Teaching 5th Graders to Create Video Announcements

Last school year, I began my journey as the Media Specialist at Pinewood Elementary. One of the most challenging, but most enjoyable parts of this journey has been the creation of our daily student video announcements. I began last year winging things a bit. I had edited videos before. I had used an iPad to record. I had used YouTube and Google Drive. However, I had never done a daily broadcast or taught students how to be news anchors. This process was a learning opportunity for both myself and the students. You can read about the process a bit in two of my previous posts: "What Student News Has Taught Me and My Students" and "Green Shirt and Green Screen... Oops." With all that I learned from last year, I began this year with a new strategy to prepare our students to really take control of most of the production of the student news.

To begin the school year, I set aside my first three lessons to teach students how to be quality producers of the student news. The first thing that this new group of students needed to understand was the process for creating the announcements. It was really difficult to find a way to explain so that they understood the three day process. I needed to explain that on day one of production two students would write the script that the students who had Media the following day would be recording for the announcements that would be shown on the third day. This is a really hard concept for students to understand, and something that I am still working on explaining. One of the things that seemed to help with this explanation was creating a schedule of student jobs and posting the schedule outside our studio. This allowed the students to see when they would be performing the jobs of script writer, producer/director, and news anchor. Teaching students this process was part of our first lesson on the announcements.

The main objective of our first lesson on video announcements was how to write the script. This involved teaching the students how to open Google Drive, locate and access their Shared with Me Folder, and locate the two documents that would be necessary to write the script. The students work as partners on the student announcements, so one child opened the announcement bulletin and the other opened the announcement script. They then worked together to write a practice script.

The objective of our second lesson was to learn how to record the announcements. This meant teaching the students the basics of using the iPad to record a video and the exact process we used when recording. When recording the announcements, four students would be back in the studio. One pair would be the producers/directors and the other pair would be the news anchors. The director would hold out a whiteboard with the date of the announcements for the camera to see and pull it out of the way thus directing the news anchors to begin speaking. The producer would get the iPad zoomed in on the news anchors and press the record button to begin recording the announcements. The news anchors would then use their wireless mouse to control the teleprompter and begin reading the script that had been prepared for them by the previous day's class. I explained this whole process to the class and then had every student come back to the studio to practice a mini script so they had a better idea of the process.

The objective of the third lesson was to increase the students' confidence in being a news anchor and make them aware of the importance of projecting their voice and reading fluently. We talked about what reading too fast and too slow looked like and what that did to the feel of the announcements. We talked about what reading too loud or too quiet did for the announcement recording. We then practiced reading a script together as a class trying to keep to a good pace and good volume. After practicing the script a few times, we talked about ways to loosen up your body and mind so that there was less nervous energy when recording the announcements. We also talked about ways to warm up your voice for better sound. Finally, we talked about what it looked like to be a news anchor. News anchors smile and have fun, but still remain professional and do not act like clowns. This third lesson was in my opinion one of the most important and one of the most fun.

This year the announcements are being overseen and edited by a committee of teachers. I really appreciate this as I am currently out on maternity leave and will not return until mid-December. I feel that this committee and the lessons that have been taught to the students will allow announcement production to go smoothly in my absence. Next school year, or perhaps even towards the end of this school year, I would like to further place the production of the student news in the hands of students by creating a group of students interested in editing the announcement video. I have had a number of students ask about this possibility and I would love for this to be a truly student centered program. Whenever I decide to go ahead with this, I would create the group of students that would meet once for training on how to edit the videos and meet monthly afterwards for further training and feedback. These students would have a schedule for days on which they would come in during recess to edit the announcement video for the following day.

Our video announcements continue to be a daily learning opportunity. They are an area of growth for our staff committee, our students, and for myself. I look forward to seeing the ways in which this program will evolve.

Green Shirt and Green Screen... Oops.

In October, I began my first attempts at putting together a student new broadcast. The students and I learned lots of things in the first few months as I wrote about in a previous post. We learned how to use the iPad to record, how to utilize Google Docs for script writing, and how to use iMovie for editing among other things. We are still working on fixing some of the problems we noticed way back then, but we have also made other improvements along the way.

One of the problems that we noticed initially is the sound quality while recording with the iPad. This is still an issue that we are battling. We have tried a few different microphones and have not had a lot of success. There is one microphone we borrowed to try out that seemed to work well, so we are in the process of ordering that microphone. In the meantime, it has meant telling the students to speak up and adjusting sound in iMovie.

iMovie: When you click on volume on the bottom,
 you can raise up the sound levels.

Writing the script has been somewhat of a challenge for the students. Some kids are just better writers than others. This has meant that I set the students up to type and allow them to try their best, but then I end up looking it over to make sure everything is correct. When the students have done a good job, there's not much I need to redo, but sometimes the kids do very little and I end up rewriting the whole script. It's ok though because it is all about the experience.

