http://hsbj.org/blog.php HSBJ Blog http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=58 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=58 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EDT Archived from July 12-16, 2010. This week we’re saluting some of the best anchors of the year. The anchors you’ll see this week all have a few things in common: Proper dress. This year we’ve seen sloppy clothes, low-cut blouses, T-shirts with garish logos, backward baseball caps. And these weren’t for the Halloween show. Some schools use broadcast class shirts for everyone. Some require “Sunday best” for their anchors. Whatever you choose, anchors should look professional. Clear speech.  Most anchors should slow down and avoid slurring their words.  Practice saying this: “The tip of the tongue. The roof of the mouth. The teeth and the lips.” Say it very, very clearly and distinctly. Then speed up – but keep the same clear words. It’s a good warm-up for anchors and reporters. Good posture. Every week we’ve watched anchors lean into the camera, wiggle in their chairs, rock to and fro and move their hands on the anchor desk. Sit up straight and sit still. Tech help. When two anchors have to share one teleprompter, move the anchors closer together or use two teleprompters. Anchors should be looking into the camera – not next to it. (Anchors also have to practice reading scripts several times before each show).  Busy backgrounds take away from the anchors. Keep it simple. Also, many schools use the in-camera mic for their anchors. This gives bad sound and it’s not fair to the anchors. Use lav or stick mics. On Monday we feature Valley Junior High School. This is one of the few junior highs we have featured, but as many members of STN may know, the adviser is Doug Greene, who also advises Carlsbad High School. The anchors stand and when they do gesture, it’s integral to the story. Note: This video could also be used to show how to use a stick mic. Which reporter uses the mic best? Which videographer framed the interviews to eliminate “floating hand with a mic” shots? Tuesday’s “best of” features a basic announcements show with graphics from East Central Career & Technical High School. Anchors are professional and two cameras give texture to the show. On Wednesday, Cathedral High School presents a special anniversary show. Once you get past the special opening, the anchors take over. They have good rapport with each other, talk to the camera and present themselves professionally. Thursday Granada Hills High School’s anchors speak slowly and look directly at the teleprompter. The background is moving, but at least it’s muted.  Holding scripts give the anchors something to do with their hands. On Friday Graves County High School starts with a post-April Fools’ show update. Just watch the start of this show to get an idea of the anchors’ professional appearance and delivery. Watch for more outstanding anchors later this summer http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=57 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=57 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EDT For the past two weeks the HSBJ homepage featured one video, an outstanding report on Arizona’s proposed cut in CTE funding. Over the last month we’ve highlighted several stories about cuts in education budgets. This one by Corona del Sol High School in Tempe, AZ, adds much more to this national story.This is the single best news story I have seen this year.The highlight is an interview with a state senator. In many stories this would be the balance interview. It’s easy to get local teachers and students saying why the CTE program – including broadcast – should be maintained. It’s harder for student journalists to get the other side – why the program should be drastically cut. But instead of just ending up with a a he-said, she-said story, the Corona del Sol team did its homework in its interview with a state senator.  I won’t spoil it – you have to see it – but the homework paid off. The reporter stayed professional and low-key throughout.  Two problems: First, the reporter never says whether the state senator returned to finish the interview. That's important. Second, the ending of the piece becomes pure advocacy. It would have been better to just say where people could call to protest – not advocate that people call. When your program is being cut, it’s hard to stay neutral. That would have taken this story to the next level.This is still a powerful piece.  Is your school going through big budget cuts? Show this story in your class in the first day of school next year.  Could your staff do this story or one like it?  What kind of training would the staff need to produce this level of work?  What kind of training would you need to lead your students to this level?  These are important summer reflections for all media teachers. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=56 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=56 Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EDT   Our boys and girls basketball teams made it to the state playoffs. Each step of the way, we had decisions to make about coverage on our school website.During the sectionals, which were played at a university site about 30 minutes away, we provided regular updates on the home page. This meant following our model from the football season last fall. An assistant principal, Darrell Johnson, sent scores via text message every three or four minutes, and I sat at home on my trusty laptop updating the lead story. I wasn’t sure it was a really big deal that we did this until the next day, when I heard from my colleagues, the ones who did not make the trip to the game. Here is a sample from my e-mail inbox:“It was awesome... I just kept refreshing.”“Dave, I really appreciated Darrell's updates. Thanks!!!”“I checked the score at least twice on my lap top, and Gary and I checked the score on his I-phone!”“That's where I went to check the score last night. Thanks.”There were a total of 16 notes of thanks from a faculty of 75. Not bad. The girls lost in the sectionals, but the boys won, so their next game was two hours away on Saturday afternoon. Darrell once again provided text updates, and an HTVer e-mailed a photo I posted alongside the updates. The team won again, so now our boys were headed to the state final four in a week. I met briefly with the students on the Web staff, and we decided that we would devote the home page articles to the team all week, and really focus on what was a huge event for our school. We have only been to the basketball final four one other time, in 1984, and we won state that year.In addition to print pieces, we added video clips and photo galleries. The pep rally was one of our busiest days, but one of my favorite videos was a simple sit-down interview with Karen Fielding, a veteran HHS teacher who recalled attending the championship game as a fan in ’84. She was a Hillcrest graduate who still lived in our district back then, and it was a wonderful conversation about what it had meant to our community when the team won the state championship. The interview segment is also a pretty good example of how you can incorporate very simple video pieces into your website coverage to provide background and context. The interview took 10 minutes to shoot, 20 minutes to edit, and within about 60 minutes of shooting it, we had it online.See the interview with Karen Fielding.You can see some of our archived coverage. As it turned out, our team won the state championship. So the staff of “HTV Magazine” shot and produced a trilogy about the fans, the team, and the celebration that followed back home. We will be uploading those pieces to the school website the day the TV show airs for the first time. It turns out my staff was pretty protective of the segments produced for television, and I can tell you that it was pretty unanimous. As one student put it, “The stories were done for our TV show, and we want people to watch them there first.”I have a feeling in the weeks and months ahead, we will return to this discussion. It is one I never really anticipated until the state tournament coverage happened. Is it better to air stories first on TV, then share them later online?  Or does it matter?Wow. This convergence thing is getting complicated. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=55 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=55 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST Want to know where magazines are going? What we should be teaching our students? Check out Wired’s new iPad App. http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/wired-magazine-ipad-demo/.  This is a sophisticated approach to magazine/print layout and interactivity. I believe this is the future of print journalism – newspaper, magazine and yes, eventually yearbook. Our video newscasts will have to be more graphically pleasing and offer a companion website with more depth. It just proves that all students need to know the new storytelling techniques: how to interview, how to write, how to shoot and edit video, how to put together Web packages – and how the layout must make it easy for readers and viewers to get the whole story. Doing quick, unedited videos on websites is not going to cut it. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=54 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=54 Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST As the first semester of classes winds down at Hillcrest, so does our first semester of producing the school’s new website. This seems like a good time to take stock and share what seems to be working, and what we still need to figure out in the second half of the school year. The Daily Deadline It has been our mission from the beginning to update the lead story, at the top of the home page, each weekday. I am happy to share our success, thanks mainly to our site Editor-In-Chief Chelsea Peebles. She oversees the production of that story and even takes the photos now and then. Other members of our HTV staff are now taking over production of the lead story each Wednesday, giving Chelsea a much-deserved break. One thing we did not do that we should have is set up the page to archive the lead stories, short as they are, so the public could re-visit them. We are working with to make that happen. The rest of the site is archived. The Weekly Deadline The story at the bottom of the home page, our “Spotlight” feature, is more in-depth and only changes each week, usually on Tuesday. It has been popular, especially for the photo galleries that go with it. Never underestimate the value of posting lots of photos with each piece. We plan to step that up even more in the weeks ahead. We have also decided to start posting more video clips with the “Spotlight” story in the future. More art, more video. That message comes through loud and clear in the feedback we receive from students and staff. The Scoreboard I did not want to get eaten alive by sports coverage in the early stages of our Web development. Sports news can take over a website like ours if you let it. First, we made it clear to the staff we would only post scores of varsity events. On our “Sports” beat page we do run longer features and video clips. That seems to be working, but we need to provide more features, more photos, and more videos in the weeks ahead. The Beats Our beat coverage has been lighter than I had hoped. First, we do produce a TV show as well as the website, and to be honest, beat stories get pushed aside when other deadlines are bearing down on us. Also, some of the beats are challenging our reporters because there is not as much “news” to cover as we had originally hoped. So in the second semester, we plan to consolidate a few of the beats. For example, instead of the band and choir having their own separate beat pages, we are creating a new “Music” beat for all of the instrumental and vocal music groups. If you go with beat coverage on your page, my advice is to consolidate as many as you can instead of having pages that will not be very active. The Buzz Our short little sidebar column called “The Buzz” (we are the Hillcrest HORNETS, after all) has been a big hit. It’s a place to get the very latest items of interest, including reminders about games, plays, schedule changes, and other activities. It is also a great place to recognize Students of the Month and other award winners. We also link from there to our principal’s monthly newsletter. He likes that a lot. Final Grade I give my kids a strong “B” for their first semester of website management and production. Feedback has been positive, and we know people hit the site every single day. As we go along in the second semester, I will let you know how readers react when we start tweaking things. Part of any successful website, I think, is consistency. People want to know what they will find when the arrive at “hillcresthornets.org.”  So while some changes are coming, nothing too earth shattering will take place. We like our format, and the flexibility of WordPress has been wonderful. After the initial learning curve, I have found it to be very intuitive and user-friendly. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=53 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=53 Wed, 9 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST OK, it’s a given that high schools are moving their school newspapers and TV news shows to the Internet.   Want to know where it’s going next?  Start with the new tablet readers – the next generation of Kindle-like devises. Add news and video in a magazine format, and you have the next generation of news delivery. To see how it will work, check out this Sports Illustrated video.     http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=51 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=51 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST A couple of weeks ago our football team made the playoffs for only the third time in school history, and the day of the game, which was being played 170 miles away on a school night, one of our cooks asked if we would have updates anywhere on the new school website.  A few dedicated fans and parents were making the trip to Pacific, MO for the game, but most of our students and staff would not be able to go, and the game was not being carried live on radio or television.  The question the cook asked prompted a lot of fast planning. How could we cover the game online and provide yet another service to our community on our new website? I decided all I really needed was a reliable “stringer” on site, someone willing to send regular, dependable updates during the game. Darrell Johnson, one of our assistant principals with a coaching background, was making the trek to Pacific, so I approached him about sending me the news every time a team scored.  I would then post it on our home page.  Darrell was enthusiastic, and we decided he would simply text message the updates. That way I’d have the information in “print form” on my cell, and we wouldn’t have to mess with numerous phone calls where I’d have to take notes. Having someone like Darrell, who has an understanding of football, helped immensely as he sent texts with the appropriate, pertinent details I could easily relay to our web audience via my trusty laptop. By the last block of the day, we had announced to everyone on the P.A. that they could get game updates on our website. I also e-mailed the faculty reminding them to follow the game online.   A handful of my HTV kids were going to the game, and for “art” I asked a couple of them to take photos with their phones and email them to me.  They did, and I waded through some pretty blurry shots until I found two or three that I posted during the game. One I liked the most was the first one, a shot of our fan section from the bleachers at the Pacific High stadium. As the scoring began, Darrell send the information within seconds.  I would say we had game information updated online within two minutes of someone crossing the goal line 170 miles down I-44.  We posted the names of the HHS kids who scored, and always included the game time with each update.  By the end of the night, we had posted more than 30 updates, averaging probably seven per half-hour.  Darrell sent along some “extras” like interceptions, fumbles, and a couple of fourth down “holds” that kept things interesting between scoring updates. The next morning, feedback came fast and was all extremely positive.  Several teachers, students, and yes, the cook, all said how much they appreciated the effort, and joked about how often they were hitting the “refresh” button the night before.  It was great to provide the updates, and it was one more way we made the new website a vital part of our school.  Note:   "Hillcrest defeated Pacific 42-17."                   http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=52 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=52 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST Broadcast journalism veteran Dave Davis of Hillcrest High School in Springfield, MO, is keeping us up on his new daily multimedia coverage on the school's official website. A couple of weeks ago our football team made the playoffs for only the third time in school history, and the day of the game, which was being played 170 miles away on a school night, one of our cooks asked if we would have updates anywhere on the new school website.  A few dedicated fans and parents were making the trip to Pacific, MO for the game, but most of our students and staff would not be able to go, and the game was not being carried live on radio or television.  