3M Donation Makes Class Presentations Less Painful

Giving class presentations became a little less excruciating for one group students, thanks to a donation from 3M of handheld projector video cameras.

Rather than talking in front of 35 fellow students about their research on a particular career, the students in business teacher Lori Raebel’s class got to present to a smaller group of five to six peers, and record themselves so that Raebel could review it after class.

Raebel was the first teacher at Tartan to use the new cameras, which were delivered to the schools earlier this year. Without them, the students likely would have missed out on the experience of presenting, she said, because live presentations before the class would have eaten up six class periods.

“It allowed them to still have the same experience of presentation without taking six class periods of time, which I couldn’t afford to do,” she said.

The new technology also added a “cool factor,” she said.

Students Jerry Jubran, Mikayla Miller and Lydia Anderson said they hope to use the cameras in other classes.

“I thought it was nicer because you were only speaking in front of a few people and not the whole class,” Anderson said.

Jubran and Miller said the project made them want to job shadow or do more to explore their chosen career fields—general practice medicine, and surgery respectively. Anderson said seeing the outlook for her chosen field—architecture—made her think twice about whether she wants to pursue it.

Raebel said sharing what they're learning with other students is a key part of career planning in the early stages.

“It’s extremely important that they talk about it, they start to share about it,” she said. “Otherwise, it all sits as plans in their heads and nothing becomes action.”

3M donated 200 of the Shoot ‘n’ Share camcorder projectors to the school district, with a total value of about $60,000, earlier this year said curriculum coordinator Sharon Burrell.