The Palo Alto High School administration will kick off alumni submissions to  Mytonomy, a website where students can upload videos about their experiences with college and career topics, by hosting its first annual Alumni Pizza Party on Jan. 5, 2012, at Paly where it hopes alumnus will take the opportunity to upload short videos.

“The alumni pizza event is just a way to launch the product and to get information out there to our alumni about this,” Assistant Principal Kimberly Diorio said.

Diorio is still unsure of how many alumni will be attending the pizza party, but says the invitations have already been sent out to the past four graduating classes.

“We’ve invited about 1,200 former students back, so even if we get 20, 30, 50 kids, and if we could get 25 to 50 videos uploaded after that event, that would be awesome,” Diorio said.

The Mytonomy website features several videos about college and career subjects, most of which are posted by either high school or college students. It also has  several high schools’ sections, which  feature each schools’ “Most Watched Videos” and “Recently Uploaded Videos”.

Once Paly students and alumni have uploaded several videos, Mytonomy has offered to provide a page specific to Palo Alto High School.

“What we’re hoping to do, once we have videos uploaded to the site, is to then customize the Mytonomy homepage so that there is easier access to some of those informations,”  Diorio said. 

The administration believes that Mytonomy will be very useful for students, for it allows students to hear about advice directly related to them from others with the same experiences at Paly.

“We see a lot of potential for students to be able to have a voice and to be a part of working peer-to-peer in terms of their own experiences and giving some useful information,” Diorio said.

The administration also encourages current Paly students to upload their own three-to-four minute videos to the website.

“For students who want to share, and feel that they’ve learned something about themselves and would like to pass onto other Paly students,” Diorio said. “Current seniors are best equipped to do that [upload videos now], for most of them are in the middle or have just completed the process, but certainly a junior, sophomore or freshman could. It’s an opt-in program, so anybody can. There is no limitation to who can upload.” 

The administration hopes students will take advantage of Mytonomy by watching videos mede by peers.

“I think it is just another great way to get some information,” Diorio said. “To hear from other Paly students who are maybe going through a similar process or have gone through the process of looking at post-secondary options, and also to hear from students who are at different colleges and universities and see what their thoughts are about it.” 

The administration assures that all videos on Mytonomy are appropriate and related to college and career issues.

“The only that they do behind the scenes is to make sure that videos are appropriate,” Diorio said. “There is some quality assurance behind the scenes to make sure the content that is posted is relevant.” 

Mytonomy will be formally publicized to students in January, during juniors’ college and career tours, according to Diorio.

The administration has high hopes for Mytonomy, and believes it will be very helpful for Paly students.

“I just think it’s one of those things that you just need to get started, and then it will become viral and catch on as students start tagging and linking it,” Diorio said. “They will see their friends up there. They will see older brothers and sisters up there. We are just trying to spread the word.”