Nikole Allen
Blog 4: video
distribution systems, Georgia Public Broadcasting education resources, school
TV news
My
only experience with a video distribution system at school is as a
student. I remember seeing Channel One
in middle school and watching our morning announcements on video in high
school. Several years ago, the county
began updating schools so that we were wifi accessible. The media specialist then inquired about
wiring our school so that we could utilize a video distribution system. At that time, she was told that our school
was too old for rewiring and the discussion was never brought up again. So I have to hands-on experience with a video
distribution system, but I do believe that it adds a valuable learning
experiences for students.
For
another course here at West Georgia, I interviewed an exemplary media
specialist from Cobb County named Ms. Kenworthy. She facilitated the morning announcements at
her elementary school, using the video distribution system. She gave me a brief overview of how students
did the daily announcements live each day for their school. They used a computer, camera, and even had a
green screen to use for their production.
I’ve
mostly seen the video distribution systems used for announcements, the school
can use it other ways. In A New Delivery Method in School Counseling:
Closed-circuit Television, researchers used the tv systems to give students
a counseling session. Students could
also create special projects to be viewed over the system as well.
I
also looked at www.schoolvideonews.com
to see examples of how schools utilize video distribution systems. There are lesson ideas and content help for
teachers, tips for students and links to grants that can help fund production
projects. The profiles of individual
schools gives great ideas about starting a school news program, what type of
equipment is used and processes for production.
You can see examples of programs these schools have produced as
well. It’s quite helpful for those that
are new to video distribution systems.
Some of the best pieces of advice I found were:
·
Start with what you have, grow as you go. Some schools don’t have the ability to go
live, so the programs are taped and shared on the schools’ shared drive. (This could work with my school)
·
Allow experienced students to train newer students.
·
Utilize grants to help fund your projects.
·
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, have fun!
·
Allow lots of student input.
They should feel a sense of ownership over the productions.
Our
school has never promoted using Georgia Public Broadcasting Resources. I was surprised to find so many resources for
teachers. But much of what is offered is
being used in the school. Primary
students in my school know and can type the pbskids.org address on their
own. Many of the student videos are accessible
through that address.
Our
district has a paid subscription to united streaming, so it is often used in
the classroom. Most teacher utilize the videos, but I took
some time to look through other resources I hadn’t paid much attention to. I especially enjoyed the following:
·
Board Builder- You can create an interactive presentation using text,
photos, videos and audio.
·
Belk Service Learning Challenge- This wasn’t applicable to my
students, but there was a video project that students can compete in to win
scholarships and teachers could win a free trip to the iste conference. Opportunities like these are great for
students.
·
Professional Development- Provides teachers access to webinars on
a variety of topics.
·
Teacher Center- Has curriculum resources.
Thank you for the excellent website source, schoolvideonews.com I plan to utilize this with my new upcoming News broadcast!!! Very interesting blog
ReplyDeleteCatherine Page’s response to Team 1, Blog 4, Student 1:
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the exemplary elementary school media specialist who facilitated the morning newscast. I hear a lot about elementary and middle school media specialists taking on this task. In effect, they have students doing announcements in front of a camera. And that’s fine. But I think that in high school, when there’s a video production program in place, the broadcast needs to be far more than just a student reading in front of a camera.
And for that kind of production, a lot of time and effort is involved. Whenever you edit, it should take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for every minute produced. The newscast benefits greatly from having roll-ins (or packaged pieces) that go more in-depth and involve interviews with B-Roll (background footage). And for announcements involving dates and times, or text information, building that text takes a while. Add music and graphics, and the sky’s the limit for man-hours.
When you start doing anything resembling a produced show, you are better served to have a weekly broadcast rather than a daily one. That gives the students time to go out and shoot interviews with supporting footage, choose music, build the graphics, and get the information needed for the anchors to read in-studio ‘stories’ (school announcements and info). This also provides the time to put it all together and deal with the distribution aspect, which can be tricky.
Speaking of distribution, I think more often than not, the show ends up being saved as a file and either uploaded to the internet, or stored in the shared drive. There are some schools who have worked out the distribution kinks, but in this day and age, it’s just as easy to do it as a file.
So I always get a kick out of it when people blithely say, “we should have a newscast.”
We do utilize a video distribution system at our school. We have an official show produced by the school’s video broadcasting media program. The show focuses on what going on with the student body, the show covers a range of topics (from dealing with new administration from the student body’s point of view to dealing with a parent battling cancer). We also use a program to run the daily announcements in the cafeteria, hallways, and media center. Lastly, the school had been showing the “what would you do” series during advisement to get students thinking about topics such as racism, teens in trouble, homophobia and other topics.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nikole for an informative post. I have been fortunate to be in schools that have utilized video distribution systems and created student news productions.
ReplyDeleteUntil last school year, we had a closed circuit system. The feed was connected to televisions in all the classrooms. We also had a Media Cast system that is a streaming system to our computers to be projected onto the Smartboard. We have stopped using the closed circuit feed and only use the Media Cast. In our school, we have two Media Cast channels that can be used to stream videos from the Media Center. It also has basic cable (local networks, GPB television, etc.). This system is connected to other schools in the county and the central office. Therefore, available videos may be viewed from other schools. The problem with the streaming system is that when the entire school is trying to stream at the same time, there is often lag time or even an interruption in streaming. Technically, we have the internet capabilities to handle it, but it doesn’t always work out.
