What is the point?

After going to the BGC on Monday, reading the most recent blog post on Professor Dolson's blog, and discussing our visit in class, the same question has been hovering around in my mind: what is the point of our visit?

In a most basic sense you could say that the point is to help the students make a digital story. On Monday I met with a girl named Latia who was timid at first but opened up to Fed and I towards the end of the hour. Unfortunately for us (and her), she had yet to do an interview with someone in the community and had not even chosen someone to work with. Because of the lack of information to work with, we ended up watching YouTube videos of her older brother for most of the session. Her brother is a student at VCU and is very interested in the arts. He has a YouTube account and uploads music videos and videos of him singing on a regular basis. Although I did not realize it until class today, her brother would be a perfect candidate for this project. She would be perfectly comfortable interviewing her own brother and already has a ton of admiration for his vocal and dance abilities. Isn't that what this project is about anyways?

This all got me thinking about why we are even visiting the kids at the BCG. Yes, on the surface, the original plan was to help them make a digital story but as of today, we are not doing that anymore (definitely the right decision). Now, our job is to get them to take the notes from their interview and turn it into a script, a video, or in my opinion, any medium through which they can express their opinion. Because..isn't that what all of this is about? It's not about spending 10 hours teaching them how to use Flickr, avoid copyright issues, or edit their voice in Audacity. This project is about establishing a common ground with the kids and helping them understand that they do have an opinion and no matter how they express it, it's worth hearing.