The coronavirus pandemic has changed life for everyone, in one way or another.
While millions of school children across Texas are out of school indefinitely because of the spread of the virus, educators across North Texas are not letting the extended break stop their students from learning and being creative.
Carroll Senior High School digital media students are showing that creativity from their homes.
“I decided last week, when the closure first began, that it would be a fun distraction for our media students if they could keep documenting life as they generally do for our bi-weekly KDGN episodes,” digital media instructor Jennifer Randall said. “It’s nothing fancy, but very fulfilling.”
Randall said her students, Samantha Medley, Diya Panjabi, Katherine Loomis and Leif Messinger, have been working to ensure Dragon Media keeps students informed during the extended break.
“It's been so good for our media producers and our audience to keep this semblance of normalcy going during such a strange time. Thanks to technology, it's been pretty simple. One of the best lessons my students are learning during all of this is what they can do with the technology they have on hand. None of them had school equipment such as cameras, lenses or tripods checked out over spring break, so they are recording audio and video mostly on their phones, and even editing with apps in some cases. It's a good reminder that conditions don't have to be ideal to keep creating the content our audience needs right now,” said Randall.
The same thing is happening for students of Norton Elementary School in Allen when it comes to their morning announcements. Their teacher, Karen Szeryk, said the sixth graders decided to do this on their own. They call it the “At Home Learning Edition.” The kids make their own videos and send them to Szeryk to edit together and then post through their virtual classrooms and social media.
