Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

What is it really like having a daily recorded school-wide video news? I know I can talk about my school's success since this is my favorite type of club I've ever hosted in my school. But let's hear it from some other teachers.

Naomi Meredith [00:00:18]:

Today's episode is so much fun because I have two guests, some of my teacher friends and friends in real life who implemented their school-wide video news with the system and resources I shared with them. These ladies use these resources in their school-wide news and had great success that they are so excited to continue this tradition in their school building and bring their school community together. Both ladies actually teach at the same Title One school, and they have a lot of ideas of how to make their school-wide news even better and get kids involved in various ways. Today, I'm speaking with Becca McMillan, who was on the podcast before in episode 40, and Carly Dolliger. Becca McMillan is their K-5 STEM teacher and coach at their school, and after teaching in the classroom for nine years in all different grade levels, she took on this role as a new passion and challenge. Carly is currently their K through five performing arts teacher, which is such a cool position. You don't hear about that very often in the elementary space, a performing arts teacher. She is in her fifth year teaching and incorporates theater, dance, and music with the Colorado Standards in her curriculum. I am so excited for you to hear this interview and how their school-wide news positively impacted their school community. All right, well, thank you ladies so much for being here on this episode. I'm really excited about this one because this is the first guest interview where I've had two people as guests. And so we were talking, I was actually in Becca's classroom for back to school and helping with her Maker space stuff, but then we were talking all at the InedCo conference about doing a potential podcast episode, so we planned it out, and here we are to talk about school-wide news. I'm super excited.

Carly Dolliger [00:02:59]:

Excited to be here.

Becca McMillan [00:03:01]:

Double trouble.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:02]:

Yeah, double trouble. And is this Carly, your first podcast episode?

Carly Dolliger [00:03:07]:

It is. Little newbie.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:11]:

You'll be great. And is Becca's second on this show? She was in episode 40.

Carly Dolliger [00:03:17]:

She's a pro at this point.

Becca McMillan [00:03:19]:

Second overall.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:22]:

Second and second. Perfect. Well, speaking of just creating things. We're talking about setting up your school-wide news, and I know that you two do this together, so you work at the same school, and you've had a lot of success. So I would love I'm so excited to talk about this because I'm sure people are yeah, yeah. Naomi, I'm sure it went great at your school, but it actually can work at other schools, so we're going to be talking about that today. So, Becca, how did you get started at setting up your school-wide news at your school, and what is the format of it? How does that all go down at your school?

Becca McMillan [00:03:59]:

Yeah, so I kind of noticed the need for it, and I knew that Naomi had started it at your school successfully. And so we chatted about it during one of our PLCs that we had together, and you shared all your stuff with me, and I just felt like our announcements in the morning principal, she means well, but it's a crazy time of the day. Everybody's coming in at different times. Every classroom is different, and whenever the principal gets on the intercom, you can't necessarily hear if kids are needing to talk. Maybe kids are more of a visual processor. So I didn't feel like the morning announcements were super productive. Not everyone. Yeah, they would drag on sometimes. And so the news, I felt like, was the answer, and then along came carly.

Naomi Meredith [00:05:09]:

Showed up. Did you start it before? Like, was it already going and then Carly showed up, or how did that oh, no, okay. Nope.

Becca McMillan [00:05:18]:

I had been wanting to start it. I just didn't get it off the ground.

Carly Dolliger [00:05:24]:

Then you needed the perfect partner.

Becca McMillan [00:05:27]:

When Carly came along, it felt like it would be more manageable.

Naomi Meredith [00:05:32]:

So, Carly, how did you hear about it? How did you get roped in? You're, like, show up. You're like, all right, I'm here. What happened.

Carly Dolliger [00:05:39]:

Well, I hadn't even had the job yet, actually, and I was talking to the principal, who, love her, created this performing arts position that I now have. I taught high school theater for a few years before this, and she had just casually mentioned before the interview, oh, everybody's really excited, and Becca, our STEM teacher, really wants to do the news. So I had already known that I was going to do this part of this job before it existed. But it was really exciting to kind of already feel a little welcome, at least by Becca, like, have that enthusiasm. And like, oh, okay. I have a little place that I can go to, and I have something that I can work on with these kids that I know that they'll be able to be excited about. So I got roped in really early. I think I knew I was doing the news before I knew that I had the job.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:43]:

Well, I'm glad you guys did it together, because I kind of had the same situation when I started the school news at my school, I kind of talked to a teacher about it the year before, and we were like, just talking back and forth. I'm like, hey, we should do the news at our school. She's like, okay, whatever. And then I figured it out in my head, and I texted my principal and all, okay, I'm going to do the news. This is how we want to do it. We're just going to try it. She said, okay. So it was me and another teacher. We did it the first year together, and then the following year, I roped in a few more teachers. Kind of the same thing, like, you need to be on my news crew next year. But it does help having more than one person, just like management, but also bouncing ideas off of each other. It makes a huge difference.

