By Steven J. Ebner, Gus Grissom, and Caroline English(Steven J. Ebner is the SSSAS History Department chair, and Caroline English and Gus Grissom are both Upper School history teachers. This joint article was part of their presentation on the St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School Oral History Project at the 2013 Building Learning Communities conference, hosted by November Learning in Boston, Massachusetts.)

"To help our students succeed in a complex and changing world, we seek to inspire a passion for learning, an enthusiasm for athletic and artistic endeavor, a striving for excellence, a celebration

of diversity, and a commitment to service."

These words, part of the St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School (SSSAS) mission statement, play a fundamental role in every decision made by the SSSAS faculty, from curriculum planning to daily classroom management. But it was this particular section of the mission statement that carried the most weight in a planning session where the topic was how to design project-based learning opportunities that integrated technology—yet still took advantage of the what Upper School Director Bud Garikes calls the "quiet conversations," in which faculty can have a real impact on a student's intellectual development.

In a world that is changing at an exponential rate, there are many scholars who might argue that the current generation, the so-called NetGeners, is perhaps the smartest generation the world has ever known. While that might well be the case, it is equally as reasonable to recognize that this generation is also the most reliant on outside devices for the information that will help them navigate this complex and changing world. In spite of obvious challenges, the SSSAS History Department faculty was determined to implement project-based learning in a way that would allow students to use the technologies with which they are so comfortable, while at the same time not allowing them to retreat into the safety of their electronic devices to avoid looking into another person's eyes and having a real, substantive conversation.

Two projects, a video-based art/architecture analysis project for underclassmen and an oral history project for upperclassmen, were created. These projects have proven to be very successful in allowing students the freedom to find their own voices amid the incessant din of Twitter feeds,

Tumblr sites, Facebook groups, and Instagram artistry.The project designed for the upperclassmen was inspired by the vision of Head of School Joan Holden, who wanted students to create a signature project that would highlight their personal interaction with someone of an older generation. With close support from the Technology Education Department, the History Department faculty provides students with the opportunity to capture on video a short interview with a family member, or a close friend of the family, who is at least one generation removed from the student's own experiences.

Using a wide variety of technology, from small, digital video cameras and Mac laptops to green screen technology and iMovie editing software, students are challenged to create a ten- to twelve-minute interview. The video, complete with a formal introduction and appropriate still images or maps to clarify important points, explores the personal, yet no less historical, experiences of an older family member. This signature project we have named our Oral History Project. It focuses heavily on the 21st century skills of collaboration and communication, not only to help students master the material presented in the course, but also to prepare them for the "complex, changing world" on which our mission statement is, in part, focused.

In support of this Oral History Project, the second project, designed for the underclassmen, was conceived as a way to replace the traditional midterm and overcome the challenge of what to do as the students return from the holiday break, with the dread of those long, dark winter months still ahead of them. The project design is simple. Working in pairs, students use laptops, generally Macs, to create short movies that analyze the architecture and artwork of historical religious structures. While the religious structures run the gamut from mosques to ziggurats and polytheistic temples to Christian cathedrals, the broader concepts and essential skills with which the students engage during the project are consistent for every group. Each group has to work together to find research materials both in library books and online databases such as JSTOR. They then write collaboratively to produce a short research paper that analyzes how the building's structure and artwork reflects the values and beliefs of the religion. The final step in the project is to communicate their findings effectively to their

The Oral History Project—Blending Technology and TraditionWhen 21st century skills are used to connect with 20th century individuals, the results can be powerful

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classmates through the medium of their movie. Using still images, appropriate music, and a succinctly worded script, each group essentially teaches their small portion of the curriculum unit's essential questions and concepts to the rest of the class.

The faculty role in both of these projects is as expected for any project-based learning process: establishing interim deadlines to help students develop their executive functioning skills, providing resources with which students can research their topics successfully, and—perhaps most important—providing one of the scarcest commodities in a jam-packed curriculum, time. The reason for this is simple. Once students put away their electronic devices and quit texting for a bit in favor of having a real conversation with an older family member, they nearly always realize that the stories they hear are fascinating. What starts out as a ten- to twelve-minute interview ends up consuming 45 minutes to an hour of total video time. It then becomes the job of the student-historian to distill this conversation into the essential elements and put it in a succinct format so that others might enjoy it and learn from it.

As with the underclassman project, the Oral History Project has replaced the traditional midterms and exercises the students' 21st century skills of communication, creativity, and digital literacy. Additionally, it helps students raised in this digital age to connect with what is perhaps their greatest resource: their own families. Through this project, they experience firsthand the educational and sometimes transformative power of real conversations with people who have experienced a world vastly different from their own. When 21st century skills are used to connect with 20th century individuals, the results can be powerful.

In planning and executing both of these projects, it is reasonable to say that the faculty learned almost as much about themselves and their potential as the students. But through it all, there was a consistent lesson learned—individuals in the classroom, both students and teachers, are far more interesting than any available technology. As such, the History Department faculty clearly came to the realization that no matter what technology is being used in the classroom, the important thing is that it must only enhance the experience, not become it.

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Interviewing Collaborating Researching TestingBrainstorming ObservingProblem-solving

Critical-thinking

Decision-making

Communicating Empathizing