School News Programs
When searching for school distribution services I discovered
there are a large number of companies targeting this feature in schools. The ability to share information via video
often seems to fall on the media specialist in schools. Therefore, it is important to be aware of
current capability and options. Since
most media specialists are not experts in this area, it will be important to
consult the technology department in the district. They can provide the information needed and
guide decisions for best outcome.
Good websites that offer video distribution services:
http://www.z-band.com/markets/education/
http://www.central-inc.com/index.php/products-and-services/video-distribution-systems
http://www.ket.org/education/schoolcoordinator.htm
http://vbrick.com/products#
http://www.central-inc.com/index.php/products-and-services/video-distribution-systems
http://www.ket.org/education/schoolcoordinator.htm
http://vbrick.com/products#
According to Joshua Bolkan of The Journal, “Schools are using digital video production in their
efforts to foster 21st century skills in their students. Administrators are
finding that these programs can also reach out to disconnected students and
strengthen school community, with kids as young as 5 years old contributing.” (2011) These news programs do more than simply share
school news. Administrators report that student
digital news programs can help meet state targets in various areas. In many areas, news programs exist to replace
assemblies and protect precious instructional time.
Anh Ngyuen-Johnson noted that she felt her program was
especially beneficial when students were separated into groups that focused on
the different areas of the video production.
Students could choose the area they had the most connection to which
caused their participation to rise. Some
schools try to recruit students who are in the most need of such interaction
and positivity for key roles.
An excellent example of a school news program can be found
at:
While some schools create their own news programs, other
rely on the news provided by outside organizations. Some popular shows include:
Channel One – created with the goal to “encourage young
people to be informed global citizens”
CNN Student News – “a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program designed for middle and high school classes”
CNN Student News – “a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program designed for middle and high school classes”
Georgia offers the Georgia Public Broadcasting program,
which allows teachers to show recorded programs to students. There is a separate video area that has a
search option. Additionally, there is an
area within the video section that is purely devoted to education:
REFERENCE
Joshua, B. (2011, January 1). Schools Build Community with Student News Programs -- THE Journal. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://thejournal.com/Articles/2011/03/08/Schools-Build-Community-with-Student-News-Programs.aspx?Page=1
I love love love the idea of having a "News broadcast" brought forth by our students. I have suggested this for a while now and I think my admins are finally going to allow it! We are going to try it for Friday's only to begin with and see how it goes from there. Many of the teachers in my school already use CNN student news. One of my most pleasant memories of High School was Channel One News with Anderson Cooper. I find it exciting the he is now a reporter for CNN.
ReplyDeleteResponse from Catherine Page to Team 3 / Student 1:
ReplyDeleteI can well appreciate the technology issues involved in the distribution of video within the school building. In one of the schools I worked at, there was a head-end cart in the media center that allowed a signal to be broadcast from wherever the cart was located (and plugged in to the cable system). It would ‘push’ the signal out to all connected classrooms.
In theory. But in reality, depending on where the cart was located, attenuation could cause the signal to be unreliable and snowy at best. So we ended up having to record the news show onto DVD, and run it to the media center, to be played back and distributed from the same system that sent out the Channel One feeds.
Depending on what kind of DVD we used, and what DVD player we used in the media center, and sometimes, just whatever cosmic fairy dust happened to be floating around that day – the playback would either run smoothly, or it would choke and freeze, or it would not play at all.
And this does not take into account the human factor. Since the playback was scheduled to occur at a certain time, the teacher (me), had to sit on the phone with the student who had been sent to the media center to execute the playback (because the media specialist did not want to be encumbered by helping us with this task), and countdown to lift-off. You can just imagine the various ways in which this simple step experienced blips and failures.
We would have loved to simply load a file into the shared drive and let teachers play it for their classes whenever they a spare moment, but at that point in time, the drive did not have the capacity to hold a file of that size. And the technology department was not concerned with making accommodations for us. The only option we had was to upload the show to schooltube (which was time consuming and unwieldy back then) and send out the link in email. But because of how complicated and lengthy a process that was, a daily show was impossible.
Thankfully, things have surely changed by now. Everything is file and internet driven, so reliance on things like physical drives and distribution systems has lessened to the point being a non-issue.
