Doing Things the RIght Way

I just wrote an entry describing my very positive experiences today with two 6th grade teachers and their group of more than 30 students at the first planning meeting of their news team. The entry praised the teachers leading the group for doing things the right way, describing the way they organized their students into teams and gave instructions for planning their news segments, which will air for the school every week. Each group of five or six students will have a turn to air their episode to the school. Since there are six groups, each group will have about six weeks between airing their episodes, so things are set up to provide students ample time to plan, record, and edit. The focus is on the content and the process. Absent from the meeting was the focus on the equipment. I really like this! The teachers are doing a great job of avoiding the temptation to jump right in to the technology. Instead, the teachers will have students plan, research, set up interviews, write copy, and script their episodes before picking up the camera and working with the classroom iMacs.

It was a good entry, going into some detail about the processes the teachers used and the enthusiasm of their students... but unfortunately I got an error message when I clicked "Publish Post," and lost everything.

I had to write something, because it is Tuesday, but I just couldn't bring myself to go into as much detail at this late hour. The group will be meeting again next Tuesday, and I look forward to working with them again and writing to all of you fine people on Tuesdays... with Swindy.