TUALATIN, Oregon—"Quiet on the set!" That's the cue—and a regular classroom command in Steve Meagher's fifth-grade math class, where students are writing and shooting movies about math and measurement. As the set goes silent, the director tells her student partner "Roll video!" and a hamster and a mouse become the stars of the production about what an ounce is.

In order to meet Oregon's fifth-grade learning benchmark for understanding standard and metric measurements, Meagher encourages his students to create video stories and present them to peers. "Technology is the hook to keep students focused on the concepts," he says. "Once the ideas are on video, the students tend to watch them over and over, reinforcing the concepts."

Students drive the creation process. First, they sort standard and metric units of measurement into related groups by volume, length, and weight. Students then divide into "film crews" of four, and begin to shape the subject storyline about concepts they need to demonstrate, such as the number of inches in a foot and the number of feet in a yard. Next, each crew writes a script—and the funnier, the better.

"This process moves math into the language arts, speech and writing curricula, as well as into the technology curriculum," Meagher relates. "There's an incredible amount of discussion, writing, group problem-solving, and acting behind each film." In order to pull the project off, Meagher's school provides a videocamera. Meagher also provides his own videocamera, as well as his own video editing computer and editing software. Nearby are another 10 computers for general use, networked to each other and to the Internet.

With approved scripts in hand, the groups begin filming their ideas. Scenes can get hilarious. While working on an 'ounce' film, one crew brought in a hamster and a mouse. The discussion moved toward showing what a pound is, and what animal would be appropriate to use. The crew began discussing mice and cats—and kicked around the idea of showing that "A one-ounce mouse in an eight-pound cat makes an eight-pound, one-ounce cat!"

Meagher successfully steered the team into a more pet-friendly direction.

When scenes are complete, students download footage files into Meagher's editing computer using video transfer software, then edit their works using sophisticated studio editing software. In the process, they select sound effects and create voiceovers, and synch them to their stories.

When scenes are complete, students download footage files into Meagher's editing computer using video transfer software, then edit their works using sophisticated studio editing software. In the process, they select sound effects and create voiceovers, and synch them to their stories.

With all the stories "in the can," it's showtime. Meagher arranges a movie festival and invites the parents. Each crew shows their self-created production, every one of them a hit.

"It's fun, hands-on learning," reports Meagher. "By having to organize the math concepts into teachable units, the students break the ideas into related topics. Then they work over and over with these basic relationships as they prepare to teach the idea."

Meagher sees improvement in the learning exercise each time. "Next year's class will be given the task of doing an even better movie," he says. "Watching the old and making the new just adds a higher level of reinforcement."