The question the cook asked prompted a lot of fast planning. How could we cover the game online and provide yet another service to our community on our new website? I decided all I really needed was a reliable “stringer” on site, someone willing to send regular, dependable updates during the game. Darrell Johnson, one of our assistant principals with a coaching background, was making the trek to Pacific, so I approached him about sending me the news every time a team scored.  I would then post it on our home page.  Darrell was enthusiastic, and we decided he would simply text message the updates. That way I’d have the information in “print form” on my cell, and we wouldn’t have to mess with numerous phone calls where I’d have to take notes. Having someone like Darrell, who has an understanding of football, helped immensely as he sent texts with the appropriate, pertinent details I could easily relay to our web audience via my trusty laptop. By the last block of the day, we had announced to everyone on the P.A. that they could get game updates on our website. I also e-mailed the faculty reminding them to follow the game online.   A handful of my HTV kids were going to the game, and for “art” I asked a couple of them to take photos with their phones and email them to me.  They did, and I waded through some pretty blurry shots until I found two or three that I posted during the game. One I liked the most was the first one, a shot of our fan section from the bleachers at the Pacific High stadium. As the scoring began, Darrell send the information within seconds.  I would say we had game information updated online within two minutes of someone crossing the goal line 170 miles down I-44.  We posted the names of the HHS kids who scored, and always included the game time with each update.  By the end of the night, we had posted more than 30 updates, averaging probably seven per half-hour.  Darrell sent along some “extras” like interceptions, fumbles, and a couple of fourth down “holds” that kept things interesting between scoring updates. The next morning, feedback came fast and was all extremely positive.  Several teachers, students, and yes, the cook, all said how much they appreciated the effort, and joked about how often they were hitting the “refresh” button the night before.  It was great to provide the updates, and it was one more way we made the new website a vital part of our school.  Note: Hillcrest defeated Pacific 42-17. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=48 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=48 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST Student Rights and Justice Kennedy   Today there’s a strong lesson for high school journalists on the front page of the New York Times. According to the Times, journalism students at Dalton, a private high school in Manhattan, interviewed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy about a talk he gave to a school assembly on Oct. 28. The Justice Kennedy didn’t allow the school paper to cover the actual assembly. Justice Kennedy did agree to a later interview. However, he asked to see and be able to change the article before publication. The student editors agreed.The Justice saw the article and made his changes – a Supreme Court spokesman said he “tidied up quotes” to better reflect what the justice meant to convey. Here are some questions to consider: Should high school journalists be treated as journalists? Do you give sources your whole story to tweak? How can student journalists learn their rights? Frank LoMonte head of the Student Press Law Center is quoted throughout the story. He’s paraphrased here: “Even at a high school publication, Mr. LoMonte said, the request for prepublication review sent the wrong message and failed to appreciate the sophistication of high school seniors.”   http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=46 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=46 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EDT At Hillcrest High School in Springfield, MO, the broadcast journalism class has turned the school's official website into a daily multimedia news site. HSBJ asked Adviser Dave Davis to blog about the experience.The week of Homecoming at any high school is a busy one, but for our "learning-as-we-go" web staff, it's been especially challenging.Our coverage began on Monday as we shot and uploaded a number of photos of students and staff dressed up for "Spirit Week." We posted a feature we chose to leave up all week that described all the events taking place in the days leading up to the game and dance.Thursday gave us a great opportunity to provide something special on our site, but we weren't sure we could pull it off. The plan? Upload a few dozen photos and an EDITED highlight video of the big Homecoming assembly. That assembly ended at 11:10 a.m. We were determined to have the content available before school let out at 2:45 p.m.We used two videographers and one still photographer to cover it all, and to get some shots we knew our audience would expect to see. This included the girls in the Homecoming court, of course, and some of the "spirit wars" and the various groups of students participating in the assembly. We also wanted to use some music (copyright-free, of course) and some natural sound to provide texture. That added to the editing time, but it was worth it.Our two girls, Chelsea and Kelsi, shot about 50 minutes of raw footage and we got it down to about a 3 1/2 minute video. Kaitlynn, our still photographer, shot 90 photos and uploaded 35 of them to the site. So at about 2:35 p.m., I sent the faculty an e-mail notifying them that the highlight video and stills were ready to view. That was quite a rush, one that is often lacking when we produce our monthly TV newsmagazine. There is nothing like getting content online fast, when people want it the most.Soon after my e-mail, I received plenty of great feedback. This was truly a first for our convergence effort, providing so much content, in various forms, the same day of a large event at our school. I have a feeling we have just scratched the surface.See our same-day coverage here: http://hillcresthornets.org/_beats/spotlight/?p=117#more-117 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=44 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=44 Thu, 1 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EDT By Dave Davis, Hillcrest High School, Springfield, MO The first day of the rest of my online life began on Tuesday, September 29. That is when our new school website, hillcresthornets.org, launched.  