Through a New Partnership, Facing History and Ourselves Brings Digital Storytelling into Boston Classrooms

Facing History and Ourselves has announced a new major initiative designed to integrate digital storytelling into classrooms throughout the Boston Public Schools (BPS). Part of a national partnership with the Pearson Foundation's Digital Arts Alliance, this new initiative will offer six Boston Public Schools an extensive series of professional development workshops and in-school technology residencies focusing on the creation of digital projects based upon Facing History resources and classroom strategies.

The six schools selected submitted proposals last Spring outlining their technology and content goals. These schools are the Boston Arts Academy, Fenway High School, International High School, Media and Communication High School, Greater Egelston Community High School, and East Boston High School. Each participating school will receive a mobile computing lab, provided through the Digital Arts Alliance partnership and Fujistu Corporation, as well as a series of workshops for teachers, and in-school residencies for students. These workshops and residences will be led by staff from the Digital Arts Alliance, in partnership with Facing History staff, and will focus on planning, creating and assessing digital stories. These programs will take place during the Fall of 2007 and Spring of 2008, and will provide BPS students with an unparalleled opportunity to learn a new set of 21st century skills while also deepening their understanding of history and themselves.

The Digital Arts Alliance, created and supported by the Pearson Foundation, is a national consortium of software companies and educational non-profit organizations. The Digital Arts Alliance delivers innovative educational experiences directly to students and their teachers, providing fully funded and fully equipped digital arts programs to middle schools, high schools, and community centers across the United States. These programs help participants develop essential skills they will need as they apply what they know to collaborative, team-based projects that will help shape their futures.

Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives.