Bellaire High School students and staff are sharing their personal insights regarding the district’s PowerUp technology initiative in a new, student-produced video.  Molly Oretsky, Iceland Vu, and Anthea Wilson, who work on Bellaire’s student newspaper and website, Three Penny Press, filmed the recent distribution of student laptops on their campus and interviewed students and staff on how the devices are changing classroom instruction.

Bellaire is one of 11 high schools in phase one of PowerUp, which eventually will give every HISD high school student a laptop to use at school and at home.

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/89935275 width=”600px” height=”330px”]

“I am really excited about PowerUp,” says Bellaire teacher Kay Kubena, who was named the 2013 HISD secondary teacher of the year. “I practiced using different tools and applications with my students for the entire semester before (we got the laptops), and I think they are just as excited as I am about all the different possibilities they bring.”

AP Government teacher Theresa Herrin says that she is excited about all the personal research her students will now be able to do at home. “They can take the classroom concepts that they have learned and need for the AP exam and apply those with real world information,” she says in the video.

Bellaire students are also complimentary about the new devices. Video narrator and writer Anthe Wilson says that in general, “There has been a positive reaction to the new computers and “it looks like this is just the beginning of many successful advancements in the classroom to come.”

Phase one of HISD’s PowerUp program has put close to 18,000 computers in the hands of students. The second phase of the program will provide laptops to 18 more campuses, and all HISD high school students will have use of laptops by 2016 through PowerUp. For more information, go to houstonisd.org/powerup.