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Being a new doctoral student in Instructional Technology and trained strictly in the sciences, I was inundated with new terminology and ideas about education. Project-based learning was one that had a particular appeal to me. I was fortunate to be able to participate on this project because it gave me experience and a unique perspective about hands on learning. This perspective was formulated in large part thanks to two young girls with whom I worked. They taught me that hands on learning projects have a unique ability to bring out creativity and interest in learning.

From the start these two girls were a cause for concern. During the first couple of sessions when the groups were brain-storming and beginning to plan these two had no interest, focus, or ideas. The others were quick to decide, excited about their ideas, and jumped on the planning. These girls were both stuck before they even started. Both were intelligent—a fact that the teacher brought up when I voiced my concerns. One of the two girls reads at a level higher than the rest of the class and reads avidly. The other girl was shy and quiet. I would characterize both girls as introverted.

Together they lacked imagination, but they eventually had begun decide to do a creative essay. I was cautioned by the project leader that previous creative writing projects lacked the integration of multimedia presentation that HyperStudio enables and were marked down for it in their assessment. Fearing this might be the end result of their slow start and lack of steam, I challenged them to come up with a way to make it creative in an audiovisual way. I had them suggest ways to make it different. They suggested pictures, sound, text, animations, videos, even special effects.

Generally I solved technical problems for the teams and this took a great majority of my time. This left very little time for me to focus on the two girls. I wasn't able to spend time with them while fixing technical problems because they rarely had them. This wasn't because they had better equipment. They simply didn't do very much in the beginning. They made a few cards, wrote some text, and played with the colors of both.

After the break for the holidays, I was able to examine what they had done. They had decided to do some creative writing and poetry about colors. I asked what they thought of their work so far. They said it was boring to which I suggested making it "un-boring." I asked them what the colors sounded like to them. I suggested they find music or create sounds that reflect how the colors made them feel. They also wanted to know if they could add pictures of objects that incorporated the colors they had written about.

They initially started adding pictures of the bean bag animals popular among the girls of this middle school. Between the two of them they had about 30 different animals of multiple colors. They used the video camera to frame and add the graphic to the card. This required some team work as the camera had to be held by one member and the capture button had to be pressed on the computer screen by the other member. It took some trial and error before they were able to coordinate their actions to achieve success, but these two girls that had barely communicated with each other initially were now working well as a team.

Eventually they added sounds from their favorite music. The music was mostly pop and rock, but it did include some instrumentals and classical. They even worked out navigating from the menu to each individual page and back again. They used the colors consistently with the color they were writing about and provided contrasting colors to highlight headings. They asked others how to do things while I was busy with technical problems. Eventually their project took shape.

These two girls that had started with very little excitement were still a little reserved, but they were greatly improved over day one. The computer was not a friendly tool for them though. It took both awhile to get started clicking and creating. To their credit, they learned how to do things generally on their own. They experimented and revised what they didn't like. They even began to excel a little over the others. Certainly they had a better graphical feel for their work and more creativity.

Unfortunately a computer error corrupted their file during an attempt to save their stack and they lost everything. I thought it was all over for them. Both seemed completely heartbroken. Here they had come all the way from disinterested to interested and excited, only to have a computer glitch destroy their work. With only a week left and only three sessions left it seemed impossible that they would finish. They surprised me though. The next time I came back both wanted to see if they could redo their project. With a little bit of assistance and extra time on their part, they rebuilt their cards.

The lesson they both taught me is that when students find an idea they are interested in, it becomes a rewarding activity in which to participate. They turned around their slow start and brushed adversity off to complete that which only 7 weeks earlier they had no interest in what-so-ever. They each placed a piece of themselves into their work and they felt rewarded by their abilities. The project activated their interests, motivated them to learn, and encouraged self expression.

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