Carly Dolliger [00:07:26]:

Well, and it's nice because Becca can really then focus and hone in on the STEM aspect of it. And then I can take those maybe different kids, maybe same kids on a different time in a different day, and then really focus on that performance aspect, the being on camera, being our news hosts and the anchors of the day. And then they can really get excited about that and then move to a new space, a new person, and then get excited about the editing and the tech side of it as well.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:03]:

There's a lot of moving parts, even if you're not going live. So you don't go live either, right, with your news?

Becca McMillan [00:08:09]:

No, we record a week ahead at least.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:14]:

That's good. So do you record on one day, or do you just try to fit it in in your schedule when it works?

Carly Dolliger [00:08:21]:

So it really depends on the year, what we try to do, because obviously it's the beginning of the year now, and recording in advance isn't possible with kids right now. So usually I have the club after school on Mondays, and we'll record the entirety for the next week. And your materials were super awesome for how to format it. And then I'll put it in a slideshow so it's like a teleprompter, and we'll just record the week straight on one day.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:56]:

Perfect.

Carly Dolliger [00:08:57]:

But Becca now, because it's the beginning of the year, kids aren't super in routine, and we don't have clubs yet. She's been really awesome at snagging those teachers who are in the right place at the right time to be on our news, and she just does it. She's running around fitting it into her schedule right now.

Becca McMillan [00:09:17]:

Yeah. Last year I had a group of kids that loved giving up their lunch in recess to come edit the news. That was their thing. So I'm not sure that we'll have that this year. So I might do it after school, maybe with Carly, maybe another day. We haven't figured that out yet, but that's what we did last year. And then I would just make sure it was good after school and then post it on our Google site.

Naomi Meredith [00:09:46]:

I like that how you tried both just with being flexible, because I know some teachers really don't want to stay after school, or they would rather do it in the middle of the day as a club, which is definitely an option. I think that's totally fine. And then we did it where my first year, we recorded on Tuesdays, and then I was the editing team, so I edited all of them, and then I roped in two kids later on in the second half of the year, but then more kids wanted to edit. So the following year, we recorded on Mondays after school, and then the editing team did it on Tuesdays after school. Same thing with the beginning of the year, like getting teachers and kind of finding your flow of how far ahead you have to get so that it works out. You have to really map it out where, okay, we have to record on this day. We have to be ahead this many days for it to work out. So I think you'll get well, the.

Carly Dolliger [00:10:49]:

Problem that we faced last year is we would be like because Becca is very organized. I'm somewhat organized, but we would be ready weeks in advance. We'd be like, okay, but we would need the announcements from administration. And so there were times last year where Becca would have to input it a little last second because of I feel like her and I collaborating. Has pushed for better communication school-wide. Just because we're like, if you want it, you got to give it to us. But some teachers have really honed in on it, and some teachers are really excited to share, especially this year, what they're doing in the classroom and then have it all over.

Naomi Meredith [00:11:32]:

I love that. Okay, so you're kind of what, year two on this?

Carly Dolliger [00:11:37]:

Yeah, year two.

Naomi Meredith [00:11:38]:

Okay, so year two. So teachers are more excited. The communication has gotten better, getting the content. What was it like when you first got started? Was it the same response? How did teachers feel about it? Was it different between teachers, students, and Admin? What was that like when you first started?

Becca McMillan [00:11:55]:

I felt like our principal was she liked doing the morning announcements.

Carly Dolliger [00:12:03]:

School?

Becca McMillan [00:12:04]:

Yeah. I think it was hard for her to give it up, but once it happened, I think she liked that extra time in the morning to not have to be ready to do the announcements right at whatever time. And teachers loved it because they could just play it whenever they were ready in the morning. And kids loved it because they got to see other people from the school doing it, and then some of it was their classmates, and then they were excited to try it too. So feel like very positive response all around.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:41]:

Did you have any teachers who were like, oh, I missed the old announcements. Did you have any of that pushback?

Becca McMillan [00:12:48]:

No.

Carly Dolliger [00:12:48]:

That's good. Not a single one.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:53]:

That's good.

