Room 319 Happenings Jan. -Mar 2016

Second semester always poses new challenges for the WESTV staff. Many learners often start to experience the idea road block in their segment planning path.  Like any good journalist, we are always asking ourselves questions like, "What do our viewers want to see?", "What stories should we tell?", and "How can we get more leads?" Well, I would like to use this blog an an avenue for leads.  Feel free to comment below with your story ideas.  Do you know something interesting going on in our community? Is there a learner at our school doing something amazing that we should be shouting about from the roof tops? Do you know about any upcoming school events we should be advertising? If so, leave us a comment.

One place we find inspiration and motivation is through the district's high school news program KCBY. In January, all eighth grade Media learners went to the high school for an inside look at the program and studio.

New Tech's NT Fuze also provided mentors by sending one of their seniors and former WESTV staffer, Jeremy C. to our Media classes. He spent all day with us and visited with each learner about their Challenge projects.  He was full of great advice and my learners experienced many "Ah ha" moments that day.

Media B learner's and all CMSW 7th graders experienced a first hand account of seeing Multimedia professionals at work during a field trip to Gemmy Industries. Seeing ways to apply their love of art and video to a career generated great enthusiasm for many of the Media learners. Check out this video to learn more about the trip.

We felt so blessed to have so many mentors investing in our learning that we decided to pass down some of the love and partner with Mrs. Donohue's sixth grade social studies learners. We helped them complete a video perspective project on the Industrial Revolution.  See some of the finished projects here.

Next, we dove into the world of animation.  Check out this Stop Motion Padlet to see the assignment and learner's creations.

Another highlight of the semester was receiving brand new Canon Vixia cameras for our program. Learners created tutorial/review videos of their new camcorder. Click to view.

...And of course, all along the way, we continued to produce our show.  Here is the link to WESTV in case you missed a show or two.

The last three months have been a great Multimedia learning journey. Wish us luck as we move into the CISD Video Challenge experience! Details to come.