Wow! I am green with envy at Pleasant Grove and South Columbia Schools news programs. I happen to oversee announcements at my school. An interrelated teacher who retired, supervised them for years. When she left, they asked me. Unfortunately, we are behind the times with our technology.
Last month, I approached my principal and technology specialist about going live with our announcements. They are currently trying to find out what’ll take to do this. They warned me that it’s a slow process but a work order was put in.
In the meantime, I emailed my principal the links to the sites I viewed to show the potential we have. Just a few years ago, TV’s were installed in every classroom, but they are just collecting dust because they are not wired correctly. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get them up and running.
As I said before, we are behind the times. Our announcements are done every morning over the intercom.
In the past, safety patrols were chosen to do announcements on a 6 week rotation. This year we decided to do something different. Upcoming 5th graders that were not patrols auditioned. We thought it would be a big hit, but unfortunately it wasn’t. I had to go classroom to classroom several times to promote the auditions. Finally there were a few brave students. My plan was to get 8 students total to do announcements. Pairs would do them weekly. At the beginning of the school year, I asked for a few more students and luckily, some agreed to do it. In the end, we got 8. I think that if they were on TV, kids would be more likely to volunteer.
5 minutes before the bell rings we begin to play classical music. Teachers and students have reported they like this because it’s a warning the bell alerting them it’s almost time to start the day.
The announcement format begins with the date, music just heard, pledge, patriotic song and moment of silence. In the second half of the announcements the students announce birthdays and announcements of the day such as upcoming events like the talent show and spirit night.
We haven’t really encountered any problems except on the rare occasion, the intercom in broken. Sometimes, there is static over the intercom too. The issue is easily resolved.
I enjoy supervising the school announcements and can’t wait to someday have them on TV!
Mrs. Lucky,
ReplyDeleteI can understand the lack of technology being a complete issue for this type of project. It is very cool that you are able to create and control the project on your own and that you have the support from your administration.
I do find it a bit hard to understand why it was so difficult for you to get he student's interest. Every school that I have ever been at had no problems with getting this type of commitment from the kids. I am sure it is based on the fact that it has not been done in a while but once they see the potential that you can bring to the program they will all be fighting for the opportunity!
I also love the fact that you are playing classical music to teach them the importance of listening to diverse music. I can not stand it when my former school would play the loud music that the kids always listened to. It certainly got them hyped up to dance and jump out of there seats but it never settled them in to actually listen to the announcements.
Good luck with getting the program up and running!
Barry
Mrs. Lucky,
ReplyDeleteI work at an alternative program that does not have School TV news on closed circuit (video distribution). In the two alternative schools where I have worked over the past twelve years, we either have made announcements over the intercom and/or in assemblies. Currently on Tuesdays, we have student led weekly motivations in the cafeteria for six teachers at a time and their students. Our school has 18 teachers so one group comes at 2, another at 2:30 and the last group at 3 pm. Each week one teacher from each group is responsible for getting students to come up with something to motivate the other students, lead the pledges (we also do Georgia flag) and moment of silence. The students even get to choose the music as long as the lyrics are motivating and appropriate for school but incorporating a diversity of music could bring appreciation to other genres.
It can be like pulling teeth sometimes getting students to participate. At my school, for weekly motivation I make it count for a grade and pay them with 'play' money to purchase items from our school store. Hopefully when the School News TV program is up and running at your school, your eight volunteers will influence the other students to step up to the plate. Younger students may also have ideas on ways to add to/change/improve the program when they come of age to star in the newcasts as they will be familiar with the program.
I appreciate you giving us other antiquated schools, who are behind the times, problems that we might occur by doing announcements over the intercom. If you have any suggestions for resolving static issues, I would greatly appreciate it. We have not encountered this yet but it is always good to know how to fix something just in case it occurs.
Thanks for sharing,
Cynthia
Don’t feel bad because my school still does intercom announcements also. Actually, I wonder how behind the times we are. In my experience it seems like most schools are still doing intercom announcements. I love the fact that we are shifting toward during television broadcast. I think it really brings a real-world connection to the students’ learning experiences. At the middle school level, I could see this being funneled through our after school program since the students are already there. I like the idea of auditioning for the morning announcements. I used to work at a school that just rotated through the grade levels and it was very difficult for the Pre-K students to try to read birthdays and reading upcoming events was of course impossible.
ReplyDelete- Michelle H.
Mrs. Lucky,
ReplyDeleteI like that you gave us the names of two schools’ video programs to review. . I went to Barrow Elementary, in Athens, last week, and Andy Plemmons, Media Specialist, had a nice set up that worked well. He had some newer equipment and some dated pieces but gets by quite well. I wonder if your principal would consider letting you take your crew to see the program at another school (field trip) before you begin your live video broadcasting.
Once your closed circuit system is working it doesn’t take that much to get the video production rolling at even a basic level. My daughter, who is in college, was a member of her 5th grade crew nine years ago. It was a lot of fun, and she learned so much. I was especially glad that she started focusing on better grammar.
Good luck with your production.
We must worked at the same school. We are experiencing some of the same issues. We still do announcements over the intercom. The wiring for the televisions was not done correctly. Therefore, we can not use them unless you are showing a video. We have projectors mounted in the ceilings in each classroom. However, because of the wiring issue we can not use them in place of the televisions. We're up for renovations this school term and hopefully this will allow us to catch up.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteDon't be too hard on yourself, we have plenty of technology at my school and we still have announcements on the intercom. Last year, there were a group of 5th grade students who filmed the announcements and were played over our video distribution system the following morning, but they became so silly that we stopped doing it. It sounds like you have really done the best with what you have, and that you have a lot of good ideas to keep you motivated. Good luck!