Carly Dolliger [00:12:54]:

Excited too. And we put actual jokes in there that we try to be silly with our scripts and we can add a little extra flair when you have the time to create a script rather than just giving information over an intercom.

Naomi Meredith [00:13:11]:

Yeah, I agree. Did you see this, too, that it was more student centered? That because you have student presenters. So once you get going, you have teachers, obviously, but when you have kid presenters, did you feel like the announcements just were more relatable for the kids to watch instead of just hearing something over the intercom? And they don't know who this they may or may not know who the person is that's drowning on and on. But did you see a change in how kids absorb the information too?

Becca McMillan [00:13:41]:

Definitely. I mean, kids would be like, I saw you on the news, or in the beginning, and I think we need to bring this back. We haven't been doing it this week, which is fine, but we were doing book recommendations. Like teachers would come on and do book recommendations and then kids would go to that teacher in another grade level and ask them to borrow that book. I thought that was really cute. But yeah, I think they definitely are more engaged in the information than they were just listening on the intercom.

Carly Dolliger [00:14:14]:

A lot of the times now they're actually excited for the news because they get to watch becca's really creative and is awesome with coming up with daily themes that we've recommendations and then we've added on as the year goes. And so I think this year we're continuing to add on to those. We've gone through a few right now. Our favorites are. Would you rather Wednesdays?

Naomi Meredith [00:14:45]:

What's that?

Carly Dolliger [00:14:49]:

Either students make it up or we'll get a segment from some teachers last year where they would have to come up with a would you rather question. So with just two options, it would just be a question of the day or Would you rather Wednesday? And it would usually just be something silly and we'd give a few seconds for them to think about it and it's just like warming up your brain in the mornings and just with something fun and silly to ponder.

Becca McMillan [00:15:17]:

And it gets kids to talk about their opinions, which they have to write about anyway, so getting them to talk about that leads into the writing process too, when they start to do persuasive and opinion writing. That's been really cute.

Carly Dolliger [00:15:33]:

And there's like full debates on it too.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:35]:

Really?

Carly Dolliger [00:15:36]:

Yeah. These kids will seriously, especially behind camera when they're figuring it out. And one of them before we start recording or while recording, they'll be like, this is it. And they really mean it. It's really cool to see for sure, and they never matter, but they do.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:57]:

So cute. Okay, so before you tell me the other segments you do, you're not just doing Would You Rather, what is the news actually like when they watch it? What do you do every day that's the same?

Becca McMillan [00:16:11]:

So we have whoever's reporting introduce themselves. They say the date we do birthdays today was National Eat a Peach Day. Whatever. Whatever.

Carly Dolliger [00:16:28]:

What national holiday is it?

Becca McMillan [00:16:30]:

And Naomi, you had those great videos, too, with the More Common Holidays, which I think has been great to embed those. So kids are learning about what other kids celebrate. We have a joke of the day. What am I missing? Carly and lunch.

Carly Dolliger [00:16:50]:

What's for lunch?

Becca McMillan [00:16:52]:

What's for lunch?

Carly Dolliger [00:16:54]:

And like, clubs after school, if there are clubs, it's just reminders of we.

Becca McMillan [00:16:59]:

Were doing a sight word of the day. But kindergarten is not doing that this year, so it's okay.

Carly Dolliger [00:17:05]:

So there's a lot that we have to put in that core little bit.

Becca McMillan [00:17:10]:

And then we do commercials, too. Like if there's special announcements of upcoming events, we'll do that.

Naomi Meredith [00:17:16]:

That's perfect. So then you have that, and then you were doing themes. So you had the Would You rather day. And then what were your other days?

Carly Dolliger [00:17:25]:

We have thankful Thursday. Oh, we've got a lot mindful Monday.

Becca McMillan [00:17:31]:

We were doing with our school psychologist for a while. It was with a specific group of kids that she would meet at a certain time, and I would record her using a mindful strategy with those students. She went on maternity leave, so we're going to get that back up and going. But we're trying to figure out Tuesday. Tuesday has been tricky. Would you rather? Wednesday thankful Thursday. And then I think we're going to try what fun Fact Friday?

Naomi Meredith [00:18:03]:

Yeah.

Carly Dolliger [00:18:06]:

Last year we didn't have Fridays because Fridays were still the day that the principal got to announce, okay. So she could still hold on to something. So this year we're excited for Fridays. I feel like Fun Fact Friday is the way to go.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:19]:

What about Tuesdays? You do talk about it Tuesday, and there's like, reminders about how to behave in the cafeteria, how to line up at recess. It could be, go check out the lost and found. We did that one a lot. That one was a really popular segment.

