Students host Day of Dialogue at Ladue

Filming this video was a lot of fun for me. I never get the chance to create media since I am always advising or instructing, so I really enjoyed being behind the camera and polishing my video skills.

I haven’t had any formal training in video, so I felt like I stumbled a bit here and there. For example, I have a lot of clips I couldn’t use because they were too dark or not in focus. I had trouble getting B-roll I felt I could use; it just seemed like all of the moments needed a face connected to them.

Apart from the actual recording, I really enjoyed the editing process. I like creating videos and adding music and transitions and photos. The only think I don’t like about shooting and creating video is how time consuming it is. I felt like I would sit down and spend an hour on editing but in reality it had been nearly 3.

Overall, I am really proud of the final product and I think my students and our publications would benefit greatly from incorporating more video projects on our website.

Adviser creates timeline tutorial

For my final project, I decided to do a lesson on how to use Knight Lab’s Timeline and create interactive timelines to accompany web stories. My students have struggled to make our web content more engaging, and I think this tool would be a great help for us.

The lesson walks students through deciding what kinds of stories would be good to include timelines, as well as how to create the timeline. Students will work in pairs to come up with a topic; they will then write a story and collect photos, videos and audio to go along with their timeline. Students will present their story and timeline to the class before publishing it to our website.

I also created a tutorial using Camtasia on how to create an interactive timeline.

 

Week 14: Adapting for the Future

Someone asked me the other day if I thought print newspapers would ever officially go out. I signed and said, “Yeah, I think so.”

Then they asked if I ever thought school newspapers would ever officially go out, and I laughed and said, “Oh, absolutely not.”

Maybe I am comparable to the older generations who still pick up their bulky newspapers each morning and take the time to enjoy some coffee while slowly perusing though the morning paper, but I certainly hope not. I hate the idea that school newspapers will every switch to fully online.

In terms of our own coverage, we have certainly made some jumps. Rather than covering news stories either a week too early or a week too late, we are more focused on feature stories, investigative reporting and entertainment in our school newsmagazine, while we have moved our news reporting and sport previews and recaps online where we can update within minutes.

My students blur the lines between their job titles on a daily basis. Next year, we are teaching everyone on staff the basics of camera use, InDesign and how to post to the web because having one niche isn’t cutting it anymore.

As the future of journalism becomes less and less clear about what it actually will be, my class has become more all-encompassing to help prepare students as best as possible. I think we are in an exciting and terrifying moment for journalism as more tools come out to make reporting easier and faster, but less values and regulations seem to be followed as citizens pick up their cameras and flood social media with bias reporting.

I often happily explain that I love my job because journalism and the news are always changing and evolving, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of what journalism could evolve into. I think now, more than even, journalists needs concrete values that are capable of adapting to the constantly changing media that is modern journalism.

Week 13: Educating others

I really love the idea of having my students educate the public about media literacy. As a teacher, I am fully aware of how much you learn while teaching others.

A few months ago, one of the local high schools held a panel discussion of women on the crime beat and it was open to the public. I brought some of my students and we listened as a moderator asked questions from the audience to five ladies who work on our local newspaper reporting crime. Not only was the discussion fascinating, but I was pretty surprised to see how many people came to listen and participate. It wasn’t just students or parents of high school children; people from all over the community came and listened.

The discussion gave the audience a look behind the curtain on how crime is reported in our community, and it also helped the ladies to gain community trust because they were speaking directly to them about how they do their job. It humanized the reporters and helped the community to understand how dangerous of a job these ladies have and how impactful their stories are.

Ever since then, I have been mulling over idea after idea of how my students could do something similar. I know I left that panel feeling more informed and more trusting of our local reporters. Imagine if we did something similar for our students, teachers and community? I would love for everyone to understand the work my reporters put in to researching, interviewing, reporting and considering the consequences of publishing their work.

Apart from educating the public on how we work, it would be great to further that to how newsrooms work, how social media reporting works, and how to diligently read the news with those new understandings.

