PSA Feedback

This past week in DigCit we have been showing our PSA projects to our school and hoping to get them out and see some real feedback. We are showing one a day and hoping to get people to watch them and learn something rather than just forgetting what we show them and saying, "Oh, that won't happen to me". My groups main goal was to have people be careful about what they post online as it can and will harm you in the future when you submit college and job applications. As people are paying attention to more social media when considering who to hire or accept, it is important to be cautious regarding what we are posting online. Most of the time when posting things, I personally never think about possible consequences that could potentially arrive in the future just because of one post. 

Overall, I have received a lot of positive feedback from teachers and other students at our school about my PSA. I am glad that some students have come to the realization that they need to be careful on what they post online because after all the hard work we put into getting good grades and being accepted into a great school, nobody wants that to be ruined because of a meaningless post on Twitter. Hopefully, more students have learned something from my PSA than just the few that have said something to me. I know how hard it can be to keep up with everything going on in 7 classes at once and I wouldn't want anyone to have their dream college deny them, not because of grades, but because of a dumb post online.

PSA Project

This past week or two we have been working in groups on our PSA projects in order to spread awareness about our given topics. We worked in groups of 3-4 and my group received a topic concerning digital footprints and why you should be cautious of what you post. Our group focused on the fact that everything you post online will always be there and will always be able to be seen by anyone who wants to. Everything you post can and will effect your future so we tried to drill that into the head of our viewers so that people do not ruin their future because of a post that at the time seemed harmless. In DigCit, we often speak of how what we post online will effect our college applications and job applications. So, this is a topic that we are somewhat familiar with and could easily depict what would happen if you are not cautious. Some of the phrases we used might be seen as a little dramatic or severe (like the one below), but we did this on purpose so that people watching would not shrug our message off and say, "Oh, that won't be me". 

Because it always happens to someone and if you are posting things that could put your future in danger, you are putting yourself in danger and you could potentially be the next victim.

Spreading Word of The Knightly News

Just yesterday, in DigCit, we held a Google Hangout call with a professional freelance artist, Kevin Beaty. He attended our school before the high school was created and we were just a middle school, however our art teacher taught him in high school which is where the connection was made. The great thing about what he does is that this class is mainly describing what he does for a living. He gave us certain advice on how we can get out into the public and spread awareness for our projects. Mainly my goal has just been in person at school and on social media. But now, after talking with a professional, I realize that doing more in person would also be just as helpful as social media. Personally, I feel like social media would be the best for my project because then I could just add the link to my videos in any post that I make about The Knightly News. 

Whilst talking to Kevin, he showed us an informational booklet that he used to promote his work and to recieve new jobs. I think possibly making, almost a commercial for the Knightly News would be helpful in getting the word out all around the school. Also, I think that this way people will know when to expect the next episode and hopefully the will be looking forwards to it. Like I have said earlier, I want this project to be as informative as possible, but in order to make it interesting and have students look forward to watching it, there is going to have to be a comedic element in the videos. 

Public Proposal

Just last night my entire class of DigCit and I held our Passion Project Proposals in our school right before the school play. As I have mentioned multiple times my project is a video series entitled The Knightly News, it was created as a visual alternative to the announcements once every two weeks so that students may be more involved with what is going on around our school. In my opinion the proposal went very well for everyone, I think we were all a little nervous at first but once it got into the swing of things it was really smooth and nothing went wrong that I could think of. This was considered our midterm for this class so it was important that we prepared visually and what we were going to say when groups of people came up to us and were curious about what we are working on. Here is a picture of the visual that I created. 

Overall, I think that the proposal was a huge success and it was great for our whole class to get our projects out into the public community and not just within our four walls. 

Minor Setbacks

The Knightly News will hopefully have its first episode released soon. Unfortunately, the recording has been delayed as multiple members are involved in the school play and cannot make it after school until after the play is done. So, the episode will likely be delayed but hopefully not by more than a week. Other than that one issue everything else is going as planned. We have gathered enough members that can hopefully fill the entire script. A rough draft of the script has been written, hopefully after the Twitter chat in December we will be able to adjust it accordingly to best suit other students. We have also been able to successfuly gather multiple cameras, tripods, audio equipment, and a greenscreen for filming. 

Luckily, this is not a major setback, our plans to film were only slightly delayed. I was expecting some bumps in the road and if this is a bad as it gets I would consider this project a great success. 

The Knightly News Update

This past week has been a preparation week for my project and I would say that it has been very successful. I have gathered around seven other students to assist me in filming this video series, as well as the necessary cameras, audio equipment, and a spot to film that we can access on our school campus. A couple weeks ago our school held a twitter chat which all students were welcome to join, it was very successful in my opinion and turned out to be very informative. I have decided to host my own and I am excited to do so in the next few months. My primary goals were scheduled to have been met about a week ago, I did meet them as my goals were to gather all of the necessities to begin filming in the next week or so. As I previously said I have gathered all of the cameras, equipment, and hopefully I have gathered enough members to cover the series. Next week I am hoping to create a video that will influence students to not only watch the next one but to also be involved with what is going on around the school. I am hoping to mainly create a fun environment for the students at school and hopefully they will enjoy their time here much more once our videos are released.

Knightly News Update

The past week has been very successful for my Genius Time project. I am a supervisor of sorts of the Knightly News and over the past week I have set the date for next week to film our first "episode". I have gathered around seven people in total to film with me, around 2 behind the cameras and 5 people to do segments. As for the script I have written down several segments that we did last year and will most likely continue along with a new segment that I added that is going to eventually spotlight my peers Genius Time projects as well. In regards to equipment we are pretty well off, we have a green screen, several cameras, and audio equipment. We also have a small room in the school that we have permission to set up in after school. 

If all goes well I am hoping to have at least three episodes filmed each quarter, preferably more but it all depends on everyones schedule. This is obviously something that we would not be able to do all the time because we put a lot of time into the script writing and especially the editing afterwards. After our first video or maybe our second I am going to try to hold a poll throughout the whole school in order to see what students would like to see other than what we have already thought of. Next week my school is starting to host twitter chats throughout the whole school and I am hoping that after a couple we will get a lot of participation from everyone. Later on in my project I would like to host one my self and potentially get a lot more feedback about what we can do better next year and what we can improve on. I am hoping that they will bring forward some great ideas so that we can improve the show. I am very excited to start this project as well as to help out with others and see how theirs turns out as well. A lot of people have some great ideas and I can't wait until I see how they turn out.