MS News!

3 years ago, while at an education conference, Mrs. Bartell and I started wondering why we were sharing important information via Word documents and Schoology posts.  Besides the lack of engagement from simple text, there was no way of knowing whether or not the messages were being received.  6th grade news was born!

The following year 7th grade news was added, and this year we have gone to a full MS News with separate grade level specific news still being done.  We also migrated from just using whatever open classrooms we could find to utilizing the 5th floor media lab and some of the more advanced equipment available in there.

The best part of the news team is that it is student led.  16 students this year have come together to gather news, write scripts, direct, act as news casters, and edit video.  We also have a lot of fun in the process!

Thanks to YouTube, we now know how well we are reaching our audience.  This year we are averaging 150 views for MS News and about 35 views for each of the grade level news videos.  We hope those numbers will continue to grow as we continue to get better at what we do!