We have made a few improvements over the months since I last wrote about the student news. Our first improvement was to get rid of the printed scripts as seen in this episode:

We replaced the printed scripts with a teleprompter. Our teleprompter consists of a LCD projector on a cart connected to my laptop which has the script set up in cueprompter.com. The script is projected onto a portable screen.

This improvement has meant that there is no more shuffling of papers while a student is speaking and the students are now looking up rather than down at their papers. The end result looked like this:

This was a great improvement, but after attending the TIES conference in Minneapolis this year, I just had to have a green screen. Luckily our previous Media Specialist, the great and powerful Tom Gilgenbach, gifted us the app Do Ink Green Screen. Our custodians were kind enough to paint one of the walls in our studio (back storage room) green over winter break. This has been such fun! We still record using the iPad, then we import the video into the Do Ink app to add backgrounds, save the video to the camera roll, and finish editing in the iMovie app.

Do Ink Green Screen App: Super easy to use!
Even my 4th graders can do it!

The green screen can end up looking really cool, like in this video:

But we have run into the issue of students wearing green shirts, like in this video (oops!):

Looking forward, there are still a number of ways we would like to improve the student news. Ordering the microphone to improve sound quality will be a great help. We are hoping to paint the two walls on the sides of the news desk to improve the adding of backgrounds. Each week we announce winners for good behavior and we announce birthdays daily. We will try to start adding photos of the students as their names are announced.

Looking to next year, I am considering different ways we could have students involved. Currently, all the students have an assigned date to type the script and to be an anchor. Some students dislike typing and others do not like being an anchor. I have had students help with recording and editing in minimal amounts. Next year, I am thinking that I may have students broken up into groups based on which role they would like. Perhaps some students will be our reporters and gather information for our script writers to write into the script. The script writers would perfect their writing skills in scripts that the anchors would read. While the anchors read there would be a director/ producer directing them when to speak, slow down, and speed up as they record on the iPad. After the recording is done, the editors would then put in the green screen background and edit the video in the iMovie app. This would mean that all of our 5th grade students would be involved in some way in the announcements, but in the way that they would most enjoy. This is still a thought I will be pondering for a while.

What Student News Has Taught Me and My Students.

This past month, I have started working on daily video announcements. These video announcements begin as a script typed in Google Docs. The script is printed and two 5th grade students practice for a couple minutes before they are recorded using an iPad Air 2. The video is then edited and additional videos are added in iMovie on the iPad Air. This project has been a learning experience for my students and for me.

I began this project by working with each 5th grade class on how to collect the information for the script. Students learned where to find the weather forecast, school lunch menu, and Monticello sports schedule. The students then got into pairs and practiced by using these tools to create a mock script. The students created these scripts on paper, but the actual scripts are recorded in Google Docs.

After each class created their practice scripts, students were chosen based on their effort to write out the script or record the video. A schedule was also created of when each pair of students would do each job. This was another learning opportunity for students. As pairs they began to learn how to log in to Google Docs and edit the script for the next recording. Some students quickly logged in and got to work. Others had some technical difficulties. Over this process, I have realized that it is important to get the typers set up sooner and with more guidance.

As we began recording the videos, we noticed that some students were a little more enthusiastic and artistic (you know the ones born to be goofy actors/actresses) while others were a little more hesitant.
This is one of the more interesting recordings:

We started out with sound issues. The iPad Air took great video, but some students were really quiet and the sound effects that were later added were almost deafening in comparison. We tried a couple microphones, but have ended up using an iPhone 6 to record the sound and adding it in later. I also learned how to adjust the sound in iMovie so that sound effects aren't as loud. The students also began to realize that they needed to speak more loudly and not read off their scripts by simply watching the way the students before them handled the announcements.

As we continue learning how to create quality student announcements, I am hoping to move into having students do some editing. I would like to see these kiddos take as much ownership of this project as possible. I believe that one of the best parts of a Media Program is empowering children,

Using YouTube as a Resource

How often do you teach a lesson only to be asked a million questions about it by students and parents? I find this to be particularly true of research lessons I teach. When I teach these research lessons, students are often at different places within the research process and need a chance to look back at the skills they have been taught. Although I am available to students as a resource, teaching a lesson over and over wastes time that could be spent on other important tasks. Aside from the lack of time, how many times does a student get home just to realize they need help and have no way to contact you? This spring, I began working on a YouTube channel to provide students, staff, and parents a resource that can be used anytime. This YouTube channel currently has 4 videos teaching basic research skills. I plan to add book talks and book trailers, technology reviews, and further lessons as time allows. I am currently down to using my iPhone for recording and a very outdated laptop for editing. This means I will be slightly limited in the videos I can put out, but as I go into fall and get a new computer to use, I expect this YouTube channel to be filled with great resources for all to use.

Do you use a YouTube channel for your school library? How do you advertise it? What kinds of content do you include on it?