School TV News...More than just the Pledge!

Awesome Productions!

It was great to be able to see Orenca Elementary School and Eisenhower Middle School perform their TV news for the school.  Both schools did an excellent job with presenting the school news.  I commend the person(s) who take on these responsibilities. It is not an easy task, but the children really enjoy it and they learn valuable skills and lessons when it comes to being on camera or behind the scenes filming.

KNN - Kilpatrick News Network

At my school, I as the media specialist have the pleasure of working with fourth and fifth grade students each morning to do the news broadcast.  Our broadcast is presented over closed circuit television.  Teachers and students all tune in to a certain channel and they are able to see the crew live as well as they are able to see videos and PowerPoint presentations that are presented.  At the beginning of each year, I hold auditions for new members of the team while allowing old members to continue to serve.  Students have to have a teacher's recommendation and they have to meet other criteria that I set forth in the application.  For example, they have to arrive to school daily by a certain time, they have to have good grades, they must be excellent readers and speakers, etc...  Once I choose a team of fourth and fifth grade students, they serve on the news team for the entire school year.  It takes three students to do the morning show daily so I rotate them each day.  I have a total of 15 news team members.

So what do we do?

My students begin the morning show by introducing themselves.  Next we share the character education word for the week and provide examples and definitions of the character word.  We do birthday announcements daily for teachers and students.  Then we share our vision and mission statement for the district as well as say the Pledge of Allegiance.  We also have a daily song which is the national anthem that is played and sang by our entire school.  After that our students share any announcements that have been given to the media specialist.  They end the broadcast with an idiom phrase for the day and the official school time.  Two students are on camera while one student works the camera, PowerPoint and music.

Sometimes we have special guest to come in and join us on camera to share whatever they may need to share.  Some students share special writings or projects that they have done.  Sometimes faculty and staff especially our principal may have a special announcement that they would like to share themselves.  Once my team is trained, which normally takes about two weeks, they prepare for the broadcast each morning for about ten minutes, and then they are normally on air for about ten minutes.

Problems I've Encountered...

One thing that I have noticed this school year is that it is hard to keep students on the news team.  I have had students to be pulled because of academic or behavior reasons.  Some students just don't want to commit for a year and they get tired or bored.  The other issue that I have is if I am absent or late!  There has to be another adult trained to watch over the kids as they do the news.  They can't handle all of the set up and equipment alone; there must be supervision.  So if I am not there, then there is no daily news and that is a problem.  One solution I have thought of just by viewing Orenca and Eisenhower is to have the show recorded.  I talked with another media specialist in our county and she records the news at the beginning of the week for the entire week and then all she needs to do is push play or have someone else to do that.  This is good because the students can record one time and they dont' have to miss any morning work time.  The only downside that I could see would be those last minute announcements that need to be made.  If the show is pre-recorded then that can't happen.  This blog posting has given me some wonderful ideas for things that I can incorporate in my news broadcast.