Storrs, CT — When middle school science teacher Jon Hand got his first eMac, things really started popping. In fact, one of the first digital videos he produced with iMovie showed students demonstrating the (explosive) results of collecting hydrogen gas in balloons. Since then, four of Hand’s students have earned multiple awards for the iMovie they created — Grass Born to be Stepped On: Women’s Rights in China — for Connecticut’s annual History Day competition. And, thanks to the students’ production skills, Hand and Mansfield recently won first prize in Apple’s iLife Educator Awards.

In the past, Mansfield Middle School students worked on a combination of Mac and PC systems. Recently, however, the district had switched entirely to PCs, hoping to reduce IT costs by maintaining a single-platform environment. But Hand (who is the Mansfield district’s 2003 Teacher of the Year) had been a Mac advocate since 1987. He was convinced that teaching students to use multimedia technology tools would be more effective on the Mac platform. At the same time, he didn’t believe that a PC-only platform would actually shrink his district’s technology expenditures.

“I said, ‘Kids need to be making digital videos and using multimedia, but they can’t do that easily on a PC,’” Hand recalls. “I’ve often said that presentation software certainly has its place in the classroom, but it’s not multimedia. A couple of years ago I’d been drooling over one of the iMac DV computers ... so last year I started sending emails to the district saying, ‘Please buy me a new eMac!’”

Award Winnings Fund First Mac
Hand previously had been named a state finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science. Armed with his $700 winnings (as well as some additional dollars from Mansfield’s parent association), he purchased a brand new eMac and a Canon ZR-40 digital camcorder.

Jon Hand’s students in their award-winning video.

	Challenges Teach middle school students multimedia technology skills Assist students in production of video projects Shift from analog to digital video editing Solution One eMac computer, iLife application suite Canon ZR-40 digital camcorder Benefits Mac platform is ideal for multimedia instruction Video project was retooled and edited in three days Project has won numerous state and national awards

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In almost no time, hydrogen gas-filled balloons were exploding in his science classes, and students “were absolutely loving” the process of making digital videos using iMovie, he says. One particular four-girl filmmaking team was so impressed with the videos that they approached Hand with a very special request.

Says Hand, “The four girls told me they’d been trying to do a video for their History Day project. They’d been using an analog (tape-to-tape) system, and it was really hampering their work. But when they started working on the eMac, they saw that it completely enhanced the creative process and made it better. They got very excited about the eMac’s capabilities, very quickly.”