The Morning Announcements

Do you remember morning announcements when you were in school? Not very exciting but times have changed with audio and video communication technologies. Many schools have learning stations, interactive boards, on-demand resources and Kiosk viewers in the halls. With all of this technology what is the best way to do the morning announcements?

Let’s look at three examples –

Formal Model
Some schools use a journalistic organizational approach with news meetings where the group discusses past, present and future stories for the morning announcements. The teachers who work with these students usually have a strong journalistic background. These high school students are producers, directors, reporters and anchors who were trained in middle schools. Many of these schools have production studios with students learning skills that can transfer to television and journalism jobs.

Informal Model
Each student has a job and usually rotates through the jobs to learn each position. Rather than a journalistic model these students produce a more expressive, democratic model. Students collect news from various sources including the Internet and present a more personal style to the morning news. These schools usually have a designated place to broadcast each morning using the computer, some type of camera and they show videos clips from earlier events. Somewhat scripted but certainly open to creativity and flexibility.

Morning Announcements as “Local News”
At some schools morning announcements are a unique blend of local news by students for students keeping them informed. It’s a presentation that meets the needs for that day. Throughout the school year many students will be involved with the morning news learning how to speak to the camera and present information to the school. These segments can be recorded that morning and presented as a short clip along with the principal's morning announcements for that day. Short, impromptu segments videoed by the teacher or other students for the next day's announcements.

Whatever style your school chooses it’s important for teachers to spend time teaching students how to create and present the morning news building their skills, confidence and understanding of how to use technology to create a presentation that best serves the school community. This is one way that schools and teachers can incorporate technology into the morning news and create opportunities for students to be involved in the learning process of creating and producing short informational presentations.

Article title: Morning Announcements – Reflections on a Timeless K-12 Ritual written by Michael Schoonmaker:
http://www.school-video-news.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=490:morning-announcements-reflections-on-a-timeless-k-12-ritual&catid=24:concepts&Itemid=39

From School Video News: http://www.school-video-news.com/ the For Teachers section.