Have you heard of Hit Record? It is an online community of people who create videos and other projects, owned by actor and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt. To quote the website “HitRecord is an open-collaborative production company, and this website is where we make things together.”

Mrs. Panagos said, “We use HitRecord in my classes to foster collaboration. It allows my students to see the connection between different types of creative works. For example. My students might submit a poem, and an actor in New York City might recite the poem. A filmmaker might take the audio and use it as the soundtrack for his footage. We may take his video and superimpose an animation on top of it. It’s just fun to work with content creators outside the walls of Bob Jones.”

In February, Sabrina Chen released a video on HitRecord as a part of a project called “Are You There Democracy? – It’s Me, The Internet”. In the video she explains the positive and negative affects of technology on democracy and mass surveillance.

Sabrina competed in an international written/oral debate last year, the topic being whether mass surveillance was a justified method of governmental information gathering. From September 2014 to May 2015, Sabrina and three others from Bob Jones wrote seven ten-page briefs on the subject and exchanged them with teams across the globe. She was on a team that was able to compete at the Global Finals in New York City in May.

She explained, “When I realized the topic for HitRecord project was Democracy and the Internet, I felt compelled to contribute to the global discussion. After spending seven months researching and debating mass surveillance, I was immediately drawn to the project.”

Recently, in March, Joesph Gordon- Levitt released a video about a new project they were starting. In this video he quotes Sabrina and talks about her ideas on mass surveillance as well as stating his own. The editor Rebecca Votta and producer Kelly Bumford got in touch with her and they’ve decided to create a webisode called “That’s What She Said” based on Sabrina’s original video.

HitRecord’s new project, called “The Research Project”,  is where they ask different people and authority figures about truth and reliability of information on the Internet. They are partnering with ACLU in order to have representatives included as well.

“Sabrina is intrinsically motivated to learn, “ Mrs. Panagos said, “ This wasn’t an assignment; it was just a challenge. There was no grade or extra credit tied to it. I wish more students had her innate curiosity and initiative.”