Art + Social Justice + Technology

I couldn't even think of a single lesson I teach much less consider how I would RAT-ify a lesson to increase student learning and engagement, so I procrastinated and jumped onto Facebook instead. Technology for me is usually about escape and connection. I wish I liked to play with different programs to create; it's something I'm working on. Okay, it's something I'm thinking about working on. Anyway, Facebook. One of my friends in NYC posted this video of poet Daniel J. Watts and Broadway actors, directors, technicians, et al coming together to protest through art the killing of Eric Garner by members of the NYPD:

Spike Lee created a video combining footage of Garner's death with the killing of the character Radio Raheem in Lee's 1989 film, Do the Right Thing (1989).

When we read Antigone and Animal Farm, we spend a lot of time talking about social justice and people (and animals representing people) finding their voices. Last year, my students wrote letters about social justice topics they were passionate about addressed to people who were in positions to make change in terms of rules and laws. Some students wrote to lawmakers about the need for gay marriage to be addressed as a national law rather than by states, others wrote to the security director at the Mall of America about the teen-curfew time, our principal received letters on topics like lengthening passing time and the need for more nutritious food choices in the cafeteria. It went well; students practiced writing for a specific audience and many told me that it felt good to do something. But the audience for those letters was very small, and, thanks to social media, my students are used to very large audiences. So, in addition to the letters (I'm planning to keep them because they will provide a basic foundation of research and argument and because the students will be testing out how to use the same information but changing it to fit the audience and medium.), I would like my students to put together a media art piece that would be presented in class and that they could share on social media. It would be really interesting to hear how their peer groups not in the class would respond to their social justice statements.

Here's what I could use from you: what tools/websites would be helpful in creating these pieces? I think that for some of my students, this would be amplification because they might choose to write a poem and record it as sound or video and share it. I can handle that level of technology and have used VoiceThread and Sound Cloud (Record-a-Poem) before. It's my students who will want to take this to a transformational level - who will want to create mashups or remixes that I could use direction for - 

Thanks! (And thanks to my friend Thomas for posting the video in the first place. Without his sharing, I would be sitting here crying to a blinking cursor.)