Hear All About It by Sharon H.
I interviewed the media specialist at Allatoona High School in Acworth about their school news, video distribution system, and the GPB. Allatoona High's principal conducts the announcements each morning over the intercom. You know, what I mean. The pledge, the moment of silence, the warnings about writing obscene words on the bathroom walls. However, the media specialist also has a computer which runs powerpoint presentations on televisons throughout the school. These powerpoint presentations include announcements about important dates (such as holidays), club meetings, and when and where the pep rally will be held on Friday afternoon. Teachers who want to contribute a slide to the power point announcements can create the slide and put it into the media specialist's drop folder on the computer. Additionally, the journalism teacher in the school has a class which allows the students to produce and present video announcements which are also shown over the television. These announcements usually contain information about special events that may be too long for a single slide. For example, this month his class did a video about a charity drive. The student in the video stood in front of a green screen with a white forest behind her so that she appeared to be in a snowy environment. Other teachers may also request videos from this teacher about special projects they may have. They have to fill out a Request for Production form and submit it to this teacher in time for the production to be completed. This is the video distribution system for the school.
The school encourages teachers to use GPB in their classrooms especially the United Streaming part of the web site. When teachers approach the media specialists asking about videos the library may have a certain topic, the media specialist will often refer them to GPB.
5 comments:
Your post reminded me of my high school days when we would watch the student-created "news" show every Friday after our lunch period. The students in the technology class which produced the show presented features about school events, news, and usually one or two fun segments they came up with. We lived for that show every week! Our school would also broadcast Channel One news each week - so we got some real-world news infomation too. Even now when I see Lisa Ling on Oprah or the Discovery Channel, I can't help but flash back to my high school days in physics class watching her report. I think it's great that your school provides this opportunity of creativity and use of technology for the students. I have a close friend who participated in our high school's media production class and went on to major in film/broadcasting. He's worked for CNN in Atlanta and even started his own production company. Teachers often never know how much we touch a student's life - especially when we give them creative outlets like a school news show to thrive in!
I like the idea of running a power point to get information and news to the student body. It sounds like it works great. Do you have any advise for an elementary school? I also like the monthly features aspect. I guess this could be used to promote new arrivals in the media center and record and play book talks that are holiday themed. I think this could be the forum that is safe for students.
I think it's a great idea for a teachers to be able to contribute a Powerpoint to the TV announcements. When I did one of my days in the media center this particular school had a similar operation, although teachers did not make contributions. The Powerpoint was set up in the media center and announcements were piped into the TVs located in the halls throughout the building. Announcements, dismissal times, special events etc. played for parents and students to view as they passed by.
Wow Sharon - great to see your post about our news programs at Allatoona. I found this post via a Google alert that is set to search for "Allatoona High" -- to find out how to create an alert go to http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en and set a search alert - you will be sent an email to let you know when your search term turns up sometting new... like your blog post. We appreciate all of your help this year. KV
I enjoyed reading the information about the news program at Alatoona High School. One thing that I would like to do at our school is to have the time to create and run an ongoing Powerpoint streaming presentation with the announcements being able to be posted and accessible throughout the day. One idea that I had not heard of before was the folder that allowed other teachers to add slides and new information on their own without having to let another teacher know. This would keep announcements from getting lost and and busy teachers could easily and quickly add a note before they get busy and forget.
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