Facing History in New York, in partnership with WNYC Radio’s Radio Rookies program, helps public high school students develop digital storytelling skills through the Neighborhood to Neighborhood project. Each year, students in the program tackle complex questions about identity, race, education, and crime and violence in their communities. Using interviewing skills and multimedia tools, the students produce original visual and audio pieces. This post is the second in a five-part series introducing finished pieces from the Fall 2013 Rookies. Each post includes connection questions you can use in your classroom to discuss the works or to start your own project. This week: two teenage rappers look at the frequent mentions of the drug "Molly" in hip-hop music. Check back next Friday when we look at the rise of “co-located schools”—multiple schools in a single building. Follow along!

Today, Cleveland Facing History students are getting an opportunity to share their truth - whatever it may be - on video as part of a traveling public art display.

I have always been fascinated by the Balkan region of Southern Europe. Comprised of countries including Greece, Albania, Turkey, Romania, and more, and with people of countless religions and languages, the area is rarely studied in-depth in most high schools, and yet provides a rich cultural and historical case study. This year, with support from a Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grant, I set out to develop a multimedia, project-based learning tool for use in schools that explores the history of the Balkans and how this history helps us to understand European culture and identity today.

Facing History in New York, in partnership with WNYC Radio’s Radio Rookies program, helps public high school students develop digital storytelling skills through the Neighborhood to Neighborhood project. Each year, students in the program tackle complex questions about identity, race, education, and crime and violence in their communities. Using interviewing skills and multimedia tools, the students produce original visual and audio pieces. This post is the first in a five-part series introducing finished pieces from the Fall 2013 Rookies. Each post includes connection questions you can use in your classroom to discuss the works or to start your own project. This week: two students from West Brooklyn Community High School look at the unique approach of their school when it comes to student success. Check back next Friday when we hear from two teens who investigate drug references in rap music. Follow along!

Digital Learning Day (February 5, 2014) is an annual day designated to highlight the effective use of technology to improve education for all students. Here at Facing History, and in this blog in particular, we are excited to be in conversation with educators about how technology amplifies, as well as complicates, our notions of identity, history, and community. To this end, we are proud to support educators every day in their thoughtful use of technology in the classroom, and Digital Learning Day is a perfect opportunity to highlight this work.

It’s one thing to talk about trends. It’s another thing to learn about them, to experience them firsthand, and to understand how your own choices and actions can impact what a trend looks like.

No Name Calling Week kicks off today, celebrating kindness while working to create safe schools free of name-calling, bullying, and bias.

Last week, the Gates Foundation blog Impatient Optimists shared a post about educators that use social media as a professional learning network. Author Vicki Phillips, the Gates Foundation's director of College-Ready Education, wrote:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is observed in the United States next week, celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. King and calling people from all walks of life to work together in support of the common good. The day provides an important opportunity for students to study the civil rights movement in the United States and King’s role within it, but it also can – and should – be a moment for young people to reflect on their own civic agency, and to find ways to participate as upstanders in their communities. Here are some new ideas for honoring King using digital media.

How do you stop hate? Over the holidays the formally obscure French word "quenelle" was the third most searched term on Google. Previously known as the term for a particular kind of French dumpling, the quenelle is now more widely associated with a hateful gesture popularized by the antisemitic French comedian and sometimes politician Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala. France 24, a 24 hour news network sponsored by the French government, explains: