Jeffrey Mummert

“Student-Built and Student-Tested Classroom Interactivity” is the winning program developed by Mummert for students in his History and Technology Club at Hershey High School. The club recently completed a two-year project, “Hershey Before Hershey”, and now plans to take the project to another level by introducing multi-touch tables to students, teachers, and the community. Multi-touch tables work as a large computer screen that can be operated by touch, but with the ability for multiple students to use the screen at the same time. Through the use of the tables, which the students will be guided to design and develop, participants will create activities using the documents, artifacts, and research from the Hershey Before Hershey project. The tables will allow the students to transform their classrooms by inserting their own instruction and activities into the system through the use of their fingers and hand gestures. Students will also teach their peers about the maintenance of the tables and how to create new applications for sustainability. Mummert, who lives in New Cumberland, hopes the program will give teachers the opportunity to “borrow” the tables for their individual classes with the ultimate goal of building one table for each of the buildings in the district.