With the technological shift from paper and pencil to Chromebooks and Google Drive, students have adapted to “sharing” and “posting” as part of their everyday school work. Organizations like the journalism staff have even re-established their medium of news delivery from a black and white physical newspaper to a full color website that features news stories, photos of recent events, and even video segments. The Bison Beat has joined forces with the new audio and video production classes to produce a variety of video content for the new website.

    “I really enjoy having a new class like this because I can learn about the different stages of putting a video together and how to work a camera the right way,” junior Austin Melton said. “I like having a break from regular assignments and focusing on a short term project instead.”

    For their first assignment, technology teacher Clay Hodges convinced most of the other teachers to take part in a short interview focusing on how the teacher is unique to their school. The clips will then be edited in groups using WeVideo, an basic online editing software. The video will then be sent to the Bison Beat where it will be reviewed, color corrected, and have opening and closing clips added to it. This collaboration is unique as each group can add something special to a final product for the world to see.

    “I think my groups are doing fairly well on these videos so far this year,” Hodges said. “They’ve picked up on video editing skills quickly last semester so they have a headstart on the projects they’re working on now.”

    These videos have the potential to give the Bison Beat an edge in their ratings by members of the ILPC online judging team. By rounding out the multimedia packaging, it gives the website a nice mix of stories, pictures and video content. After the they have been rated on their overall website, they will send off individual entries to the ILPC judging teams for scoring on their multimedia packaging.

    “I think that by having the video added to our stories, we will be able to connect more with our audience,” senior editor-in-chief Bethany Gaskins said. “Since our generation is so influenced by technology, I have no doubt they will be more engaged with the content since it’s in video format.”