Not every school is fortunate enough to have a sophisticated media lab, but California's San Gabriel High School has such a facility. Thanks to a state 1470 grant, English and Career Education teacher Elizabeth Farris makes good use of it.

When her ninth grade students had worked through a good portion of the Career Choices curriculum (in a year-long class), Farris assigned them to use HyperStudio, an authoring software program from Roger Wagner Co., to make a presentation on something they had learned. Some focused on a career of interest, others chose one of the topics from the text, such as Maslow's triangle, personal profiles, "why people work." To develop their projects, they used CD-ROM's, laser discs, clip art, drawings and scanned pictures, all put together in the media lab. One of the highlights came from several future firefighters who used segments of the movie Backdraft, complete with theme music and sound effects.

Later in the year, when the class was writing their resumes (chapter eleven of Career Choices), Farris reminded students, "You all have computer skills." "We do?" they replied. They'd been so involved, having so much fun, that they didn't realize they were also picking up some very high-tech skills along the way!