It’s good that there are vendors out there who can reach our students who are out of reach such as homebound or for whatever reason. The Media Specialist is definitely the go to person for any media related project and the school news is no exception. Many technology departments are glad to send over a technology specialist to help assist the Media Specialist here in Bibb County and they are just as knowledgeable, offering all type of services, ideas and innovative ways to reach the staff, children and parents. It’s unfortunate as you mentioned that some schools can’t transition into technology as need, however there are still other ways to reach the audience. Having students being involved can boost their self-esteem and confidence to perform better in classroom settings and other areas of study. For the elementary schools, our district generally use the 5th graders and those who are excellent in their studies, however they have begun to change the process a bit, so that all students are involved in some sort of way. They may do a skit, say a poem or even lead the pledge alliance or read the word or thought for the day! This boost morale and helps the students to learn and know each other.
ReplyDeleteMeghen: I am glad you touched on PBS I recently found a PBS site for middle school math. It has great real life videos of how middle school students could use math in the work place plus videos that are entertaining that you can show to help the students learn a fun way to remember for example PEMDAS. IT has catch tunes and has around 20 or so videos one can use. My middle school students liked them. Also with the school news I think it is very important to have the students create the news with neat little pictures of food that they can add as they do the morning news show. Also we added little short you tube videos of holidays or book commercials. One can make an animato for classroom studies and advertise what a certain class is doing. When you get your principal involved he can encourage the whole school at one time. With elementary students and middle school students this make a huge difference in how the students respond to him or her in the hall way. It is great way to encourage the faculty our principal always ends really perky and says "Knowledge is power Make it a great day" I thin the best thing to do is buy green screen software and film the students and put different back drops behind them at certain sites and let them advertise books and themes of units. Great job
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain about being in a school that is in transition with technology. I am smack in the middle of that same dilemma. I replaced a 30+ year veteran librarian that was not interested in technology. My first priority of weeding the collection and cleaning out unused materials. Now I'm on to technology and a broadcast news show is at the top of my priority list. I loved the links and examples of news shows. They gave me some great ideas. I have bookmarked several and will refer to them as I am setting up my program. I will take you advice and set up some time with our tech department to help and advise me about setting up our program. I saw on one blog where they simply used an ipad to record the news. What a great idea? I realized that it doesn't have to be a complex idea with all the options we have today. Thanks for your insight.
ReplyDeleteIt’s unfortunate, but our elementary school does not use a daily news broadcast program. Over the past 6 years we have received a several new computers and operating systems. However, the old broadcasting equipment is not compatible with our new technology. I truly enjoyed Forest Park’s broadcasts! Great Stuff! I will definitely be using their ideas in the future. I know that creating projects like this can be very time consuming but it instills such wonderful skills within our students. It’s also another tool that can be used to motivate our prolific speakers. Maybe we can assist them in using those gifts and talents in a productive way.
ReplyDeleteWe have "News Crew" at our school and I also think it is beneficial to allow students to participate in a part of the news production that interests them. I have several students that only want to be in charge of the cameras or equipment because they are not comfortable being in front of a camera. This would have definitely been me! I have other students that only want to participate if they have a speaking part. At the end of each school year the upcoming fifth graders have an opportunity to try out for different roles they are interested in for the next school year. It was interesting to take a look at the Channel One and CNN Student News. This is new to me and I thought it offered some great real world news for the middle or high school level. I just don't think you can beat using students and getting them involved. It is such a great learning experience.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting when you stated that news programs exist to replace assemblies. This is great for teachers so they don’t lose important instructional time but ‘bad’ for students [not really] since they are loosing a time to get off from class. This idea also includes parents and the community because they can see what the students are being taught such as character words of the month or anti-bullying campaigns. I think that allowing students to work in a certain area that they want to work in is a way to have positive reinforcement to make students do better in school because it allows them to something fun but educational at the same time. I did not know that GPB had programs for students.
ReplyDeleteMeghen,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post! The first two years my school was open, we had a student produced and run news program that the media specialist sponsored. The news program featured school announcements, the daily lunch menu ( lunch is a highlight for our day :)) and other tidbits around the school. The news program ended after that media specialist left and the program was deemed too evasive to the school day by the media specialist two media specialist ago. Our current media specialist is looking towards restarting the student news program after testing concludes. I am looking forward to seeing the scholars perform on camera. Any opportunity for students to express themselves is a welcome one. I use CNN student news in my classroom during homeroom time to update the kids on the world around them. The discussions and comments the news reports have presented have been valuable and have the students to see a world beyond Clayton County. I also use Discovery's Science Breaks in my classroom. The content presented in the newsbreak are aligned to most standards studies in the class and allow for the integration of knowledge and ideas read in their science text in a multimedia fashion.