Adviser creates interactive infographics

Map of where Ladue Students can easily sell advertising space for the Panorama Newspaper.

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Poll for student readers at Ladue High School.

Timeline for Yearbook activities throughout the year.

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1DjjVcKGI6XH3PaMgqhH7WW_NexxIbmAPsgQ0QhsIDsI&font=Bevan-PontanoSans&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&start_at_slide=1&height=650

 

Creating the infographics for this assignment was both challenging and fun. Each site had a bit of a learning curve, so it took some messing around to get the infographics to look how I wanted. The map was a bit more challenging for me because I have created polls and timelines before for other assignments, so I had a better idea of what I needed to do there. Below I have included some tips and instructions for how to create the inforgraphics. I will say I struggled quite a bit to embed the infographics, which was really frustrating and a bit surprising to me. Usually it is really simple to embed a link on WordPress but my links kept turning into hyperlinks rather than showing the graphics I created.

When creating the map on Arcgis, the first step is to choose how you want the designated area to look. You will click on the basemap button to select which map style you like best. Make sure you choose one that makes sense for what you are using the map for. You can add shapes to highlight certain areas and you can add lines to connect the areas or show a path from place to place. Make sure you include a description for you map and you explain what each place is. Including the address is helpful for the viewer as well. Once you have your map how you want it, get your embed code and paste it into the HTML area on your blog post.

For Poll Daddy, it is pretty simple to create the questions and options for your survey. Make sure you select survey rather than poll (a poll will only allow you to ask one question). When creating survey questions, be careful with your wording; you don’t want to word one option more favorably than another because that will skew your data. Once you have entered your questions, you will have the chance to mess around with the design of the poll before you get the embed code. Get your embed code and paste it into the HTML area on your blog post.

For Timeline, you will need photos or videos to add to your posts, so make sure those are collected and ready to rock. I decided to put all of my files into a Google Drive folder so that I could easily link them. You will make a copy of the Google Sheet and follow along with the directions on the website after you fill in the form. You will simply put in the dates for each event, a headline and description and then link your photo or video and add a caption. Make sure you retitle the sheet! Before you get the embed code, you will need to publish the sheet to the web. This is a very simple step. Just click on File on the top left and then click Publish for Web and click OK. Lastly, get your embed code and paste it into the HTML area on your blog post.

Week 10: Social Media and Social Role

Up until this year, my staff’s use of social media was pretty limited. We really just used Twitter and Instagram to notify students about yearbook sales and deadlines or to promote our journalism program and get kids to sign up for the introduction classes. In short, we weren’t using social media the way a publication should.

This year, we have upped the game by requiring all staff members to post on Instagram once a month with a photo and descriptive caption. So far, the response has been astounding. The number of followers went from pretty much just those on staff to over 250 in a few weeks. While the feedback has been mostly positive, I have noticed a few issues that need to be addressed if we are going to accurately portray our school.

For starters, some students do not understand how to properly caption a photo. This is partially just the fault of circumstance, as not all staff members took the writing course that explains caption writing. However, this issue certainly had me creating new caption writing lessons for those students who have managed to avoid it over the years. Additionally, students love filters on Instagram, which when you are covering news is a problem. We have had to create clear rules and guidelines for using our Twitter and Instagram accounts this year to make sure things are consistent and in accordance with our staff’s standards.

I think our main job as journalists is to ensure we are putting out truthful, transparent and important news to our readers, and social media shouldn’t lower those standards. It’s hard to convince the students that these platforms can be sources for hard-hitting journalism because they have grown up with social media as a place to find silly videos or share pictures with their friends.

Adviser interviews editor in chief on last four years of journalism

After last week, I was excited to get to work on my second podcast and to actually interview someone. It took me a while to decide on whom to interview because there were so many options at my school. I considered interviewing another teacher who works with students in leadership, but I wanted the focus to stay on journalism students. I debated between a newbie and an older editor, but since my newer students are currently going through the editor selection process for next year, I figured some wise words from an exiting senior would be helpful.

