Press Release

Bunker Hill Community College Students Win McGraw Hill Video Award

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Four students at Bunker Hill Community College shared a national award in the LearnSmart and Win! student video competition, sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education. The four students, who worked together as a group, are: Guzel Bikyanova, Michael Brendel, Jennah Epstein-Kraus, and Kaina Janvier.

Designed to showcase how digital technology improves and personalizes learning, the national contest challenged students to develop original videos providing details on how they have used adaptive learning technologies in the learning experience.

The students from Bunker Hill Community College won the third-place award, and will share a scholarship of $1,000. Their winning entry was selected from more than 100 submitted videos. and will be featured on several McGraw-Hill websites and social media channels. The panel of judges consisted of professors, business leaders and members of the media covering key issues in technology and education.

BHCC students began using the LearnSmart Technology in the classes of Professor William Hoover, who teaches anatomy and physiology. Hoover describes the LearnSmart technology as a gaming system that requires students to go down the proper pedagogical path in the learning process. He also states that the College is "ahead of the curve" in using LearnSmart's artificial intelligence system: "For two years, BHCC has been using this artificial intelligence in classrooms, whereas four-year colleges are just starting to introduce it," Hoover said. 

The students were assisted in the project by staff from BHCC's Teaching, Learning, and Instructional Technology Center: Don Tracia, Coordinator of the Center, who served as the lead videographer and Mandy Chan, who was the lead editor of the project. 

View the BHCC winning video on YouTube

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About Bunker Hill Community College
Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts, enrolling approximately 18,000 students annually. BHCC has two campuses in Charlestown and Chelsea, and a number of other locations throughout the Greater Boston area. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Sixty-five percent of the students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls nearly 600 international students who come from 94 countries and speak more than 75 languages.