After teaching for 27 years, including 26 at Hillcrest High School, and after advising a broadcast journalism program since 1989, I am now, at last, a "print journalism" teacher. Or is that title really a thing of the past?  I think it is.  What I have realized in the weeks and months we have been working on the new site is that I am not a broadcast OR print teacher. I'm just a journalism teacher. It's all the same these days.    Here is how we have approached our new online presence so far. We set up our site so that one short, lead story at the top of the home page would change everyday. That's the responsibility of our Editor-In-Chief Chelsea Peebles. It is not her only duty, but it is one of the most visible. That story will not jump inside. It is a short look at a news item, with just one photo, and it will usually be updated in the late afternoon when our TV class meets.    The longer feature on the bottom of our home page will frequently be a profile of a student or staff member. The subject matter is really up to Kelsi Moos, our "On Campus" editor.  Her title may change since the piece she oversees is actually our "In the Spotlight" feature, linked on the upper right of the home page. That story will jump to a separate page, with at least four photos, and will include a video clip when we have one. We plan to change that story every three or four days.  The "Beats" you find on our home page each have a student reporter assigned to them, and we will update those every two weeks. The students covering the beats are making photo assignments for our two online photographers. So far that is working fine. Some of the beat reporters will shoot their own photos when the two staff photogs are not available.  Our video clips are shot on Canon GL2 camcorders because that is what we have for production of "HTV Magazine," our long-running TV show. It would be simple to gather video on flip cameras or other less-expensive camcorders. Our goal is to punctuate certain Web stories with video and sound. We are not producing typical news packages for the website yet. What we have posted so far are just video clips designed to give you a feel for an event or a class activity. We did grab a couple of soundbites at the football game we recently covered, but you will notice we let the action dominate and did not add a reporter voice track to the clip. Again, this site is evolving, and we may do that in the near future.  We are using WordPress for our site because after a bit of a learning curve, we have found it to be pretty user-friendly. Our Web designer, Mike Teuber, learned WordPress over the last six weeks so he could use it to design the site to be kid-proof and teacher-proof. It's set up where we will have a very hard time disrupting the design. One other advantage of using a blog format like WordPress is that each entry is automatically archived, which is really nice.  We are hosted by Go Daddy. Our principal paid for three years of hosting, and we have a ton of space so we will never overload the server with content such as video files.  My biggest challenge right now is advising both a brand new website and a monthly TV show. The same 17 kids are producing both, but it remains to be seen how we will meet deadlines for the site and the show in the weeks ahead.  I also find I'm teaching news writing all over. My broadcast kids are used to writing very lean, and in a conversational manner appropriate for television. Now they are writing to be read, not heard. We have spent a lot of time on leads, on the wonderful use of the word "said," and on AP style, which we have not yet mastered.  What we have going for us at this point, as October begins, is a lot of enthusiasm, some very positive feedback from our faculty and administrators, and the opportunity for this year's staff to be pioneers in our school's first venture into the world of convergence.  Post your comments on the HSBJ Teachers Forum http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=43 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=43 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT HSBJ welcomes Dave Davis, the Broadcast Adviser for Hillcrest High School in Springfield, MO. Dave will be guest blogging here over the next few months as he relates his experiences in re-designing the school's website. Phase One:  The PlanningWhen I got the “green light” to go ahead with the total re-design of our school’s website, it was time to talk to the stakeholders involved.  That meant visiting with teachers, administrators, activity sponsors, a few parents, and of course, students.  Their input was invaluable, and while we are not using every suggestion they made, a lot of what our site will contain came from those conversations.  This effort has been collaborative from the beginning.The biggest challenge for us is to create a site that will act not only as the official, “corporate” site for the school, but also serve as a daily source of news about Hillcrest High School.  The first thing we did was purchase a domain our audience could actually remember.  Mr. Rush, our principal, leaned toward having our mascot, the Hornets, in the web address, and we complied.  