 | | SHELBY CASE/CENTRAL OREGONIAN | | Sophomore Gilbert Phillips shows equipment that displays school information such as schedules. |
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Crook County High School students are showcasing the best from around the school district this year through a videography class and, in particular, new equipment.
Teacher Ramona McCallister is working with between six and eight students on news stories about the district and about programming that is provided on Crestview Communications Channel 10.
"Some of them will be going on site to other schools and some of them will be staying here to edit and put them (videos) together," McCallister said. "You know, the skills to putting together a story - I think it's more than people understand."
She wants to continue showcasing "what's positive in our school, what's good in our school" and expand that to other schools.
"In fact, so many of our teachers have something positive going on, and we want to showcase that," McCallister said.
"Like I said, it's based on requests and so we are just getting started on it. They (students) are excited about getting going on it."
She is quite happy with the changes in equipment.
"The old equipment was, believe it or not, about 13 years old," she said. "We had gotten a lot of life out of our Title Maker."
"We could tell it was about to die," she said of the Title Maker, adding that it is no longer made. Essentially, she and others looked at what it would cost to replace the Title Maker and meet the district's needs.
The new programming is done through a Media Play system on a Windows platform "and has the capability of doing video feed live, pre-recorded video feed and graphics and digital photos."
This will be better for the district because with the Title Maker, one could not import photos and "when you had to do videos, it had to be done separately."
"It's an upgrade from the old system definitely," McCallister said, smiling. "This is a computer system that lets you do all kinds of stuff. It's a very nice system. It's got built-in things like Photoshop."
The new equipment will also allow the students to make news stories about schools and activities with the mini DV format. Students will then edit material on a MacIntosh platform using editing software.
"They (the school district) are looking to expand public relations tools," she said.
Channel 10 provides school calendars and information about each school, but McCallister emphasized that with the new equipment, students can do much more to promote what is happening.
"It's like how can we make the most of our channel," she said.
"It's not every school district that has a dedicated channel that they get to program from their own site," she added. "Usually, they have to go to the cable companies to program it."
She added that the district has a contract with Crestview Cable for the channel. That contract says this is for school programming only, with no advertisements.
There has been some discussion at the District Facilities and Review Committee already of having high school students make a documentary on the condition of the school buildings.
"It is in the planning stages and then of course this channel becomes a vehicle for that," McCallister said.
There are also plans to tape the CCHS sporting events.
"I think what they are going to do is tape the home games, download them and then broadcast them," she said, adding that she hopes for live and re-broadcast feeds of the games. "I believe before the end of the fall season we'll be able to start doing that."
Junior Jordan Cox, fellow junior Paul Scott, sophomore Dakota Graves and sophomore Gilbert Phillips are among those putting together the stories and programming. Cox and Graves cooperate on interviewing people for stories.
"I interview the people from the high school and edit and make it all fit together," Cox said. "I do editing and I also do interviews. I pretty much do everything there is."
"Sometimes he's cameraman too," Graves pointed out.
"Paul's kind of my set-up person," McCallister said. He handles maintaining the equipment and keeps track of all equipment.
Phillips gets information from the schools and district about games and schedules for the programming.
"I'm sometimes the camera man," said Scott. "She does most of the interviews."
Like McCallister, Scott is excited about the possibilities with the new machinery.
"Being able to have parents being able to see what's going on in their school," he said of what he looks forward to in the process. |
