Morse Pond School fifth grader James Jarvis, sixth grader Emily Turner, fifth grader Leejay Lewin, and sixth graders Kayla Simpson, Lily Patterson, and Lilly Kane-Myette are some of the students who have benefited from the new video camera equipment to enhance their learning. CHRISTOPHER KAZARIAN/ENTERPRISE

     The motto for YouTube is “broadcast yourself.”
     The popular video sharing website is just one example of how today’s society is so computer-driven, according to Brian Switzer, a teacher in the Talented Eager and Motivated (TEAM) program at the Morse Pond School. “So many of our children have computers at home,” he said. “Our schools have lagged behind in using that as a creative medium for our students.”
     This year, however, teachers and students at the middle school are beginning to broadcast themselves, he said, and in the process catching up with the technological advances of society. They have done this through a $2,500 state grant from the Woods Hole Film Festival’s Filmmakers in the Classroom program. That was supplemented by another $2,500 grant from the Falmouth Education Foundation.
     The grants helped pay for the purchase of seven video cameras along with a remote microphone, a tripod, and an external hard drive. The equipment, Mr. Switzer said, is shared between seven teams of two teachers each.
     Unlike the TEAM program, Mr. Switzer said, this initiative is intended for all students, including those enrolled in special education. It is intended as a way to supplement the curriculum, he said, giving students an opportunity to do something other than typical projects that require a pen or paper.
     He noted that the program is not going to replace traditional learning, but to offer an option to what is already being taught.
     Completed videos, many of which are accessible on the Morse Pond School website, include book discussions, a class science project on the cross-section of trees, a field trip to Highfield Hall, and student commercials with specific themes.
     Two sixth graders, Lilly Kane-Myette, 12, and Emily Turner, 11, submitted one of their projects to a film festival in Connecticut. They starred in the short film, Lilly said, which was based on The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, a novel they read in class.
     It was the first time either of them have entered or attended a film festival. The experience, Lilly said, “was really cool.”
     Mr. Switzer said the idea originated when Judy Laster, executive director of the Woods Hole Film Festival, approached him about developing a curriculum for filmmaking at the middle school.
     “I thought the most useful thing would be to improve technology in the classroom,” he said. It was essentially a matter of providing teachers and students access to this technology on a regular basis.
     Last fall, Mr. Switzer provided training to teachers, showing them how to use the video cameras, microphones, and iMovie, the computer software used to edit the projects.
     While some teachers are more computer-savvy than others, Mr. Switzer said, they all are equipped with the knowledge of what it takes to tell a story. “They have all watched film before so they know what it is they want students to do; it is just giving them the tools to do it,” he said.
     Thus far, he said, the program has met with varied success. The biggest obstacle is the demand for time, he said. “One of the huge challenges is that teachers are under tremendous pressure to cover huge amounts of material,” he said. “Teachers would like to do more, but there is so much curriculum they have to cover that I think they haven’t used it to its fullest potential.”
     Oftentimes, he said, teachers will give students the equipment and allow them to do projects on their own. That is how Lilly and Emily created their film.
     Sixth grade teacher Linda Werner said some of her students videotaped and edited a field trip to Highfield Hall during which they viewed artwork from children in Zhigansk, Siberia, which were given to Robert Max Holmes, an ecosystems scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center.
     Melissa M. Beford, a reading teacher at Morse Pond, allowed her students to tape their peers as they presented biography projects in Donna Terra’s fifth-grade class. They then compiled the footage and edited it into a shorter video, she said.
     Despite the new equipment, Dr. Werner said, it is still not enough to give every child enough time to become proficient with it, particularly when it comes to editing.
     Sixth grader Kayla Simpson, 11, hoped that with the new equipment more students will be given an opportunity to use video cameras in the classroom. She said it makes schoolwork more exciting. “It is something to look forward to every day,” she said.
     Mr. Switzer agreed and said that technology such as this can be a great motivator. In addition, he said, it can enhance other parts of the curriculum. “Having cameras can be a powerful tool to get kids to write what they want, so they can produce it in video form,” he said. It helps students improve their use of the English language, both in writing and speaking, he said, and is also a wonderful way to teach students about storytelling, while tapping into their creativity.
     He admitted that there are still bugs to be worked out in the program. This includes getting more children involved, as well as encouraging teachers to be comfortable enough to allow their students to use this equipment as an educational tool.
     He was confident that this will happen, but that it will take time. When the program becomes more established, he said, the entire school will benefit. “The more that I look at the model of good schools, the more I realize that having teachers who have access to cameras is okay, but having someone to teach filmmaking is even better,” he said. “It is very exciting and the potential for it is huge.”