I had a difficult time scheduling a meeting with our VERY BUSY media specialist, but I was able to squeeze in an interview with her somewhere between when she was making lesson plans, collaborating with teachers, teaching students, shelving books, doing book orders, making a technology training aid, and various other tasks. When I finally got a chance to sit down and talk to ME this is what I discovered...
We don't do TV News, we did about five years ago and the equipment was torn up and deemed unrepairable. The media specialist that launched the TV News left shortly after the equipment became unusable (but that was not the reason she left). The media specialist that followed did not repair or replace the equipment due to the expense, small budget, and her discomfort with the technology. When we did do the tv broadcast, students presented the news and operated the cameras. They were chosen based on their application, teacher recommendation, and personality. The broadcast started out well, and then , because of lack of supervision, declined.
Presently, we have announcements each morning. The announcements are presented by one of the physical education teachers. He or She welcomes students, we recite the Pledge of Allegience, and have a moment of quiet reflection. The lunch menu is given, birthdays are announced, and updates or other things are briefly covered. The announcements last about 5 minutes. Basically, it is the same person all year who does the announcements, unless the usual speaker is absent. I would eventually like to hanle morning announcements. I would like to involve students in the delivery. We do not have "channel 1." We do have two closed circuit channels available so that videos/dvds cna be shown in all rooms at once. This is generally used when a grade level is showing a video/dvd that correlates with a standard or theme that is being taught. It is used to show book fair videos around book fair time.
Lastly, a great number of our teachers use United Streaming in their classrooms. The teachers use the videos during and after lessons to help teach the standards or to aid in instruction. All of our classrooms have ActivBoards (similar to SmartBoards) in the classroom which is great when showing the videos to the entire class at once.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Your vision of involving the students for morning announcements will not only impact their lives and learning but also will impact the growth of a school community. I'm glad to hear that you are considering taking on this responsibility. Using only audio to engage students has a lot of potential. As you've seen, the tendency is to just do the announcements and be done with it. I wish you well as you consider impacting the school environment in this way.
Hey Jill!
Your willingness to begin a newscast is great! I noticed you asked me how we chose students for my school newscast. At the end of the school year last year, I asked teachers for recommendations of students who would be good for the newscast. I contacted the parents and got permission from them. I called them in July and had them come to the school and we filmed for the first week of school. I have to be honest, it was very hectic at the beginning of the school year. Now that we have down our routine, we can film three days in 20 minutes. We do basic things on the news. We do a pledge, then lunch choices, they wear chef hats and aprons. Then we do a trivia question in the form of Are you Smarter Than a Fifth grader. We do announcements of upcoming events and then a mission statement. Our programs are only three to five minutes long. We are adding eight more students to our newscasts after Thanksgiving. We had teachers recommend two students from each class, then those students had to write an essay. Then we chose 12 of those to interview and do a newscast in front of us. We will add fourth graders at the end of the year to take over next year. I love doing the newscast. I will be glad to email you one of our newscast so you can get an idea of what we do. Good Luck and if you need anything, let me know.
Good luck to you in your endeavors to include more students in the anouncements or future newscasts. Your students will truly enjoy the experience and benefit greatly from it whether they are in front of or behind the camera.
My youngest son is an anchor at his school for the news broadcast. It is cute to see how important it makes him feel (actually me to, it was an honor as they had to interview and try-out for this part. For this reason I think that the news broadcast builds self-esteem in students when they see that they can really produce something great. It is a shame that this seems to be falling by the wayside in all the blogs I am reading.
Honestly, I feel that school news broadcasts should not be the responsibility of the LMS, especially in elementary schools where they is only one MS. He/she has far too many responsibilities, and someone should be able to really devote time to this program. At the schools where I have seen successful broadcast programs, there is a teacher who teaches it as a class, who has time to focus on honing and perfecting broadcast skills and putting something out there that is relevant and fine-tuned. An LMS likely does not have the time necessary to work with students to produce such a product.
After reading several of the blogs it seems that this is the first blog that does not involve the students in the video production. And to think they see and hear the same voice throughout the school year. What about the excitement and fun for the students here. This reminds me of my highschool announcements. The principal, assistant principal or the counselor would read the announcements and the only inflection in their voice was the announcement for the football game on Friday night! Honestly, the majority of the students would engage in small talk during the announcements or complete homework. I commend you for considering the position and good luck!
Post a Comment