Carly Dolliger [00:18:40]:

Our last lost and found segment was a fashion show. It was so great. It was a good one. The kids really got into that one and they would be like, that's my jacket. Yeah, go get it. Go get it.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:59]:

When the teacher is wearing it, because sometimes you can find some good stuff as a teacher, too, you're like, hey, this fits me. I might keep my eyes.

Carly Dolliger [00:19:06]:

I will say I did carry a lunchbox and have a little hat on at one point in the fashion show.

Naomi Meredith [00:19:14]:

Okay, so what else did you do? Okay, so you had all those themes, and then you have your normal structure, which I did the same one. And it works really well because the kids like that consistency and knowing what to count on, knowing what the news is, all the events. But then the fun things just adds that flair and building community, which they're really fun, and the kids will think of stuff, too. So you did that. Okay. I loved this one so much. And I need to get a video clip from you, Becca, because it's so funny what you did for Reading Madness. What was that one?

Becca McMillan [00:19:50]:

Yes. So we had a whole month last March where we had a school-wide competition all based around literacy. And one of the ways that classes could earn points was by guessing the mystery reader that was on the news. So if you've seen Mystery Singer, where they wear the ridiculous costumes and they sing, and then people have to guess.

Carly Dolliger [00:20:21]:

Who the celebrity is.

Becca McMillan [00:20:23]:

Mass Singer. Mass singer? Yes. I guess you could call it Masked Reader.

Carly Dolliger [00:20:30]:

I think it was like Mass Mystery.

Becca McMillan [00:20:32]:

Reader or something like that, probably. So we got what do you call the animal that represents your school? Our mascot. It's too late.

Carly Dolliger [00:20:47]:

Support.

Becca McMillan [00:20:49]:

Our mascot is Mighty the Mustang. And we have a costume that teachers take turns wearing to be Mighty the Mustang. And so I recorded a bunch of teachers just wearing the head mask, the head of Mighty, and they each read a Michelle Silverstein poem wearing it. And so then classes had to guess who the Masked Reader was for that day on the news.

Carly Dolliger [00:21:23]:

If they got correct, they would earn quite a few points for our school-wide competition.

Naomi Meredith [00:21:29]:

This reminded me I'm sorry, go ahead.

Becca McMillan [00:21:33]:

We have found that our teachers are quite competitive. So it was very engaging for the whole school.

Naomi Meredith [00:21:40]:

Yes, well, it reminded me I think I sent you the episode of Abbot elementary where they have a literacy like competition, a reading competition. And I'm like, oh, this is so perfect for this. I was dying. And the way you edited the video clips were so funny, too. I loved that segment so much. It was pretty good one that I did last year. And it was honestly, because I had to do crosswalk duty so many times, and I was bored out of my mind because it wasn't very busy where I had to stand. So I did crosswalk questions with Miss Meredith, and I had the art teacher actually film me crossing the street, holding up the sign. And so I had a question of the day, like some random thing. Like, if you were to do one of these things, ride a hot air balloon or go deep diving in the ocean, what would you pick? And I would record the kids answers and put all the clips together as, like, a little segment. I would just pop in. So the kids were hounding me all the time. When you go to crosswalk duty, when you crosswalk duty. I'm like it's on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Okay, go find me. But they were sad when I didn't bring my microphone. I'm like, Sorry, I don't have time to edit this. But it's just fun doing that kind of random stuff that I feel like is missing sometimes. Or we don't do as many assemblies, or it's that stuff that makes school fun and memorable. So did you do anything else, like, any other segments that you loved?

Becca McMillan [00:23:19]:

We've done so many things.

Carly Dolliger [00:23:21]:

I feel like we've been, like we use last year as kind of an experiment. Like whatever we felt like trying, we would at least record and we would at least see what happens with it. And so I feel like coming back to school, there's just a lot of things that we're like, oh, yeah, we did do that.

Becca McMillan [00:23:41]:

That was awesome.

Carly Dolliger [00:23:42]:

It's just reminding ourselves of everything. The other day, we were recording some teachers for it. We did whole groups of grade levels because we only have two or three on per grade level. One, they are just like the kids when they record. They're on campus.

Becca McMillan [00:24:03]:

Yeah.

Carly Dolliger [00:24:04]:

They're like, oh, I messed that up. I'm like, It's okay, keep going. They're like, no two. We finished recording, and then all of a sudden, Becca was like, oh, we need our would you rather Wednesday? And my mind was blown. I was like, oh, my gosh, we did so much, I forgot.

