The idea of School News takes the morning announcements to a new level! In this time of standards based instruction, where students are asked to produce more real world products for assessment, this idea is very appropriate and exciting. Talk about getting students actively engaged! The Pleasant Grove Elementary School’s (which is in the same district as my school, but much newer) Kid News Network is an exemplary program. After viewing the page I was in awe of how student centered this project seemed to be. Students were involved in all aspects of creating the news program and the production process was very cross-curricular. Additionally, the production process promotes working cooperatively. Students had to work together to create a successful news program. This type of project also works to increase the integration of technology use in schools. This project takes this a step further and allows students to see the how technology is used to produce something that resembles a product in the real world “a new cast”. The process of creating this project for their peers allows students to have an authentic audience. Students work better when they realize their work will be shard with a real audience.
Although we don’t participate in this type activity at my school, my media specialist stated that she had been apart of school news broadcast at her prior school. When talking to her, she stated that the students really enjoyed and actually looked forward to the weekly broadcast. The music teacher worked with her to help the student produce the board cast. Some key points that she mentioned for an elementary news cast (but could be applied to middle/high) were:
• To keep the format simple and easy to follow
• Make the news stories relevant and interesting for all grade levels
• Invite other staff members to contribute to the process
• Plan and organize
• Make sure to describe all roles for students prior to starting the process
• Start simple and slowly and added to the program
An elementary school near us does do a live daily newscast. I was able to email the media specialist and she was happy to respond to my questions. She stated that she and the SAGE teacher coordinate the newscast. The format includes the pledge, lunch menu, weather, announcements, behavior pledge, and special announcements for certain events like Red Ribbon Week. The principal or assistant principal will do daily announcements on the newscast. Students interview for the positions on the crew and as anchors. Teacher may submit names of students for special event announcements. Teachers also write and submit special announcements like for Children’s Music Month. The crews rotate over a grading period with different students interviewing for positions. These students must display good behavior and maintain good grades. Because this is a K-3 primary school third graders are selected for the crew but students from the other grades can be selected to do special announcements.
While I don’t think our school is ready to take the morning announcements to the level of Pleasant Grove Elementary. Exploring their site and hearing about what's going on at the near-by school does encourage me to “start simple” and encourage my media specialist, teachers and administrators to allow our students to start with small things like taping students doing specials announcements and airing them over the closed circuit TV unit. I think it would be engaging and allow students to use some critical thinking skills. I might even encourage some students to look at broadcasting and production as a career choice!
Friday, October 30, 2009
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I agree that if your school does not have a school news program that you need to start out "simple". My school does have a school news program that has been established for several years. Next year I would like to like to add a few things to make the broadcast look more "real". In my opinion ours is to "blah" right now. It needs a new "look". Maybe next year I will be able to give the school news a "makeover".
ReplyDeleteYour school’s news broadcast is similar to the one where I do my field experience. The broadcast “includes the pledge, lunch menu, weather, announcements, behavior pledge, and special announcements for certain events.” I really think the special events announcements are what make many of the broadcasts.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, sometimes the broadcasts are the special events themselves!
What I mean is, sometimes on TNN, which is Atkinson’s Tiger News Network; part of the broadcast isn’t an announcement or a reminder, but an activity that can relate to standards. For example, during the month of April – National Poetry Month – a segment on TNN is dedicated to poetry. Students will read poems aloud on the broadcast, and a “mystery reader” will read a poem on the air, but without being seen by the cameras. For one week of the month, students can guess who the mystery reader is each day, and any students who have the right answer every day that week get a prize. During that particular week, the mystery reader is someone on the school staff; a voice the students would be familiar with and be able to guess. For the other weeks during the month, mystery readers have been the city mayor, a school board member, a columnist from our local paper, grandmothers, local authors, fire fighters, and various other community members. The students love it when someone they know comes and reads. This person is usually revealed at the end of the broadcast and the students don’t have to guess.
Last year, the TNN broadcast was part of the “Elf on the Shelf” game that the whole school played in December. Clues were revealed during the broadcast, but the elf wasn’t shown. However, the elf would be secretly filmed and his location that day would be revealed on the next day’s broadcast. So students could sometimes track his progress and try to guess where he would be next.
The media specialist is very good at getting the entire school involved in the news. She invites students who have scored well on Accelerated Reader for the month to be recognized on air, and has the Academic Bowl team on the broadcast every time they win a meet.
Every March, she also has a March Madness competition in the media center. Classes for each grade compete in question and answer games that help prepare them for the CRCT. The classes in each grade compete against each other to see who can score the most points, and the media specialist keeps track of these and has the TNN team announce the leaders once a week on the broadcast. There is some fierce competition between classes, so this is always a highly anticipated announcement.
All in all, the media specialist says she tries to get as many students on the school news as she can. Of course, they can’t all be on the news team; students have to audition and commit to that. But TNN is a big deal to the students, and she wants to make as many of them as possible feel special and important. Because to her, they all are!
I agree tha the elementary school that was viewed was exemplary and makes one very motivated to develop a new plan for broadcasting. It is just different for highschools because the broadcasting team is an actual class and they have other requirements that seems to take over and they spend little time on the announcements. I have to say ours really is not cross curricular. OUr broadcasting team does a lot, like sports events, yearbook stuff, peprally audio, weekly broadcasts, technical and audio sets for drama; however,because all of those things take up so much time, the daily announcements lack in creativity and use of technology. I would love to re-vamp the whole idea of daily announcements and have my own team as a media specialists, but seeingas I am still a classroom teacher, there is not much I can do. I can't wait to one day get the opportunity!
ReplyDeleteThe news broadcast you describe is very simialr to ours. The students list the upcoming events at our school as well as the feeder high school. They also add the college games as well as the professional games that are being played during that week. It gives the students a sense of community when they add the information about happenings outside of our school. They also include the weather, a book review, and interviews with students in the school. In doing so, the students that are able to show the younger students what they have to look forward to when they reach Fourth Grade.
ReplyDeleteAs I read all of the posts I really can see where the school that I am a part of is really lacking in the area of technology. We do not have a school broadcast, only morning announcments on the intercom. We do not have closed circuit TV so broadcasting would be a problem. Our media specialist is new and maybe one day she will see that something like a live broadcast would be great. At our school now the principal and two different students each day handle the announcements. I work in a PreK-2 grade school so our children are young and I am not sure how this would work, but I think that it could in a simple way. Not all the elaborate ways that others have shown.
ReplyDelete