Students sometimes feel like their ideas and opinions are not heard or that they can’t change anything. An NNS service project with high school students from Audubon Technology and Communication Center helped the students express their voice through an innovative video project.
“When you give them the opportunity to share their ideas and their opinions, they start to build that confidence and that feeling of being able to make a change or being able to be part of the world that they live in,” said Amanda Glunz, a teacher at the school, at 3300 S. 39th St.
A few years ago, as part of its focus on community partnerships, technology, college and career opportunities, the MPS school developed a video technology and production class for high schoolers in response to student interest.
This past spring, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reporters and members of NNS Connects supported students in Glunz’s two video classes in creating video projects that showed their perspective on a topic related to their lives or community.
To celebrate their growth and accomplishments, the students presented their videos on the school’s auditorium screen in June to other students, staff and NNS.
How did we do it?
NNS’ full newsroom visited the class at the end of the first semester and led a workshop where small groups came up with video ideas for Community Voices, a format NNS uses to share opinions or reflections on current issues.
Students interested in working with NNS for a spring project met with our team every few weeks as they researched, wrote their scripts and began to film.
NNS Connects Project Manager Bevin Christie, Community Ambassadors Delicia Morris and Mariela Fonseca Ruiz, myself and rotating members of the news team coached the teens on time management, critical thinking, localizing their ideas and shaping them for a specific community or audience.
Video project
The students came up with a range of interesting ideas and formats, from exploring immigrant stories and researching stereotypes to creating a public service announcement about missing children and Amber Alerts in Wisconsin.
“My video was basically inspired by the Women’s Rights Movement, but everything that I read or researched about it brought me back to, like, the different stereotypes going on,” said then junior Jesmarie Delgado when introducing her video on perspectives on beauty.
Many chose topics related to the MPS Media Arts Showcase theme of “Making History.” One group planned elaborate skits on the anti-corporation nature of historical sea pirates and modern digital piracy, while another produced an informational video on German Catholic Father Ambrose Oschwald founding the town of St. Nazianz, Wisconsin.
Sophomore Elianys Ramirez wanted to cover how former gang members incarcerated at young ages recover from trauma and help others, a difficult task.
After Morris helped her prepare, she stepped out of her comfort zone to interview Sylvester Jackson, CEO and co-founder of the local re-entry organization Believers for Change.
In “Why Don’t You Get Me?”, Vy Duong and Nat Alvarado Martin raised awareness about a generational divide between parents and teens when thinking about mental health.
Junior Nay Oo’s video talked about the Myanmar/Burmese Civil War displacing and disrupting the lives of many Rohingya people.
“We tend to focus on big issues; however, we don’t focus on the little issues, like people’s lives,” Oo said during his introduction. “And I chose people’s lives in a war because those aren’t talked about enough.”
What did we learn?
Of course, not everything went as planned. As we worked, we realized we could have started the project with more video training and clearer guidelines on how to break the project up into sections so that students had an easier time staying on track.
“We need to double-check with them to make sure that they have access to the things they need to complete their vision,” Christie said.
Glunz said the process helped students build confidence in problem-solving and trying things they did not think they could accomplish.
“I think that they learned that there’s a system of support for them to take risks like that,” Glunz said.
Receiving mentorship and advice from people within the media field on skills like scriptwriting, recording, audio and video editing, interviewing and researching made the experience feel more real for the students, Glunz said.
“They felt a different type of agency and pride in the work that they were producing,” she said.
Learn more
Audubon students who created video projects during the 2025-26 school year included Nay Oo, Jesmarie Delgado, Anjeli Jimenez, Natalie Ramirez, Yillenne Dominguez, Walter Jones, Ignacio Talamantes, Elianys Ramirez, Davin Dacio, Jaida Campbell, Joshua Sengsourisack, Melody Torres, Genevieve Piaskoski, Vy (Sophia) Duong, Nat Alvarado Martin, Declan Harry and Esmeralda Sanchez.
Check out their videos here. Some videos have not been posted publicly due to the sensitive nature of their subject matter.
NNS’ editorial policies do not apply to this content produced for educational purposes. Though we helped students with fact-checking and editing, students were responsible for producing and making changes.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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