I knew I wanted to focus of the interview to be on what the student had learned over the years in the publication room and what advice she had for new editors, so coming up with the questions was a pretty simple process. Setting up the interview was also pretty easy going as well. Once we started the interview, asking follow up questions came pretty naturally because I was just genuinely intrigued and wanted to know more about Lily’s experiences. Like I noted in the podcast, I did tear up a few times because Lily has been such an amazing editor and such a wonderful person to get to know. The thought of her graduating in a few months hit me kind of hard during the interview, which I wasn’t expecting.

Editing this piece on audacity was much more involved than my first piece. I decided to add some theme music, which was fun to pick out, but a little tricky to learn how to fade in and out. I also had to edit the interview a lot because both of us took some lengthy pauses and said “ummm” a few too many times. Also, we did the interview in my classroom and at one point, there was an announcement made over the classroom speaker I had to edit out. I was pretty surprised at how easy it was to edit out the moments where we misspoke; it really made me thing about how much editing must go into the podcasts I listen to on a daily basis. Getting the timing to be exactly 10 minutes was a lot a bit of a task, but with the help of the music, it was certainly doable. I did find that my interview wasn’t as long as I would have wanted, so I had to add in a lot of background information and my own personal views at the end, which was something I wasn’t planning to do originally. Overall, I really love the way the piece turned out because it become a lot more nostalgic and personal for me.

In the future, I would definitely recommend asking more questions than you plan on using and clarifying your interviewee’s answers throughout the interview. Also, we placed the phone between us to make sure our voice levels we even, but Lily was a bit soft spoken at times. I wish I would have asked her to speak up a bit, because if I tried to turn up the volume in audacity, my voice would be too loud.

Podcasting opens doors

About two years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the podcast Myths and Legends by Jason Weiser. At the time, podcasts weren’t something I had ever really found interest in, but I decided to give it a try because my commute to school was 30 minutes. I quickly realized how interesting and informative podcasts could be, and I soon filled my library from storytelling podcasts to NPR to true crime discussions. Now, I listed to podcasts daily, so I was ecstatic to have the chance to learn how to make one.

When considering a topic, I decided to go with advice to my students on how to work collaboratively and with intent on the publication. When I was in high school, my adviser would send out weekly emails to the editors with tips on how to be the best leaders they can be. I envision my podcast as something similar; advice for the new leaders and staff members who will be taking over the publication in a few months.

I began by using my phone to record my voice once I had my script written. I know there is definitely better equipment available, and I plan to look into purchasing a better microphone because I love the idea of continuing the podcast I have started this week. As for the actual recording, things went smoothly. I had read in our class notes that when you stumble on a word, you should pause for three seconds before continuing. I didn’t know how helpful that would be until I got into the editing stages. I was very grateful I had paused after my two mispronunciations because it made trimming the mistakes very simple. I recorded a few times because I wanted to make sure I put emphasis on the right words and I didn’t talk too quickly.

When I began editing my three clips in Audacity, I was a bit frustrated. I have used Garageband and iMovie before, so I expected the software to work similarly. It did not, so I had to use a few YouTube videos and check my notes to figure out how to work with the program. Once I understood it, editing the clips was pretty simplistic. I downloaded a song to include after my intro, but I was too short on time to include it and I didn’t like the way it sounded as background music. In the future, I would like to maybe talk a little less so I can include more things like music and really build a brand for this podcast.

When I went to export, I realized I had to download another program to be able to export as an MP3, so that was a bit of a hiccup. Once I had the MP3 though, getting everything onto Soundcloud was easy. I jotted down a planning page in my notebook and grabbed my camera to take some shots. I did some quick edits in Photoshop and was able to easily add the image onto Soundcloud with the audio file. Getting the code to embed the podcast was also quite simple. Once I say the finished product on Soundcloud, I felt pretty accomplished and excited about how straightforward everything was. Not only do I think this is something I can use as a tool to help my students, but I think this is definitely something my students can use to produce content for our publications as well.

