Grant for Innovation
Project Identity will give students a chance to tell their personal stories using innovative learning technologies. As students explore their own identities, cultures, interests and passions, they can also connect to the identities of their peers and gain a variety of perspectives.
Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, in cooperation with six of its component districts, has won a Learning Technologies Grant through the New York State Education Department to develop and implement this innovative project.
Project Identity aims to teach students the civic mindsets necessary for college, career, citizenship and life.
Creating Project Identity
Led by FEH BOCES, the grant consortium is comprised of six of the nine school districts in the FEH BOCES area: Brushton-Moira, Chateaugay, Malone, Salmon River, St. Regis Falls and Tupper Lake. In this rural region, an average of nearly 2/3 of students are classified as economically disadvantaged and 17.5% are classified as students with disabilities.
Phase 1: Professional Development
From those six districts, 60 teachers and leaders representing a cross-section of grade levels and content areas will participate in collaborative professional development exercises. Through this training, they will explore personalized learning, and how to adapt the classroom to and celebrate students' cultures and language identities.
Phase 2: Implementing with Students
Then those teachers will work with their students to create their own Project Identity using a variety of learning technologies to communicate their story. Students will discover a range of technological avenues for digital storytelling while developing social, emotional and cultural competency skills.
Phase 3: Sharing a Toolkit
Through creating and carrying out the project, educators hope to build a bank of ready-to-use Project Identity resources that teachers throughout the state can use to replicate Project Identity in their own learning environments.