By KRISTA MARRS

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Memorial Middle School is one of five schools in the nation selected to participate in a program connecting students around the world through video.

Angela Stewart, 11, a sixth-grader at Memorial Middle School, takes some video pictures of her classmates working on a presentation titled "My School, My Community" to be submitted to the iEARN Youth Summit in Slovakia July 11-17.  (Citizen Photos/Kevin Sperl)

MovingVoices is a new program through iEARN, the International Education and Resource Network, allowing students to explore and establish the cultural and educational benefits of creating and sharing original student-made films through the program’s Web site.

At the middle school, students in all three grade levels have been creating answers to the question "What do you want the world to know about your school?" Once they decide what to say, the groups of students develop a business name and create a script and storyboard for what their 2-minute video will look like.

Once completed, the videos will be reviewed and one will be selected to be viewed at the 2004 iEARN International Conference in Slovakia in July.

On Friday, sixth-grade students put the finishing touches on the planning stages for their video while the seventh- and eighth-graders continued to put their ideas down on paper.

Noslen Productions, made up of sixth-grade students Johannah McAlpine, Carrie Farrenkopf, Kelsey Fields, Marissa McKnight, Irma Krupic and Nelson LeClaire, decided to share information about the middle school’s gym program, Principal Tim Rice and of Larry Frates’ integrated arts program.

McAlpine said her group was planning on conducting interviews with Rice and Frates for their video.

The seventh-grade group called Capital One consisted of Matt Schucter, Josh Roberge, Brandon Doucette and Nathan Moss.

"We’re going to ask people their opinion about different things at the school," said Roberge, "kind of like a survey that we’ll make into a video."

The group said it will interview both students and faculty members about what they do and do not like about the school and many other topics.

Aside from the American schools participating in MovingVoices, middle and high schools from 15 other countries, including Morocco, Australia, Japan, Egypt, Malaysia and Spain, are involved.

Integrated Arts teacher Larry Frates shared with his students a video script sent to the middle school from an all girls school in Mansoura, Egypt. The group focused on the history of their school and highlighted information about past students, the design of the building and how many students attend.

Frates said MovingVoices allows for the rigid lines of individual topics — such as reading, writing, communication, geography and video graphics — to be blurred while also allowing students to learn about other cultures in the world.

"The fact that our kids basically live in a rural state and the fact that we were selected, being a smaller school, it’s a great learning experience," said Frates.

The MovingVoices program is supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Victor Company of Japan (JVC) and Apple Computer.