OLHMS scores in Otterbox program
Middle school receives 75 iPads, opportunity to be in commercial
When Oak Lawn-Hometown Middle School won the OtterBox Learn Connected Give Back Project, the excitement did not stop with the 75 iPads and cases the company donated.
OtterBox representatives recently flew out to the school to film a commercial featuring students interacting with the new iPads and talking about some of the world-changing projects they have done. OLHMS media specialist Heather McCarthy said OtterBox, a company that makes protective cases for electronic devices, took over for the day in what proved to be an exciting experience for the school.
“They were the nicest people in the world,” she said. “I thought they were like educators themselves the way they interacted with the kids and made everything lighthearted and easy.”
The OtterBox Learn Connected Give Back Project asked schools to submit their stories along with the resource needs they were facing, showing how OtterBox could help. McCarthy said before the competition the school had just three iPads in the media center that served 1,100 children. The few devices were high in demand during lunch or for afterschool STEM projects, she said.
“Now that we have all these iPads, no one needs to wait in line to edit their video,” McCarthy said. “It really enhances everything we’re doing, and we can produce more projects with more resources.”
The company selected just one school it thought made its building, community and world a better place through technology and granted them the aforementioned tech, valued at more than $30,000. McCarthy — who previously had no connection to OtterBox but entered the contest after learning about the project — said she was surprised when the middle school
was selected.
“I always like talking about how amazing my kids are,” McCarthy said. “I know our students are really awesome, but to be the only one chosen, that’s a really good feeling.”
When the OtterBox film crews came to OLHMS, eighth graders Selena Prieto and Zuriely Cabanas showed off a project in which they went back-andforth reading a book in front of a camera as if to an audience. Their videos were included as QR codes in books donated to Hope Children’s Hospital for pediatric patients.
“It was really fun, building it together, talking to the kids through the camera,” Cabanas said.
They both called the experience of making the commercial fun, though Prieto said it was also a little strange.
“It was weird having to do certain things that you wouldn’t normally do,” she said. “They would have us interact with the iPad more than I would actually do it. I just had the video playing and they would have me do stuff on the iPad. Then, it was just weird having the camera in the face, being recorded as you’re doing it. It’s nerve racking, because it’s actual footage going out somewhere. You’re trying not to embarrass yourself.”
Sixth grader Talia Karrar demonstrated how she creates stop motion videos with the iPads and called it “really fun.” Eighth graders Sophia Falcon and Isabel Bello showed how they use iPads for green screen creations, did an interview with OtterBox and filmed actions such as putting the tablets into lockers.
“It was kind of surreal,” Falcon said. “I never thought I would be doing this kind of stuff.”
Denny Acosta, Danny Moore and Josemy Neri-Martinez, all in sixth grade, showed OtterBox the Mustang Studio and podcasting equipment. But they also enjoyed testing the durability of the cases.
Over the course of the day, students demonstrated roughly 100 iPad drops and stunts, repeatedly knocking iPads off tables to show off the durability of the OtterBox cases. The boys said one of their favorite setups was having a ruler under the iPad and staging a conversation. Acosta put his elbow down on the ruler to flip the iPad.
“They were letting us get creative,” Moore said. “It was a lot of fun.”
The commercial itself — something likely to be used on the business end for OtterBox Defender series sales to corporations and schools, rather than a televised commercial — was limited to select students to keep the filming environment controlled. But OtterBox also shot footage of students walking down the hall. It was only their feet, but that was enough to create some excitement for the rest of the school, according to McCarthy.
“Every seventh grade foot has the potential to be in the commercial,” she said with a laugh.
OtterBox also created some good buzz for the school’s library.
“The whole school knew OtterBox was coming because the library had to shut down for production,” McCarthy said. “Any time we can hype it up with other things we’re doing and draw more kids into the library, it’s awesome. Now the kids are like, ‘What else do you have going on in there?’”