Calling All Experts

My broadcasting class is getting very close to shooting their first news magazine style program. In partnership with the Board of Trustees in Northern Lights School Division we will produce a show that will be posted to the division's new Youtube channel.

Where I want to go with this is for students to make connections to and learn from experts in television particularly in the area of pre-production of this style of show. I have been very fortunate to be working with amazing experts within our division and in our community but I also want to show the students how to use social media to make positive connections for learning with this project. If you are currently working in broadcasting or have experience with this style of programming, drop us a line on Twitter (@clhsroyals) or email (clhsroyals at gmail.com).

I'm excited at the possibility of having a world of experts lending their experience and knowledge to help my students learn about broadcasting. If you know someone who knows someone, pass this on to them!

Producing our First Magazine Style Show

It's been a while, and I always apologize for not blogging enough, but this time I'm not. With the flury of daily activity for RTV News, time is tight. I'm going to call this "just in time blogging". (Buzz!)

We are in the final 10 days before the students will produce a magazine style show for our school division. I must thank our Communications Director Nicole Garner from Northern Lights School Division. She has been instrumental in organizing the majority of the interviews, generating ideas, planing out the show, formatting, and so much more.

The NLSD-TV program wil serve two purposes. I'm interested in both, but am biased towards #2. First, the show will highlight the great things happening in our division using Youtube, the premiere media consumption site in the world. Secondly, my students will have a true client to work with. It's elevating the stakes to a real world (buzz!) experience for my students.

Currently we have 4 major stories that are going into the program. Due to geographic considerations of our district my students have only been able to get to one local school in Cold Lake to interview a staff member about their breakfast program. Another interview I did when I was in a neighbouring community for PD, and the last interview was done over the phone. I used Skype to record the call and it turned out great! I highly recommend spending the 2.3 cents/minute and a call recorder program for over the phone interviews.

From here students are going to write the scripts, leads and tags for each segment, edit them to length (around 2.5-3 minutes each), add graphics and export for production. Seems easy, right?

The finished segments will be evaluated by Nicole and our Board Chair, Walter Hrcyauk who are coming in next week for a production meeting. All aspects of editing, lower third graphics, audio levels and shot composition will be scrutinized. Nicole's experience in broadcasting will be invaluable in our class.

At the production meeting the show's script will need to be outlined, so we'll definitely be meeting with our script writers on that day as well. All of this will be done by the students. I hope to sit back and see the interaction with the Nicole and our Walter to see how they listen, make recommendations, and take feedback.

I'm really excited to see this first show going. We will plan a post production meeting to dissect the show and make changes for the next one. Stay tuned...

Setting up for RTV News Assessment

The big idea that I'm going to implement in semester 2 of RTV News is a way of students being more aware of their learning. I hope to accomplish this through a blogfolio.

Students will have the major outcomes presented to them at the beginning of each two week RTV news run. While they complete the jobs required for their position at RTV they will look at essential questions related to the outcomes as they would apply in a newsroom. Typography and principals of design will be looked at first as we develop our RTV News intro and picture in picture graphics is one example of how it will be integrated.

How can I help them with this process?

I've decided to blog with them on the same topics as they. Just prior to their blogs being due I will be reflecting on the essential questions and outcomes and giving evidence from the students' work to support it. I hope to provide "big picture" advice and comments on the class as a whole. This means I'm starting a new blog!!

"Marking"

With the type of outcomes in the curriculum I'd love to go with a different scale that a percentage grade. This type of class is one where the students' work and visual products and reflection of personal learning and application to their next task is where I want to be. If a student creates a "failing" news report for the first 3 times and then finally gets it for the fourth, am I going to fail him or her? The answer should be no, but mathematically, they could fail if I took the cumulative points average. That's why I like the idea of students completing several tasks over a period of time, get feedback from peers and myself for these products, then use that feedback to highlight their very best work.

Ideas, thoughts?