August 18, 2012 First Week back at school

I had written out my syllabus back in June, spent four days of about 10 hours each day with each day’s classes and homework and a, what I thought, a great schematic approach; I had the standards for each class that we would address, homework so we could begin with a flipped classroom approach and oh so much more. This year our school is really embracing American-style state standards. For technology I am not so sure this is going to be a good way, of course we meet standards just by doing… The notion that we will miss something in a year using technology is absurd but then I am a part of the system.

My first class was Broadcast Journalism. With last year’s success of our TV show, DAISlive, assembled primarily by my middle school publication class now a past event, I am moving it to the high school as a full-fledged journalism course. Also, this year, at this time anyway, we are able to use Google Sites and I have my students all signed up to view it as well as to create their own. https://sites.google.com/a/daischina.org/drneuage/

I plan too much. Surely we would get through my first lesson in 90 minutes but there was a little hiccup at the start when after fifteen minutes I realized there was no one in my class. Forgetting for a moment that I have two areas this year, I was in the computer lab, the other is in the basement, two floors away, the newly created video suite, I soon had us on our way to a new year of classes. There are only ten students so we should have a solid core to produce with. My new video suite is a windowless space of about ten by 20 feet that I have divided and subdivided. There is an overhead projector but no screen and the brownish wallpaper will not quite do the trick but I have requested a screen so we will see if one actually appears. I found an unloved sofa, green and a bit dirty with a non-descript 1970s sort of style; meaning the thing is as ugly as a sofa can be, but it is in our ‘recording area’. I have put in an order for a green screen but as we do not have the editing suite that I ordered a couple of months ago, there does not seem to be a hurry to put one up.

First observations is that I have an excellent crew; probably the top students in the school. I have a good international mix with probably only a couple of Americans and the rest from Korea and China. I want to push into e-broadcasting and have schools in other countries as part of our broadcast.

I went over half of our syllabus and we did not get to the part where we will have homework each class that will be reviewed in the class the next time we meet.

Next class, tomorrow, Monday, I will start discussing the creation of a story and at the same time we will need to put together some material for our first production to be aired on Tuesday.