Blog 5 - School TV News

Today I am going to introduce you to Tiger TV.  Tiger TV is the creation of Mrs. Misti Sikes, LMS at Hubbard Elementary School in Forsyth, Georgia.  A production of Tiger TV is made once a week.  Early in the year, there was a slight hiccup that halted production for a period of time when the only camcorder charging cord quit.  HES does not use fancy equipment, just is a JVC Everio HD camcorder purchased from Wal-Mart. 

Once the recording is complete, iMovie is used to edit and finalize the production.  The intro (the graphics with the tiger) and the mission statement (with the background) were created by a parapro who was working on a degree in technology.  All of the jingles were created by students using the Apple Garage Band feature.  My favorite is the ROAR jingle which goes along with the school expectations. 

Teachers can pull the news show from the school website, but Mrs. Sikes also e-maila the school community with a direct link to the newscast on Youtube (usually on Sunday night, sometimes early Monday morning).  Mrs. Sikes states that it has been difficult at times for teachers to get the newscast to load in a timely manner without buffering, so some teachers pull up the show before the students arrive ensuring time to load. 

At the beginning of the school year (during media center orientation) Mrs. Sikes advertises the jobs for the Tiger TV news team.  Interested students can sign out an application.  The applications were numbered, so if someone did not turn one in Mrs. Sikes would know who it belonged to.  The applications had a section for the students to fill out (why they wanted the job, the skills they thought they had that would be helpful as a news team member, etc.), then the students had to get their parent to fill out a short section and give permission for their child to be on the news (and subsequently posted to Youtube).  After the first two sections were complete, the students were to bring the application to Mrs. Sikes and tell her which teacher could complete the teacher section for them.  The teacher section asked about grades, responsibility of the child, willingness to follow directions, etc.  The teachers returned the application to Mrs. Sikes, so they could be honest without feat that the student would see what they had marked.  The teacher section is organized like a checklist, so when Mrs. Sikes sifts through the applications she can assign each column a number (4,3,2, or1).  If a child is Outstanding in the area of responsibility, then they would receive a 4.  Mrs. Sikes tallies the teacher score for all of the students and then puts them in order from the highest to the lowest.  The highest scorers had the opportunity to interview by reading a script in front of Mrs. Sikes and another teacher with a video camera.  In the past Mrs. Sikes has had family members rate the students they thought did the best, but this year she just went with her gut feelings.  “I tried my best to get a good mix of children.  Also, if students already had another job within the school (as a banker or safety patrol person), then I took them off my list for news people.  It's always nice to share the love and the responsibilities within the school.”

The students take the positions of news anchors, camera people, directors, editors and music creators.  For the most part, Mrs. Sikes writes a script (with the exception of the mad scientist, who writes his own, and the book talks).  Student editors are still in the learning phase of it all, so Mrs. Sikes always goes back and checks their work.  There are 5 different crews of 4 to 5 students each that meet with Mrs. Sikes during one of their specials times each week (their extra PE period).  Each crew works on their portion of the news once per week.  Students are not rotated on the news team.  However, all team members do whatever job is necessary without complaints.  Each crew usually has a set segment or group of segments to record, but sometimes things get off kilter (with short weeks especially).  For example the Tuesday morning crew (4th grade) usually works on the Foreign Language segment and any miscellaneous segments that need to be added.

One problem encountered this school year has been that the media assistant works in In School Suspension several hours each week.  Her first Monday shift (she has 2 on Mondays) is at the same time that Mrs. Sikes is supposed to be working with her 4th Grade Monday Tiger TV Crew.  They have tried to be creative by having the ISS children come to the media center during this time, which works if there are only 1 or 2 students.  If there is a larger group or a student who has difficulty with focusing, Mrs. Sikes will try to run the circulation desk while her crew practices the script up until the minute they feel they are ready to record.  The news crew students have also learned to circulate materials to students, so they have become very helpful there, too.

Here is what you will find on Tiger TV:

-          Pledge

-          School Mission Statement

-          Moment of Silence

-          News for the week

-          Trait of the month (with examples)

-          “Mad scientist”

-          Geography question of the week

ROAR (behavior expectations) trait of the month with examples

o   Names of students receiving PBIS (Positive Behavior) awards

o   Names of Math Whiz Kids

-          Word of the week

-          Book talks

-          Foreign Language word of the week (Spanish and French)

-          Message from principal and AP

I think Tiger TV is a fabulous example of student produced news.  Please check it out. 

Other examples are available on YouTube if you want to see more. Just look for the Tiger TV videos by Misti Sikes.