BMS: Student ITL Committee

Meg Tiley, Assistant Principal, and I have been coordinating a student ITL committee for three years at BMS. This group meets before school three times a year with several subcommittee meetings throughout the year. The mission is to increase awareness of the importance of effectively utilizing information and technology at home and in teaching and learning activities at BMS. Currently two groups are focusing on two different initiatives: a call-in information literacy contest held for one week live on BAM (Bedford's TV Station), and a video contest which asks students to creatively focus on the technology that they use at home. The group has an ITL Student Committee Wiki for agendas, and notes. In the wiki each student and teacher is represented by a self-created avatar name and icon.
Meg Tiley said, "Bedford has over 30 students involved in the Student ITL committee. We were able to target those kids with technology interests from their elementary schools and we advertise committee participation school-wide. It has been a wonderful connection between the students and faculty and the needs of our students. Currently, we have one student representative on the faculty BMS ITL committee. As we all know, our students are steps ahead of us with regard to current technology. We have found the student ITL committee to be an invaluable part of the BMS community. Each year, the student ITL committee holds one to two ITL contests to get other students involved in Information and Technology Literacy and what it means to them and to BMS. It is my hope that the committee will continue to grow and that students will feel empowered around some of the decisions regarding technology within the classroom."