I was selected to head the STLP Creative Media Team for the STLP 2023 live event on April 19. So, what does that mean exactly?

What is STLP? The Kentucky Department of Education created the Student Technology Leadership Program over 30 years ago to highlight schools and student work that incorporated technology.  Every year during STLP, schools from across the state come to Lexington to be a part of the all day event. 1000s of students and educators spend the day learning, sharing, and leading in multiple STEM programs.

In the past, I have volunteered as a judge so that my school sponsored teams and students can participate. I’ve judged passion projects in the showcase, web design, Digital Art, and video projects. You name it and I have probably mentored a student through the process and/or judged the category. This year is different because I’ll be leading a team throughout the day and have a little bit more of the behind the scenes access.

What is the Creative Media Team? This is a transition year for the category. So I’ve been trying to think and focus on what would a Student Influencer need to do to cover a live event like STLP2023. Leading up to the Live event, I’ll be preparing social media drops and info cards about the day and event to promote it to outside KY individuals. My hope would be that next year through this process we would have the time in between regionals and state for students that are part of the team to develop a lot of these pieces. Being part of a viral social media campaign is an important skill to promote share live events through digital formats.

During the event, I’ll be working with high school and middle schools students who submitted portfolios of their online work. We will have access to the social media feeds and be posting during the day. Also, I hope to capture videos of Live events and interviews with students from around the state. I’ve also prepared a couple of social media frames for those participating and will be sharing those on mine and the STLP channels during this week.

What do I hope for as an outcome? I really want to have a discussion with students who use these kinds of media avenues to find out what it is that motivates them to engage with an audience. Are they people who want social media overlays and geotaged images to overlay or do they want to generate content on the fly and post live and unfiltered as they go through the event? Students today process, submit, and upload digital media and a vastly different way than when I first started using Twitter and Facebook 15 years ago. And these students should start to think about what theat means for them as creators and consumers. Above all else, I hope the day is both exciting and fun and a different learning experience that they can use for their own digital portfolios in the days ahead.