A Different Perspective: Color and Life in Middle School
My students need a flip camcorder, hard drive, media storage, and a tripod in order to incorporate video of students' extracurricular activities to our morning news show.
FULLY FUNDED! Ms. Sanchez's classroom raised $477
This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
American journalist, editor and literary critic of the New York Herald Tribune, Burton Rascoe, once said,“A news sense is really a sense of what is important, what is vital, what has color and life. That's journalism.” I want to add color and life to the lives of my students.
Our school is a Title I school in Florida.
This year my homeroom students, 7th and 8th graders, and I are responsible for presenting the CCTV morning announcements. Most of the students had never been involved with CCTV production; however, their enthusiasm and commitment to producing a high-quality morning show has been amazing and inspiring. We've gone from just making school announcements to hosting guest speakers and producing our own infomercials. Most of the program is done "live". Students are assigned different roles/responsibilities every week so that they are on a rotating basis. In this way, everyone knows how to do everything. Because it is a homeroom class, these students do not receive an academic grade- only effort and conduct is given. Their reward is an intrinsic one- a job well done and service to their school!
My Project
The students have discussed expanding our morning program by incorporating prerecorded video of extracurricular activities and pertinent interviews of students, staff, and community members; however, in order to do that we would need additional equipment that will allow them to go beyond the walls of our very modest “studio” (which presently includes a camera, VCR/DVD player, sound board, a desktop computer which serves as a prompter, and a TV set). We need a flip camera with a tripod which the students can check out and take with them “on location”- to different extra-curricular activities. This would help highlight students who normally do not get much attention during school hours (i.e. athletes, service club members). In addition, we need storage materials such as rewritable DVDs, to record and air our events, and an external hard drive to archive our news programs.
As a 27-year veteran teacher, it's invigorating to see middle school students, often mislabeled as apathetic, excited about this project.
The program is not only introducing them to new technology, but also, helping them fuel interests that can potentially develop into a variety of career opportunities. It is not often that I see a group of kids this committed and excited about a project; it would be wonderful to continue to expand our program by adding new features to our morning show.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Sanchez and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
