Guest post by Jason Clark, Innovation Specialist, Eagle Point School District 9, Eagle Point, Oregon     Twitter: @jpclark03    #Go3agles #epsd9 

 

Throughout my career as an educator and edtech enthusiast, one of my passions has been to use video to tell a story, or to deliver news. At every school that I have been at along my journey (elementary school), I have created a student news program. This started way back before digital video and personal devices, and that makes me feel like a fossil. I have created news programs that aired live through closed circuit cable every single day, and news programs that were pre-recorded and posted to our school webpage via youtube every day. It was always a huge hit with students and we found that it was a great way to reach our parents and community as well, once our shows were shared on youtube. That’s that magic of it, students reaching an audience to deliver a message in a fun creative way.

In my new role as an Innovation Specialist for my district, one of my goals is to begin student news programs in each school. Our district is a 1:1 iPad district which puts us in a very unique situation. Every single student from K-12 has a working studio in their hands, with the ability to reach a broad audience. That is powerful. Our high school just started a video production class this year and we’ve built a working studio that is based and focused on the iPad. We use Padcaster Studios along with our ipads to create two video news episodes a week that go out to students and the community. The episodes are fun and creative. However, it is very difficult for teachers to take time out of the day to watch the news with students. Time is always an issue.

One trend that I’ve noticed is that we aren’t generating the views that we had hoped to get.

How can we reach our high school students in a different way? The news and announcements are filled with important information that they need to know, but many are missing them because the don’t listen to the intercom announcements (I’m guilty as well) or get a chance, or the time to view our student video news (Eagle News) on youtube. Then it hit me.

There is a way to hit just about every student in our high school with the important news and information that they need to know. We are now taking a risk that many schools are not willing to take. We are using the platforms that the majority of high school aged students use regularly. We are pushing out our video news and announcements through Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. Our students are consumers of a constant bombardment of information, so watching a 3-4 minute news episode is unlikely to happen throughout their day. However, they check their Snap, Insta, and Twitter accounts between classes (never during class) and when they are away from school. We are meeting them where they are at. Our video students and leadership students are changing the way school news and announcements are sent and received. They are content creators of short bite-sized nuggets of news that will reach their peers and the community in multiple ways. We are evolving what school news can look like, and it’s exciting to see where it goes.

One thing to consider is building trust with students and the use of social media. They don’t necessarily want teachers to see what they are doing and posting on their social media accounts. The way that we build trust with our students is that our Eagle News accounts don’t follow anyone back. We are purely using the platforms to push out our content. All things said and done, our social media news does not replace our studio news. We still create our studio news episodes because even if we don’t have many viewers yet, the experience in a studio is vital to video production. What we have done is to mesh our created content together in multiple platforms to reach a greater audience.

Ask yourself this question: How do you get most of your news? Do you sit on your couch to watch the 6:00 pm news? Or do you get live updates from your local news station on Twitter or Facebook? As our world changes and technology changes, as educators, we need to pay careful attention to how our students view news so that we can adapt to meet them where they are. That place is usually one with a device close by.

 

 

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