Becca McMillan [00:24:21]:

Another popular one is the Bloopers. They get sad when there aren't any Bloopers certain days, but the Bloopers are the hardest to edit. But they do love the Bloopers well.

Naomi Meredith [00:24:34]:

And it's hard, too, because you don't want to encourage Bloopers. Like, you have to do Bloopers, because sometimes some kids would say you would hear them, I'm going to mess up on purpose to make sure it's a Blooper. So there are some groups you're like, hey, you need to calm down. It's not about the bloopers. It's about delivering the high quality content. But here and there, if it pops up, I love the Bloopers too. They're my absolute favorite. And the first year, I saved every single Blooper and made an Ultimate Bloopers reel that was 20 minutes long and.

Carly Dolliger [00:25:08]:

Played week of school.

Naomi Meredith [00:25:10]:

And the kids had no idea I was doing this. This is what happens when you're the only editor. So I was able to save them all. But I think the segments are just like, a fun way. And in the workshop I'll be hosting, I actually have a growing list of different segments that people can grab on. So the link will be in the show notes for that workshop, but definitely you guys will remember them, too. I'll share it with you guys. You get in on this free, but everybody else check out the link in the description.

Carly Dolliger [00:25:42]:

I will say you and your resources were super useful. When we first started to set up, it gave us a lot of confidence of like, okay, there's already something that we know for sure does work in a school environment, and it's similar to ours. We're in the same school district, but regardless, it's very applicable to a broad range of, like, okay, this is exactly how it goes. This is the order. This is smooth. And, yeah, it definitely helped a lot. Just give us the confidence to actually start. Good.

Naomi Meredith [00:26:17]:

I'm so glad it was helpful. And yeah, I'm all about that. Try it out, and then I'll share it with you guys. So the same stuff is in the workshop. So I'm so glad that it worked for you, too.

Carly Dolliger [00:26:28]:

Well, and Becca was just because I hadn't met you yet, but Becca goes, I have a shared drive with my friend.

Becca McMillan [00:26:33]:

She's amazing.

Carly Dolliger [00:26:34]:

She has everything here. I'll just share everything with you. And so now whenever I go to my shared drive, it's like collaborators, and it's the three of us. Every time I pull it up, you're.

Naomi Meredith [00:26:44]:

Like, It's all there. It's all saved. Well, I'm so glad it worked out well, and it was something that was repeatable, but you've obviously added your own twist and things that other people can do. And if someone in a couple of words or a sentence, if there was someone who is hesitant about starting their school-wide news, what advice would you give them?

Becca McMillan [00:27:07]:

Start small. I would say start small and then get kids to do most of the work.

Carly Dolliger [00:27:16]:

Agreed.

Naomi Meredith [00:27:17]:

Yeah.

Carly Dolliger [00:27:19]:

I would say just do it. It's okay to make little mistakes. Honestly, it's okay to make big mistakes. You might accidentally say somebody's birthday on the wrong name. But at the end of the day, creating that production with those students is giving them way more opportunity and student leadership, and they get so excited. I couldn't imagine not having it, just with how pumped those kids get. And I say, just go for it. Jump in. Start little, but jump in.

Becca McMillan [00:27:59]:

And we had all different kinds of kids want to do it, and we had kids who were struggling readers, but they wanted to perform, and they learned those scripts, and it helps their literacy. So if you're questioning if it's applicable to your standards, it is.

Naomi Meredith [00:28:25]:

I would totally agree. Oh, go for it.

Becca McMillan [00:28:27]:

Sorry.

Carly Dolliger [00:28:27]:

Well, it's so personable. Whatever you need to exemplify. Our school-wide goal last year was literacy, and we did really see that improvement with what we were doing. You can choose what you want to exemplify and what you want to really hold the students accountable with, and there's just so much buy-in that it really works well.

Naomi Meredith [00:28:51]:

I'm so glad that I had both of you here to share your experience and just, like, getting behind the scenes, and I'm glad that you're going to be doing the school again, and you already have ideas. You're probably going to jump off of this and think of, like, 5 million more things that you want to try. So, all the places to reach out and connect with you. I'm going to put this in the show notes for everyone. But, thank you so much again for sharing your experience. And it's just good for other teachers to hear that it can be done. It's actually not that scary to pre record your school-wide news. There's so many benefits to it, and you guys are definitely a testament to that. So thank you so much for your time.

Becca McMillan [00:29:30]:

Thank you for having us. Yeah. And for your help, 100%.

Carly Dolliger [00:29:37]:

And for your help, of course.

Naomi Meredith [00:29:39]:

That's what I'm here for. Thank you.