To avoid this when showing the student produced news broadcast, teachers do not stream the video live. Instead, the news cast is filmed ahead of time, stored on our shared drive, and teachers show the video from their computers on the Smartboard. The news cast is produced and filmed as one of the modules in the Technology and Innovations connections class. Each week, students rotate to a different module within the class. The students in the news cast module take pictures of current events around the school, conduct interviews, write the script, and film the news throughout the week. The news is broadcast on Fridays. It involves the Word of the Week, Moment of Silence, the Pledge of Allegiance, current events in the community and the school, announcements, and a photo slide show set to music. They incorporate graphics and transitions. It is quite a production, and luckily the responsibility has been taken off of our LMS. We are a school of 1100 students, and she is a one man show in the LMC. Budget cuts took away the Media Clerk position, and she has to rely on volunteers just to run the library effectively. By incorporating the news cast into the curriculum of the connections class, it has ensured the continuation of the production.
I also remember a video distribution system as a student. In middle school, it was used to show movies throughout the school and in high school, it was used for Channel 1. I spoke with our media specialist at the primary/elementary school and was shocked to learn that we don’t have video distribution system. We are a new school (only 6 yrs. old) and they didn’t wire our school for this. This is quite a shame because it is a resource that we desperately need. I spoke with the middle school media specialist and she told me that they do Channel 1 and TMTV. She showed me a TMTV video from last year and it was quiet interesting. TMTV is a news program that the students do. They interview students, coaches, and teachers and show their responses on TMTV most Fridays. They highlight important information to just silly things. The goal is to get students involved and informed. I think that Channel 1 is also played at our high school but the librarian was unable to speak with me about this.
ReplyDeleteAs for united streaming, it is used by all teachers at the primary and elementary levels but once you get to middle school, it is used mostly by science and social studies teachers. We recently had a technology carousel that had different classes on technology. One of the classes was united streaming. We learned a lot about the new resources that it offers for teachers but I personally could use another session on this in a small group with one on one access.
I'm so glad you mentioned the website, schoolvideonews.com. Our school does a morning news show with just a video camera, a couple of microphones, and a CD player. We are able to use closed circuit to show it in all the classrooms. But we are ready to take the next step. We just don't know where to start. Hopefully the website will give us some ideas.
ReplyDeleteNow for my soapbox ... schools are beginning to teach careers in 5th grade so why shouldn't every school have a news program and school newspaper/student website? This is a great opportunity to introduce journalism and web design. As media specialists, I know we can't do everything but we are the link to technology for teachers so we should at least try to spark interest in our schools.
Nikole,
ReplyDeleteI too only had experience with school video distribution in middle school. However, I was volunteering at an elementary school this past Friday and I had the opportunity to watch a group of 5th graders run the entire set of morning announcements through their school's televisions. They did everything from the lunch menu and weather to upcoming events and the Pledge. I was frankly amazed. I don't believe I could have worked that equipment at their age, regardless of how many months I spent with it. They knew exactly what to do and when to do it though. It was very impressive and a great way to get students involved in what's going on with the school. I completely agree with you on the school paper / new program platform! This gives a chance to get students to think about what they want to do with their lives and you can never start too early with that! Great insight! -MC
From the list you gave on the advice for distribution systems I liked the point about allowing student input. I think we are always amazed by what students can think up off the top of their heads or with a little time to brainstorm. They are the future and they need to become active in how they learn. I don’t remember using or viewing Georgia Public Broadcasting when I was in school but I think they are great resources for teachers to use in their classrooms for lessons or even extra credit options. I have never heard of united streaming before and now have something to look into.
ReplyDeleteNikole, great post. You give a list of great resources and options for teachers to use for broadcasting. Our school system will be rolling out the use of PadCasters soon. What this will do, is allow the teacher to use an iPad to film, edit, and send the broadcast for viewing. We were told that many of the local news station use this same technology for their newscast when in the field. I also agree that this technology should be used for other things than just the morning news. Filming teacher/parent/administrative meetings, professional development, spelling bee, honors day, etc would be a great use of the material. I'm sure posting the honors awards on your school website would be a great way for parents to see their children although they have had to work.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post, Nikole. Like you, my experiences as a student with school broadcasting consisted solely of Channel One. One of the schools in which I've worked had no system whatsoever, and honestly, its absence wasn't really noticed. The other two schools both had what they called "cherry pickers." There was one monstrous machine in a closet within the media center and the media specialist would play whatever DVD or VHS tape needed to be broadcast, informing the teachers of the channel on which they could view the content.
ReplyDeleteThe school at which I currently work is a virtual lightning rod and seems to be struck by lightning at least twice a year. Sometime in August we were struck and it fried our cherry picker, leaving us without a broadcast system of any kind. About a month or so ago, though, the county purchased new broadcasting equipment through a system called IPTV. Everything is done over the internet. Each school has access to three channels: PBS, the district channel, and the school channel. Though I see the potential shortcomings of relying solely on the internet for school or district-wide broadcasting, it does seem that it is the most streamlined, practical way to accomplish the task. The district can deliver professional development, disseminate announcements, and replay district-sponsored events. The school can constantly stream announcements, which is very handy for those who may have missed the morning news broadcasts.
As for PBS, this new IPTV system has significantly increased our teachers' usage of the countless resources it offers. In the future I would like to see streaming of other educationally-friendly sites/channels like the Nat Geo channel or the History channel. Now that the technology has evolved to the point that we are not limited to closed-circuit television, the possibilities really are limitless.