Student Produced Newscasts

I am an elementary media specialist. I am working with a 4th grade teacher to develop a newscast that will be written, performed and produced by her students. I am looking for video newscast examples that are appropriate to that grade level. Also any information about programs that can be used to create a broadcast. We use macs at our school and at this point I am planning to use imovie, but am wondering if there is anything else out there. I would appreciate any help or advice that you could give, before I begin this project. Thanks.

Tags: imovie, newscasts

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Smith on February 11, 2011 at 10:03am

If they video in Photobooth it may help you limit their video time. Then they can import it into iMovie for the theme entrance. We use Vimeo to produce ours and save it as a mobile quicktime. Another place to send it to is Voicethread. But anything longer than 10 minutes needs to broken up into multiple segments.

Here is a blog that I posted about this. http://maistec.posterous.com/writing-in-math-goes-to-the-movies

Let me know if I can help!

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Permalink Reply by Donna E on February 11, 2011 at 5:49pm

Wow! Thanks for the information. The Voicethread tutorial was very informative and I enjoyed the samples of the students' math projects. What a great way for students to develop and share their understanding of math concepts. I had planned to use iMovie, but hadn't really considered using Photobooth. I really appreciate the advice. It looks like I have several options.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Nelson on February 11, 2011 at 4:10pm

The best example of student produced newcasts that I have seen in my travels visiting schools around the country is at Rocky Heights Middle School in Highlands Ranch CO. These are produced by sixth, seventh, and eight graders; but I was blown away with the quality of their daily newscast. They go "live" each morning with about a 10 minute newscast that call Nighthawk News. I am inserting several web links; I bet they could provide some valuable help. Good luck; the kids should have a great time and learn alot!

http://schools.dcsdk12.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.p...

http://www.castlepinesconnection.com/pages/news/2010/qtr1/cpc3/nigh...

http://www.coloradocommunitynewspapers.com/articles/2010/04/12/lone...

http://www.castlepinesconnection.com/pages/news/2010/qtr3/cpc2/nigh...

http://www.character.org/Page.cfm?PageID=419&wpid=111

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Permalink Reply by Donna E on February 11, 2011 at 6:03pm

Thanks. I got some good ideas about topics for segments, organization (using storyboards), and technical skills that students can learn and use in the creation of the newscast. I can't wait to get started.

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Permalink Reply by Nina Peery on February 15, 2011 at 4:45pm

Have you thought of using chromakey technology? iMove09 has the capability of handling green screens very well. There is also a good tutorial on Schooltube for creating video effects using a green screen. I created green screen videos using a flip video camera in front of a green screen and pulling them in to iMovie 09. The tutorial can be found here: http://www.woisd.net/view/mod/quiz/attempt.php?id=2288. Log in as: woteacher password: woteacher. The Schooltube video can be found here: http://www.schooltube.com/video/e399b7958dc926c37c54/Videomakers-Fa....

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Permalink Reply by Diana Hansen on February 16, 2011 at 2:07pm

Hi Donna!

Here’s a great link on how to create a school newscasts on a small budget from HP’s Teacher Experience Exchange - http://bit.ly/gKrLyV

Hope you find it helpful!