A student in a 100cameras program Photo: K. Johnson via 100cameras
Distance Learning with VOW: Keeping Students Engaged through Oral History
When most schools closed in March 2020, the Voice of Witness team and the teachers in our network assumed it would only be a short time before we would see our students in person again. As the weeks went on, we quickly realized the need to pivot to distance learning and adapted our materials, methodology, and support for the virtual classroom. We created a summer packet for students to independently engage in oral history and photography at different levels, and we hosted a variety of free webinars accessible to the public. We continued our ongoing work with school districts, teachers, communities, and other organizations, and we transitioned our projects to online platforms. At James Lick Middle School in San Francisco, we worked with Veronica Galante (one of our 2019–2020 Germanacos Fellows) and her AVID Excel students, who created an oral history cookbook with VOW’s support in 2019. This year, we wanted to meet students where they were and created a class website that they populated with their own experiences about life during the pandemic. The students worked in pairs, asking each other questions, reading and editing each other’s responses, and sharing their narratives together.
Text: Erin Vong, Education Specialist & Program Coordinator at Voice of Witness VOICE OF WITNESS
Amplifying & Centering Marginalized Voices
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