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District spotlight: Bakersfield City School District

/ Kristen Sato

“WeVideo gives our students an opportunity to really make meaning and communicate that meaning to others in a way that leverages everything about them,” says Rayshell Fambrough, Educational Technology Specialist at Bakersfield City School District. As California’s largest K-8 school district, Bakersfield City School District adopted WeVideo for Schools for all 31,500 students.

The WeVideo Education team took a trip to Bakersfield to see firsthand how students are using WeVideo in the classroom. There, the team sat down with Rayshell Fambrough to learn more about WeVideo’s impact on student creativity, collaboration and academic success.

What is your role at Bakersfield City School District?

As an educational technology specialist, I support 43 schools, and within those schools are pockets of excellence. And those pockets of excellence are really leveraging technology to transform their learning spaces.

Tell us why you chose WeVideo for your schools.

A key feature was the connection to Google everything. The fact that our students can navigate to and save projects to Google Drive rather easily and the integration with Google Classroom was the catalyst for that choice.

What changes have you seen in your teachers and students with the use of WeVideo in the classrooms?

The changes I’ve seen in students since they started using WeVideo is an excitement - there’s more engagement when they’re producing and creating something that demonstrates what they know and what they’ve learned. Traditionally, students who might not be engaged with reading and writing where words get in the way…get them in front of a device and they flourish. They have an opportunity to have choice and voice and to communicate and to do so successfully. In a traditional academic setting, they might struggle. In front of a device utilizing WeVideo, all of a sudden they’re the leader… they’re the producer… they’re guiding other people and they’re creating something that’s meaningful to them and to their potential audience.

Why should districts implement WeVideo or any type of video editing software?

I think the global economy is a key factor. Our students are going to live in a world where technology can do what a secretary did 20 years ago. According to the World Economic Forum, there’s going to be 75 million jobs that will be obsolete in the next 10 years and roughly 130 million new jobs that will take their place.

For students to work and succeed in this dynamic environment, they need to be able to leverage all media. This includes when they walk in a supermarket, or Target, or whatever it may be, they’ll probably see a two-year-old leveraging a tablet to access multimedia. So if we want to give our students the power to communicate in an age where two-year-olds became influencers due to media access, then we have to give them access to video editing software.
It really is a literacy that we need to build into our students so they have the power and agency now and when they become adults.

How can WeVideo impact your classroom, school or district? Learn more about WeVideo for Schools on Chromebooks.