In late November, Alesia Cameron of Forrestal Elementary in North Chicago asked Lake Forest High School for help on a project involving her kindergarten class.
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The school has a listening center where children can hear recordings of books on cassette tapes.
“It’s kind of archaic,” Cameron said. “It was a hassle to teach the kids with cassettes.”
Steve Douglass, who teaches the New Media class at Lake Forest High School, understood.
“They tangle, they get beat up and they wear out quickly,” Douglass said. “They were breaking.”
The library at Forrestal has Chromebook computers that the five kindergarten classes can use. Cameron originally wanted to record the books on CDs but Douglass took it up a notch, suggesting they record digital files that could be played on the computers.
“We wanted to bring them from the 1980s to the present,” Douglass said.
Cameron initially gave Douglass about 25 books, six of which were in Spanish. Douglass enlisted the help of students in his classes, the Women’s Club and Spanish classes – more than 100 students in total. The students recorded the books and are currently in the process of adding sound effects.
While speaking with Cameron, Douglass found out that Forrestal also had a limited number of headphones.
“That wasn’t even part of the plan,” Cameron said. “We had gotten used to it that we had to share (headphones).”
So the week before winter break, Douglass again approached his Lake Forest students. Among them was senior Bailey Lawrence.
“Each of the classes had a competition,” Lawrence said. “Whichever class raised the most money had the opportunity to go to Forrestal on the day before Christmas break and give the kids the headphones.”
Shure, a manufacturer of audio electronics based in Niles, donated ten headphones. The students also donated and solicited donations from friends and family, raising $560 for another 20 pairs of headphones.
Lawrence and two other students visited Cameron’s class the day before winter break to present the fruits of their efforts. While there, Lawrence also shot video, which she edited during winter break and posted.
The recorded books have a very real use in the kindergarten classroom, allowing students to track the text as they are being read.
“They can associate hearing the words with seeing the words,” Cameron said. “Kids need to be taught that.”
Having the recordings available on computers rather than tapes means the kindergartners can learn at their own pace.
“My vision is that the students will be able to work on their own without teachers need to run over to make sure it’s being used properly,” Cameron said. “Also, its teaching the children a new technology.”
The project is not likely to be a one-time effort.
“When we got (to Forrestal), she gave us a whole backpack of 45 to 50 more (books),” Douglass said, laughing.
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