Soon, hillcresthornets.org will launch for all to see. Mike Teuber, my web designer, a former student from way back who is doing this job for about a third of what he would get otherwise, began asking me the pertinent questions so he could begin his work.  What links would be permanently placed on the home page?  What elements of the home page will change daily, weekly, or every now and then?  What about video clips?That last one, “What about video clips?” is crucial.  My advanced broadcast journalism class will actually maintain the new site.  We are shooting video all the time anyway, and we definitely want to add that new element to the school site.  In addition, we decided to go back to something I was familiar with from my days on the college and high school newspaper—beat reporting.  The “beats” we chose to report on will have links on the right side of the home page.  Students have been assigned specific beats, and they immediately made contact with the various teachers and sponsors so they can build a good working relationship with them. My site “Editor-In-Chief” (again, the influence of my print days) is Chelsea Peebles.  She will oversee the work flow once we get underway.  She will also have a column on the site, and make sure the lead story changes everyday.  That “work flow” issue is one we are wrestling with right now.  The site is still a week or two from launching, and we have to figure out just how we get content gathered, written, and posted in a timely fashion.  We even have to determine which computers we will devote to web content and which will be just for our regular video production.  Or do we use them all for both?Stay tuned as this “journey to convergence” continues in the weeks and months ahead. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=42 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=42 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT Constitution Day is the perfect time to salute the role of student media advisers. Video, radio, print and online journalism advisers teach the fundamentals of our First Amendment every day. Hands-on journalism -- researching, interviewing, shooting, recording, writing, re-writing, editing and finally broadcasting, publishing or posting -- teaches students their First Amendment rights and responsibilities better than any other course. Journalism students become better citizens because they have experienced our Constitution in action day after day. Today, talk with your students about the First Amendment. There are plenty of resources here at HSBJ. And we are so lucky today to have Frank LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center on hand to answer questions. Post your questions on the HSBJ Forum. If you have any trouble posting, send it to carolk@rtndf.org and I'll send it along. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=41 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=41 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT This week we've been featuring First Shows of the 2009-10 School Year on our home page video player. On Tuesday it was Ola High School's start up. It's amazing how this McConough, GA, program has progressed since 2007 when I first met broadcast adviser Chris Holcomb. Ola was a brand new school then and Chris, who had taught broadcast for seven years at Cordova High School in Memphis,  started Ola's  program from scratch with two classes Now he has six. Chris was one of our RTNDF scholarship fellows at the 2007 STN Convention in Anaheim.And speaking of STN, Wednesday's First Show was from award-winning Carlsbad High School of Carlsbad, CA. For the last nine years Carlsbad's broadcast adviser has been Doug Green, president of the Student Television Network. Doug began teaching broadcasting in 1999, after 10 years of teaching middle school language arts where he incorporated a lot of video into teaching literature. After successfully teaching broadcast as an after school G.A.T.E. (gifted) class, he moved to a brand new middle school and developed a broadcast journalism elective. Today he splits his time between a middle school (VMST.com) and a high school (CHSTV.com). Next week we'll be blogging about Doug's approach to his students' live shows.Thursday's show was a surprise - Alice Buffett Magnet Middle School in Omaha is going beyond simple announcements  and adding some nice B-roll as well as recorded interviews. Broadcast adviser is Laura Chytk, who attended the FirstTime Teachers Camp STN this summer.  Alice Buffet has only been open for five years and one of the magnet focuses is broadcast journalism. The school has five year-long broadcasting classes for 8th graders.Friday's show featured The Falcon Report from Hanford High School in Richland, WA. Broadcast adviser R. Scott Page started out teaching photography and moved to video when the school was remodeled.  This is the second full year for the program. This year Scott would like to see the students incorporating more webcasting and community outreach. Long-term he'd like to have the local stations pick up some of his students' event coverage. Scott, who taught himself broadcast, is a member of the RTNDFTEACHER listserv. "That is my professional learning community," he says. "I've learned a lot from that listserv. It was a lifesaver." http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=40 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=40 Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT How do you know who's telling the truth? It's basic question for journalists - actually for everyone today, particularly for your students. Some call it News Literacy - and it's come up in the wake of this week's "Mr Obama's Address" thread on the RTNDFTEACHER listserv.Teacher Gary Osborne of Emerald Ridge High School in Puyallup, WA, wrote: "At some point, the reader/viewer has to figure out