 

Dog helps adviser enhance photography skills

After picking up a camera when I was 16 and working with them for the past ten years, I wasn’t really sure if there was much left for me to learn walking through an introductory photography lesson. Boy, was I wrong. During our beginning discussion, I learned that not only does ISO control the graininess of your photo, but it also controls the speed in which you can capture images. I had no idea!

As we continued to work with our cameras, I had to look through the manual where I discovered a couple of other new gems of information. For one, I finally learned how to set my favorites settings, which is incredibly helpful. Now I don’t have to go through the entire menu searching for the main things I use every shoot. I was also forced to actually learn about some of the buttons I have avoided over the years, like AF and setting the AF sensors. It has actually been really beneficial going through the basics, so I am really grateful for that.

After we got through some of the basics, we moved on to a list of photos to shoot. This was a bit tricky because it has been raining in St. Louis for the past few weeks, but I finally managed to sneak outside with my dog, Kaia and snag some shots. The hardest part of shooting this assignment was definitely working with an animal. Kaia wouldn’t sit still for more than 1 second, so I had to take over 100 shots before I got most of the ones I was after. When working with humans, you definitely have more control because they can turn a certain way, or move their body to help you get the shot you want. In a way, shooting Kaia reminded me of of the unpredictability of my high school days of shooting sports, except at least in sports you can sort of predict where the players will go. Of the shots I needed, the extreme lighting proved the most difficult because it is hard to shoot a photo with extreme lighting that looks good still; also panning took me quite a few tries because my autofocus struggled to latch onto Kaia’s sprinting body. The shallow depth of field and wide depth of field were pretty easy to get and are two of my favorites because they really show the role aperture plays in shooting.

After shooting my images, I took them into Photoshop to adjust the contrast and lightening a bit. I cropped a couple images slightly, but I didn’t need to do any major photo editing. If you want your images to realistically portray what you shot, you really shouldn’t be doing any major editing to your images. Once I had edited my images, I moved on to Photo Mechanic, a program I was brand new to. It was really easy to navigate and organize my images in Photo Mechanic, and the color coding made it easy to see which images I had and which ones I still needed. For the captions, I had to label the shutter speed, aperture and lens for each image, which was interesting to look back on those. If you are struggling to understand the relationship between shutter speed, ISO and aperture, try looking back on the file information.

Overall, I definitely picked up some new skills, and I think there is always room for improvement!

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Week 6: The Modern Journalist

The battle between the press and the President has been mind-boggling to those of us who understand journalism and the need for it. Seeing your profession, something you believe in, tarnished by the most high-ranking citizen is gut-wrenching and infuriating.

The lack of trust in modern media is disheartening, but at the same time, I understand it. When so many publications focus on the need to be first and make careless mistakes, I understand why the general public is losing faith in our media. When publications choose to cover flashy celebrity gossip rather than focus on world trade trends or the effect humans have on the environment, I understand why people lost interest in current affairs.

The issues are two-sided. People ask for entertainment with their news, and the publications try to make it happen. People want their news fast, and the publications race to make it happen. People don’t want to read longer stories because they get bored or don’t have time, so publications cut their words short and enlarge their graphics and photos to pull the reader in.

What’s the result?

“The media isn’t what it used to be.” “Journalists only care about entertainment and being first.” “They make so many mistakes and never get it right.” “There is no depth any more. Publications all use the same quotes and just reprint each other.”

Because of what the people asked for, modern media found itself in the worst possible position when the term “Fake News” erupted. Because journalists let the people decide what they wanted to know about rather than what mattered, our society has had to struggle through media distrust and confusion. It’s really frustrating to look at where journalism is right now and how the general population chimes in with criticism when the general population is largely responsible for why media is the way it is.