Amazing “Having our Say” video from the Friday Institute’s “Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century” initiative:

The goal of this project is to listen to student’s perspectives about school, technologies, and what keeps them academically engaged. We targeted middle-grade students (from sixth, seventh, and eighth grades) in after-school programs across the state. Sixty-three percent of the population received free or reduced-price lunches; eight-five percent scored at or above the state’s average on math and reading. Gaining insights into the perceptions of students enrolled in an after-school program is particularly valuable, since technology studies often target the very highest and lowest achieving students.

Data collection involved surveys from 4000 students and follow-up focus groups from the same population from three geographic areas across the state: mountains, central, and coastal. Results were presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago, IL. To view the research paper, PowerPoint, and the video product reflecting the major themes of the research please click below.

Watch.