Technology Meets Tradition

Walking into ACS auditorium on Thursday, December 19, 2013 provided any visitor with a feeling that they were in a hall filled with excitement, and it was! The Classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 were busy playing the roles of travel agents. The rest of the students from ACS, led by their teachers, walked around learning about what it might be like to visit various countries at Christmas time.

While it has been a tradition for ACS middle school students to research Christmas customs; there was a big twist in how presentations took place. In addition to regular presentations using traditional posters, this year animotos and glogsters were added to presentations. Glogsters.com is a form of technology in which an on line poster is created to view and in this case, to accompany the traditional poster. Animotos are 30 second videos created by the students to give a commercial feel to their presentations.

The culminating activity was a luncheon that gave everyone the chance to try holiday foods from places like Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Italy, and Jamaica. By the end of the afternoon our travel agents were tired, happy, and full from all of the delicious foods they had eaten after a morning of marketing their countries to teachers and students.