Term Two Begins

I appear to be far more sporadic a blogger than I would like. So be it. I will, at this time, endeavor to adequately chronicle the second term, with new students, of my afore mentioned Media Class.

This term we're a little over stuffed. I've got seven kids and five workstations. I'll use this as a team building experience, and make sure that each student gets the opportunity to work on a project with a partner. The only issue I can see with this set up is that you can only use one USB headset in a machine. I'll have to pick up a few 1/8" splitters and use a different set up for the team machines.

Going forward I've dispensed with the thought that I might be able to produce a daily newscast, and am now focusing, from the start, on a bi-monthly news magazine. Here, by the way, is a teaser clip from last term's 30/30.

This term, I'm calling (unilateral decision time) the program 55 Minutes.

We started again with class rules. No rolling around on the chairs, don't play with the equipment when not using it in an official capacity, and most importantly for me, the rule of safe and honest constructive criticism being the only accepted form of criticism. 

We jumped right into two person, one camera news reporting - again using Morning Notes as a prompter template.

This class was extremely quick to feel comfortable behind the desk. We had general confusion and some great blooper fodder of course, but the quickness of this group of boys was astounding. After two days we got everyone behind the desk, and moved on to critique.

The boys generally had interesting things to say about their peers work and the mandate for safety was observed well. We all learned something about our desk presence and will have a much better second reel, as good as the first was.

Today, we got the files onto the editing stations, and will begin the process of learning to edit. Next week, hopefully, we begin the projects! I'm excited.