortable using netbooks and other high-tech educational tools, these types of projects give them a more comfortable outlet to express their ideas.
In one instance, teachers worked with a student with autism to create a video project in which he voiced his own perception of the disorder. Having access to these video tools allowed him to express what autism meant to him as a person as well as how he would like to be treated by his fellow classmates.
At the end of the day, the goal of this program is to provide students with an outlet to take a more active role in their own education while pursuing new and innovative methods of presenting learning material. For Easterbrook officials, these assets have facilitated the educational process by placing high-quality learning tools in the hands of teachers and students without distracting from the overall goal of providing a well-rounded education.
"For a teacher, that's the big question: How do you improve your instruction using technology?" said John Lozano, a resource teacher at Easterbrook. "And now that we've been given these tools, it's really allowed us to reflect on our teaching. A lot of people have kind of been re-energized because now we have these tools that can do some really great things that we couldn't do five, 10 and - for me - 20 years ago."
About DIGISTOR
DIGISTOR, a division of Sunland International, LLC, is a leading innovator, manufacturer and distributor of digital archiving products and secure storage solutions. Serving the industrial and global OEM market since 2001, DIGISTOR provides industrial-grade archiving and digital-video storage solutions to consumers, professional users, SMB's and specialized industries such as photography, broadcast, videography, medical imaging and security/surveillance.