School News...A Positive Way to Start the Day!
Starting the day off with the morning announcements or school news production can establish a positive tone for the day and can help build community. Allowing students to begin their day hearing a peer discuss events and make announcements is a great opportunity for students to hear information from someone other than an adult. By allowing students to share in this experience student leaders are born. Allowing students to have this experience gives them a chance to express their creativity and can be a powerful learning opportunity.
Many elementary, middle and high schools begin each day with a selection of announcements, but there are many different formats for a school news program. Some schools do a news broadcast everyday, others once a week or every two weeks. When viewing video posts of school news broadcasts and reading through "Good Morning! A.M. Announcements Build School Community" I encountered many different routines used in school new programs. Most schools included the Pledge in their announcement, as well as, birthdays. Other ideas for topics for morning news include: character education, quote, word, or problem of the day and this day in history. Ending the news with the school's mission is just one more way to bring the school community closer together towards a common goal.
Format of School News at Tritt Elementary
When:
Monday – Friday
Where:
Announcements can be watched on the school's broadcast channel.
Who:
Preselected fifth grade students who tried out for the morning announcements at the end of fourth grade are the news anchors Monday through Thursday (total of twelve children). Three students deliver the announcements in the morning. This group of students will work on the morning new show from the beginning of the year until winter break. After winter break a new group of students will tryout and will be selected.
On Friday a group of five to six students is selected from the fifth grade, so that all fifth graders that want to participate can be involved in the morning announcements.
What:
The order in which things occur is typically the same each day. Friday the students are given opportunity to add other items to the announcements.
-Introductions to the anchors
-What’s happening at Tritt
-Special announcements, example: birthdays of staff and children
-Pledge
-Moment of silence
-School vision
School news has a positive impact on the child, as well as, the school community.
Reference:
Education World's "Principal Files" Team (2015). Good Morning! A.M. Announcements Build School Community. The Principal Files. Retrieved from
http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin351.shtml
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI am a BIG fan of morning news shows, especially at the elementary level. The school I am at the majority of the time (my mentor's school) follows the same format that you mentioned - a pledge, birthdays, character education snippet and most days, the Principal comes in and talks to the students about whats going on that day. They have also added a Book Talk (think Reading Rainbow) and the 4th and 5th graders have really liked being on camera for those.
The most difficult thing is the technology, I think. I still haven't figured out completely how it works at this school, but a video camera AND iPad is involved and the classrooms watch it on their computers (via projector). The students write the script, video on site segments, etc. It teaches the fifth graders leadership skills and problem solving skills.
Jessica, Thank you for your concise description of the many things school news can include. I’ve always loved the idea of students taking ownership of school-related news…and I agree with you that not only is it a great learning opportunity for the kids involved in producing the news, it engages all of the students in the school because it uses student voices. I like how you included a real-life example from Tritt Elementary to show one version of how school news is incorporated into the school’s routine.
ReplyDeleteYour blog post is a reminder to me that ‘morning news’ has a valuable place in a school’s overall mission, and that it takes different forms at different levels. It is a perfect fit for elementary. However, at the middle school level, I remember being very impatient with it as precious minutes of my limited first period class time were consumed by announcements that weren’t relevant to my instruction. I think school news programs are more effective if they do not take away instructional time from teachers. At my high school, this problem has been solved by having school news on Fridays during what’s called the “advisement” period. The program is produced by students in a video production class and sent to advisement teachers as a shortcut link so they can play it when they are ready to. It includes all types of school news, and includes things like interviews with athletes. In spite of the many technical glitches, my students are always paying rapt attention to the program!
Ok, so I on this post I get to be the "devils advocate". I completely agree with the theoretical idea behind a newcast and all the things that you said in your post. But I have to be honest, it is a nightmare. I am in charge of doing this at my school and we have little to no equipment and the quality is horrendous because of that lack of equipment. Most teachers and students will tell you honestly that they never watch it anyway because they have too much to cover in their 10 minute homeroom time. I have played it at a certain time in the mornings and even given them a youtube link to watch later if they would like. That way the have the option to tune in on their TV (which are tiny and horrible) or even play through the computer and project it. They tend to find more value in scrolling announcements that stay up all day on the same channel.
ReplyDeleteI have tried doink videos with green screens - but the turn around on that takes too long and to get it out to the school in time is just about impossible. We tried Google hangouts - but as our system is still a "microsoft 365" (I know it kills me - as a google apps for education certified teacher) so most don't even try to access it.
I shared all that to say this....without the proper equipment and training and time it is impossible to get a quality news show out to your school. Something that could be awesome turns into a dreaded nightmare.
However, grants can be written and equipment bought, training handles, and time provided if the school administration wants to support that.
The news casts in the high school level are generally a lot less frustrating because there are usually classes and teachers devoted to just that area.
We are currently working on a grant to fix our equation so that we have the ability to produce something worth watching.
School news has been a complex and much debated topic at my school for many years. As Jessica explains, it can set a positive tone and build community for the school while providing an excellent learning opportunity, a leadership training program, and a creative outlet for students involved in production. As Cristi points out, though, it can also be a nightmare for many people, especially the adult trying to make it happen. Since I am at a high school, the situation is different in that the broadcast is not a function of the media specialist although she must manage the equipment to broadcast it to the school. Our program has gone from a teacher-sponsored club production that was run out of a make-shift closet in her room to a full-blown career pathway with an entire building devoted to media production, complete with editing rooms, an anchor’s desk donated from The Weather Channel that sits on the sound stage, and all of the latest and greatest equipment for each stage of production. The current media building replaced the auto technology building, and the program is award-winning. The big however is that we still have the same issues Cristi references. Our live broadcast is pushed through the media center but there are often buffering issues in the classrooms where the broadcast is played from the teacher’s laptop through the LCD projector. So, teachers go to the live stream to broadcast, and then the county gets upset at the load on the bandwidth each morning, especially on Fridays when we have the longer broadcast. Some years the dynamic is strong with the anchors and writers, and quality, community-building broadcasts result; other years we hit a slump, and few want to watch the broadcast. Of course the court of public opinion is always vocal, and the teacher takes a lot of heat from staff, parents, and students. All I can say is that I’m glad it’s not my responsibility!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the school news program! The first couple of years that I was in high school they only made announcements at the end of the day, and no one really listened to it. We were either already out of the building or just not paying any attention. However, my last two years of high school they began VOX news at our school, and it really did help. Most people paid attention to school news and knew due dates and fun events the school was having. It fixed a lot of easy problems for admin as well! I'm just a huge fan of having this program. I really like that some students get experience in a field that they may want to pursue in college by helping with the program. Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDelete