Let’s
see, equipment… check, location… check, now that you have these things setup
what’s next? Hmm… oh yeah I need some
backing to make sure that the School News is a success.
Me,
I’m always one to get permission first rather than ask for forgiveness
later. So I would first talk to your
school Principal about this new opportunity at the school to help students with
literacy, vocabulary, reading, digital-citizenship, self-confidence and
presentation skills. How do throwing out
these words help? That is exactly what
having a school news show will do for the students that are a part of the
program! Even for students that already
seem to have a good grasp on vocabulary and reading can be challenged because
of the presentation component.
It’s
a challenge for you as well being the teacher that has decided to take on this
role, as the “Trailblazer” at your school.
If you get the ok from the Principal it is now time to get the ok from
the other teachers. Here is when having
a ready to go sample broadcast where you are in front of the camera to show
comes in handy. They will get to see how
you react in front of the camera, consider their student reactions and then
make a decision. You could even show the
sample broadcast school-wide to students to get their reactions and interest
level. In the schools that I have seen
this done the students excited about the prospect of being on the school news
cast.
With
that being said now you have to figure out the process to get your students
working with you on the news. I have a
few steps that seem to have worked in the past and will share them here. By all means this is not the end all be all
and you may have additional steps or comments about the process, I encourage
you to leave me comments at the bottom of the article.
Step
1: Setting up your Broadcast Team
You
want to create the roles/jobs that the students will be doing as a part of the
broadcast team. Anchors, Writers,
Production to name a few. And you want
to set a limit on the number of students you will have as a part of the
Broadcast Team. You want to have at
least enough so that if someone is out or late there is someone to fill in.
Step
2: Application Process
Yes
I said application. You want to have an
application that students will fill out just as they would for a job. This will give them some real world
experience for life after school. How
you create the application is up to you but some things to consider including
as well as the job description is a discipline policy that covers actions in
and out of the classroom. This would
also outline dismissal from the broadcast team for student
Once
you have all of your applications in and have selected your team now it is time
to get the magic started!
Step
3: Putting the Pieces together
Now
that you have identified the students who will be a part of the broadcast team
it’s time to get things started.
Production
Team Training: Even though you have assigned everyone to their positions it
would probably be best to train everyone on how to use the equipment just in
case someone is not there. The reason for
this is that at some point you want this to become self-sufficient where the
student have total control of the news show.
Writers: You want to give your writers a standard
script that they need to follow but that they can update and change daily. That also have to be turned in ahead of time
for review and rewrite if necessary. Here
are some standard items you can put in the script.
Daily
Announcements, Birthdays, Lunch menu, Weather, Upcoming Events and Recognitions
(students & teachers). Many of these
things can be done a couple of days ahead especially things like birthdays,
menu and weather. This can make things
easier for students to turn in. Also you
can allow the students to research other things to put in the script. Items like a word, joke or quote of the day,
an interesting fact, something that happened in history on this date.
Anchors:
The face of your newscast that can make or break the success of the
broadcast. Something that your anchors
need to understand is that they need to be dressed appropriately each and every
day that they are on the air. They are
representing the entire school whether or not they are on the air or not. There are more Do’s and Don’ts for this group
than the others because of being in front of the camera. Practice is also a key component, ask them to
go over the script in front of you.
Encourage them to practice at home, in front of a mirror or with others
on the broadcast team. This will help
them to get over some of the jitters of being in front of the camera and help
steady their speech and nervous tendencies.
Just
having these few things setup prior to jumping into the deep end will prevent a
lot of problems down the road and make your School News a success.
photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc
