Students from CAPE Charter School in Camarillo, California

Student quotes:

• "That a long time from now, probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of years in the future may need to research about our generation which is something I have never really thought about before. There may be people looking back on what is now the future of our society, and without this project, there would be no record of us, and we'd just be dust in the wind."
• "The most important thing that I learned from this project was that people do actually care about what my generation thinks."
• "I didn't know you could find so many primary resources online. I always thought you had to find books and other documents and it was surprising to find a lot of primary sources on the Internet."
• "Before this project, I was under the impression that whatever was posted on the Internet was permanent. But now, I realize that information posted on the Internet is always changing and evolving."
• "I realized just how interconnected the Internet is, when just 40-50 websites can link millions of pages."
• "I find it very interesting that you can look back on old websites and see how technology has progressed. I want to look back on the sites we posted in the future to see how things have changed."
• "I was surprised by the fact that people from next generation will also share the information that I have collected."
• "They're really going to listen to us and let us choose sites to save? We're eight!"

Teacher Quotes:

• "The greatest benefit of the project as I see it has been my students' heightened awareness of the internet as an historical artifact and digital footprints. Before this project, they seem to only have thought of the internet as part of the here and now."
  - Darshell Silva, Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program
• "I like that it allowed them to see and examine their lives and Internet content as history in the making."
  - Emily Patterson, George Washington High School
• "The students gained an understanding of how history is understood through the primary sources that are preserved and therefore the importance of the selection process for what we are digitally preserving. But, I think the biggest gain was their personal investment in preserving their own history for future generations. The students were excited and fully engaged by being a part of the K-12 archiving program and that their choices were being preserved for their own children someday to view."
  - MaryJane Cochrane, Paul VI Catholic High School
• "Before participating in this project, our students looked upon Web sites as being gospel truth and probably had little understanding of the ephemeral nature of online content. Participation in this project has resulted in students having a better understanding of the importance of archived Website for documenting an era."
  - Margaret Lincoln, Lakeview High School
• "The project introduced my students to historical thinking; awareness of digital data as a primary source and documentation of current events and popular culture; and helped foster an appreciation and awareness of libraries and historical archives."
  - Patricia Carlton, Mount Dora High School
• "[The students] were enchanted by the notion that an era would be digitally preserved and they admitted they had never thought of the temporal nature of web sites. It was a realization as they looked at archived sites and then went to sites that have been updated. They had never really thought of the ever changing web as documents lost as they were modified by time."
  - Neme Alperstein, NYC Public School 56 Queens - The Harry Eichler School