what is truth and what is not, what is sensationalism, what is not. ...Ultimately, today's media consumers have to be more educated and willing to do some research on their own to seek out the truth."All the blogs, talk shows, Twitters, spin and email can end up being like a giant game of  "Telephone" for our students. And you know what happens as the message is whispered from one to the other around a circle.As educators, particularly journalism educators, we have to find ways to teach News Literacy skills to our students. Journalism classes are the natural epicenter, but the whole student body needs to have the skills to know who's texting, Twittering or telling the truth. This is something HSBJ is going to pursue. If you're interested, drop me a note at carolk@rtndf.org or join the News Literacy forum in the Teacher's Lounge -- and be sure to click "Subscribe" at the bottom of the page.   http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=38 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=38 Tue, 8 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT This summer HSBJ, in conjunction with Kent State University, hosted four mini courses that gave teachers a convenient way to brush up on their skills while earning one Continuing Education Credit. The courses were a big hit and the most popular, Getting into Multimedia 101, is back for fall. Multimedia guru, Aaron Manfull, is once again hosting this 10-hour online class that helps you learn what you need to know to start a class website. For more information, visit Register for Getting into Multimedia 101 with Aaron Manfull.     http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=39 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=39 Tue, 8 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT Dear Teachers, Congratulations for making it through the day after Labor Day – which many consider to be the first day of school. We know that many schools have been in session since mid- August and lots more opened last Monday. I’m already seeing some great early school- year newscasts on SchoolTube and we’ll be posting selections all week on the HSBJ  homepage. The RTNDFTEACHER listserv had about 40 comments on “Mr. Obama’s Address.” Again, teachers are caught in the middle of a controversy. Please post any follow-up stories your students produce on the Obama Speech on SchoolTube, and send me a note (carolk@rtndf.org) to let me know. I’d like to post a few. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=37 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=37 Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT Once again, HSBJ is offering grants to schools that are starting new radio, television or multimedia online broadcast journalism programs. Mini-grants for newspaper advisers who want to add podcasts or video to their newspaper websites are also available. Learn more by visiting 2009-10 HSBJ School Grants.  http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=36 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=36 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT I just returned from Camp STN in Chicago where 18 teachers from the greater Chicago area participated in a four-day, multimedia workshop. Some of the participants knew quite a bit about video, while others had never picked up a camera, but by the end of the workshop, everyone took part in conducting interviews, shooting video and editing it with Final Cut Pro.   The exercises in this workshop are taught as one would teach a class of high school students, which gives the teachers a foundation for teaching their own students. Throughout the session, teachers received numerous handouts on how to take what they learned into the classroom.   This is the third Camp STN we have hosted in Chicago, and once again it was a success. The following is a sampling of what participants had to say:   “Great resources and skills” "I liked everything presented in the session. I liked the details of the FCP training. I’m really happy I was able to be here.” “I enjoyed the assignments and fresh ideas to implement.” “I definitely learned a lot of exercises I can take and use with my kids.” “I would guess that I have been to 100+ workshops. This is the first one I’ve ever attended that I’ve attended every day and actually taken something from it. I am hooked for the rest of my teaching career! I will follow you guys anywhere you go. Thanks for the best week of my summer.” I want to thank everyone who made Camp STN in Chicago a success, including •    The McCormick Foundation, our event sponsor•    Columbia College, our event host•    Dave Davis, our instructor Stay tuned to www.hsbj.org for information about next year’s workshop. http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=35 http://hsbj.org/blog.php?entity_id=35 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT HSBJ, in conjunction with BEA, is launching a new program this fall tentatively called the Insider's Guide to College Broadcast Journalism Programs. In addition to providing a searchable database of college programs, we'll be opening up our forums to facilitate discussion among interested parties: high school students, high school teachers, college students, college professors and alumni. While doing research for this project, I came across a site called Journalistics where the blog's owner posted the results of an informal survey he conducted via Twitter on the best schools for journalism. The results of this very unscientific survey have UGA, UC Berkley and University of Missouri at the top of the list. The person who hosts the blog lives in Atlanta, which may explain UGA's top rank. Given our new program, I thought it was an interesting topic for discussion. So what do you think? In your opinion, what are the best schools for journalism, particularly broadcast journalism? Let's talk about it in the forum.