Lights… Camera… Action! For years WDLS, the broadcast studio at Darlington’s Lower School, used this sequence on a daily basis to send the announcements, lunch menu and various features into each classroom on our fragmented campus. The Eye of the Tiger started our day on the same page and offered classes the opportunity to pledge our nation’s flag, repeat the Darlington Honor Code, and have a time of silence as a whole school.
The "senior" class at the Lower School has always been responsible for the WDLS broadcast; this serves as an opportunity for fourth-graders to learn to use new technology, practice public speaking, work as a team, exhibit leadership, and make split-second decisions and changes because we were live.
The Eye of the Tiger was great! But, it would be even better if it could be uploaded to our website and viewed by parents and friends at home. The students needed a larger role in the video and writing tasks; and we knew that with the ability to edit our shows we could make them faster and more polished productions. The Lower School is ready for something new and improved!
Enter Tiger 2.0! Using 21st Century technology skills, WDLS’s latest offering and replacement of The Eye of the Tiger expounds on the magazine-format for news shows and will, in time, become a weekly show. It will feature videos, interviews and stories written, produced, taped and edited by the students. All classes, PK- 4, have been encouraged to showcase more of their work and curriculum on WDLS this year to highlight the unique events and the daily learning practices at the Lower School.
We will still have the luxury of having many of our favorite faculty features of years past along with the excitement of new features created by these exceptional fourth-graders. Our new technology (i.e. iPads 2) will allow the students to tape and edit video, making everyone a potential camera operator/reporter/editor. I think that the most exciting part for families will be that Tiger 2.0 will be on demand; each time a new show is finished, it will posted on the Darlington website and available for viewing in our classrooms, at your homes, or anywhere in the world.
Each fourth -grader will still have the opportunity to use the studio cameras, anchor, announce, and work the teleprompter and lights when we tape each show’s broadcast. Now, they will have so much more to do and learn as they write, produce, film and edit video clips to be added to the broadcast, and write and insert the scripts that will be used on the show.
This is a new challenge and a great opportunity for all of us to embrace change and available technology as we take WDLS and student broadcast at the Lower School to a new level. I am so thrilled that I have the fabulous students in this year’s class to help bring this new era about. Watch for our first installment of Tiger 2.0 coming in October!
