Progreso High Students Learn and Employ Useful Technical Skills
Monday, November 2, 2009

The productivity of the Business Image Management and Multimedia class at Progreso High School is astounding. In the first semester, the 16 students taught by Career and Technical Education teacher Manuel Montemayor created a school website, progresohigh.com, complete with interviews with teachers and administrators, and spotlights on departments, sports and clubs. Each student was responsible for gathering information for a segment and putting it together using Dreamweaver software.

While many of the students in BIMM don’t intend to go into business, the teens are realizing that the skills acquired in the course will be highly useful both in college and the workforce.

Not only did the Progreso Tech Prep students learn web design through the hands-on project, they had the celebrity of creating the school’s first web site.

A recently installed counter registered over 540 hits in two weeks on the art department page. In addition to the homepage’s standard widgets of calendar, clock and local weather, the website also includes a translator and links to the student handbook and homework helpers.

Hector Medina

Senior Hector Medina mastered html codes, the computer language used to layout graphics and text on a webpage. He was my guru when it came to problems,” Montemayor said.


Ailed Garcia and Mr. Montemayor


Ailed Garcia, a senior, had the assignment of interviewing principals and administrators. “I had a hard time getting to see them, so I sent emails and faxes with questions,” she explained.

The website project gave the students confidence, according to Montemayor. At the same time, they found out first hand the importance of persistence, meeting deadlines as part of a group, and adapting to circumstances. “You get the job done no matter what it takes.”

But the website only occupied the first six weeks. The BIMM students then tackled video production. Each was responsible for producing a three to four minute video. The students learned to use Photo Story, a free Microsoft program, to edit photographs into a sequence that included transitions, quality images, and music. Montemayor’s BCIS students judged the entries. Prizes, including movie passes, backpacks, and fast food vouchers donated by local businesses were awarded to the first, second and third place videos.


Jocelyn Cantu and Mr. Montemayor


“We got to pick our own topic,” says Jocelyn Cantu. The powerful images she selected of African refugee camps for her video “World Hunger” brought her the first prize.


“Its fun stuff,” admitted Gilbert Garcia, who intends to study marketing at Texas A&M. He enjoyed the complexity of putting together the school website, he admitted. The skills he’s learning in BIMM will be useful in achieving his long-term goal: expanding his family’s Tacolandia restaurant across Texas. “My dad started the restaurant from scratch. I want to make it bigger and have more people know about it.”

Ailed enrolled in BIMM seeking a fun technology course and has now produced a video of her family. She has accepted that you make mistakes as you learn something new: you just go on from there.

Now the BIMM class is learning new skills as the students tackle the next project: a multi-media power point presentation complete with video.


Sandra Llanas



Students, Deborah Hernandez and Salvador Martinez