A new elective at Avon is changing the way students produce and consume morning announcements in the high school - and teaching valuable media production skills to boot.
The class, Digital Media Communications, took root last school year when Technology Integration Specialists Amanda Schroeder and Tara Schneider started creating occasional video morning announcements with then-seniors Avery Leonard and Emily Edwards.
“They did it completely on their own last year,” said Schroeder of Avery and Emily, who graduated this past June. “Oftentimes they would eat lunch right in the library and then film and it was great. Their enthusiasm was awesome.”
After seeing the success of “Good Morning Avon,” as the announcements show came to be known, the pair went to High School Principal Ryan Wagner to get a greenlight to develop the course.
“The idea of offering a class centered on digital media production was appealing because I felt it would really align well with the district’s goals of prioritizing career exploration opportunities and fostering a culture of innovative thinking for our students,” said Wagner. “To the team’s credit, they developed a class that did just that.”
With Wagner on board, Schroeder and Schneider resolved to meet up over the summer to flesh out the course. Early on in that process, they approached High School Science Teacher Erik Schneider - no relation to Tara - a self-professed “tech geek” who jumped at the chance to teach the class.
“We kind of just went from there to develop it.” said Schroeder, “with the idea being that kids would not only learn video editing, but journalism and communications, too.”
The class has stayed true to its roots in the morning announcements and production of a weekly show comprises the brunt of the work students do in the class.
For each episode, the class of eight tends to break into teams. A couple students act as anchor/editors, responsible for hosting that week’s episode and cutting the final video viewers see together, while another pair is in charge of on the street - or in the hallway - interviews. Other students compile the episode’s “Upcoming Events” segment or pull together the end-of-episode credits.
“They’re getting a lot of experience with video editing, the technical stuff behind it, the different software and equipment - we got a couple gimbals for them so they’re not shaking all over the place when they’re shooting their segments,” Erik Schneider explained. “And then just the process of putting the footage together - how to transition from one segment to the other smoothly so that the viewer isn’t thrown off.”
Every couple of weeks, students switch roles so everyone gets a chance to try their hand at everything.
Work on an episode usually begins the week prior to its airing, said Bella S., a senior who decided to take the class after enjoying the marketing course she took with Leigh Major last year.
“Normally the video for the next week starts on Thursday,” Bella explained. “So that Thursday, we’ll pick our topics for the next week and then on Friday, we’ll review the topics, make sure everyone’s good with theirs and then figure out, ‘OK, so I’m going to interview this person and this person, I have to find a time slot to film with them here, here and here.’”
Monday - and sometimes Tuesday - is a filming day, said Bella, when interviewers track down their interviewees, get the footage they need and upload it so the anchors can edit them all together on Tuesday and Wednesday before a final review on Thursday.
“We’ll check through the video we have that’s going to go out the next day, that Friday morning, fix whatever we need to fix,” said Bella.
Once students have finished putting the episode together, Erik Schneider sends it out in an all-staff email and teachers play it for students Friday morning during homeroom and the whole process begins again.
‘A lot of work’
Through the first few months of the school year, the class has covered school events like homecoming, sports games and a National Honor Society food drive, meatier topics like the district’s recent implementation of free school meals for all students and the college application process, as well as lighter fare, getting student and staff answers to questions like “How old is too old to go trick-or-treating?” and “What is the best Thanksgiving side dish?”
The variety is one of the best parts about the class, said Bella.
“I honestly like doing the interviews,” said Bella. “Anchoring is fine but it’s just not my favorite because we don’t really get to go out and interact with everyone like the interviewers do. I think it’s more fun getting to talk to people.”
Bella’s classmate, Chloe P., doesn’t mind anchoring, but stressed the importance of getting your own, individual job done well and on time to the quality of that week’s episode.
“Let’s say you're the anchor one week, but you can finish your job editing all the different clips together until everyone else gets you their videos. So it sounds stupid, but tea work really is the big thing because nobody can do their job unless everyone else is also doing theirs,” explained Chloe, also a senior. “So all the different jobs have a little bit of stress because your grade is going to get docked if other people didn't do their job and give you their stuff on time.”
Both Bella and Chloe said they’d recommend the course to others, but stressed that it’s not for those who don’t want to put in the work.
“I would just say make sure you know what the class is before you sign up for it because it is a lot of work,” said Chloe. “It’s not hard, per se - it’s just a lot.”
“If you’re not going to do your part and you just want to sit there and do nothing, don't take the class,” added Bella, “because you're going to mess with everyone else’s grade and it's not fair to everyone else.”
In addition to the morning announcements, Erik Schneider said he’s been looking to partner with the Avon Chamber of Commerce to coordinate some real-world learning opportunities for his students.
“They just reformatted their website and updated it a little but it still needs some work,” he said. “It’s not super user-friendly, so we’re looking at trying to get that a little more user friendly so that visitors to the site are able to find the businesses they’re looking for more easily.”
He’s also planning to bring in some guest speakers who have experience in the industry.
“My cousin, he’s the technical director of ‘The Daily Show,’ he was on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show,’ did that and a bunch of other shows too, so I’m going to have him come in and speak,” Erik Schneider said. “We also have some alumni in the industry. Mackenzie Mislan - she graduated in 2018, I think - she’s a journalist for Channel 8 in Rochester. I talked to her last year and she’s going to come in at some point and talk to the class.”
Looking forward, Schroeder thinks the class will continue to evolve - especially as she and the two Schneiders are trying to take a hands off approach and let students decide what direction they want to take the show and what other projects they want to take on in class.
“This year being kind of the pilot year, we’re working out the kinks and I think, moving to the future, it’s a course kids are going to look forward to or they’re going to fight for who gets into it,” said Schroeder. “I’m excited. I think it's awesome and it's evolving. There’s so much we can do with it.”
Click here to watch past episodes of “Good Morning Avon” on our district YouTube channel.
Students in Erik Schneider’s Digital Media Communications class are pictured above working on an episode of their weekly morning announcements show, “Good Morning Avon,” earlier this year.
Avery Leonard and Emily Edwards, who both graduated in June, are pictured above recording an episode of “Good Morning Avon” during the 2022-23 school year.