Monday, November 25, 2013

Online Rep

Recently some colleges have announced that they have denied students admission into college because of the content they post online.  Angered students call this an invasion of privacy, but what we must realize is nothing we put on the internet is private.

There are private settings on Twitter and Facebook which protect your tweets from anybody who isn't your follower or friend.  However, pictures of your posts can be taken and sent around to anyone.  Also, your followers most likely aren't seclusive to just your close group of friends.  You probably have anywhere from 100-600 friends or followers on your social media sites.  That's a lot of eyes on what you post to the internet.  This should make you think twice before you post anything containing offensive or cruel content.

Some people think that it's unusual and time consuming to search each college applicant.  Also the issue comes up that not everything posted on the internet is true.  This comes back to keeping your online profile professional.  Maybe it is odd that colleges would go out of the way to search you on the internet, but it is possibility.  Keeping a professional profile rids of any risks of a college admissions officer finding inappropriate content.

The fact of the matter is that the internet is a tool open to college admissions.  Whether you think it is fair or unfair, they have access to it.  Most colleges may not use it, but it is important to consider the possibility that they might.

A simple fix to this problem is just to not post anything online that you wouldn't want an admissions officer to see.  Think twice before you post content on the internet.



Friday, November 8, 2013

My Role in ONW..Now!

I have been apart of a couple of ONW Now productions this year.  I've anchored in one and worked the teleprompter in others.  My role as an anchor is to speak clearly and smoothly and act professional.  The ONW Now attached below is the first time I've anchored.
After watching it back I realize I have a lot of things to improve upon.  I hope to be able to anchor again and improve my performance.  When I do it again I think I need to concentrate more on looking natural.  I feel as if you can tell I'm uncomfortable at some parts and I think the best way to improve upon that is practice.  Also I noticed that I'm kind of antsy, so when I do it again I need to sit more still while still acting natural. Other than those things I think I did pretty well.  I think my smile didn't look forced and I wasn't reading too fast.

When I worked the teleprompter, it proved to be a more difficult task for me.  It took me a couple runs  before I got the hang of it.  Even so,  I found it more challenging than anchoring.  Again I think the best way for me to get better is by more experience running shows.

ONW Now overall is a great way to convey news about our school in a format that is interesting and relevant to the students here. We have weak points and strong points about each show.

I think something we need to work on is our shot composition.  Sometimes we film without a tripod making the shots shaky and sometimes the lighting isn't ideal.  These situations are often times hard to avoid, but I think it is something we can improve upon with a little more effort and attention.  An easy fix for our show would be setting up all of our interviews in rules of thirds.  Another thing that we can improve upon is being more professional as anchors.  When we mess up, we're accustomed to just starting over and running the show again.  Therefore the anchors tend to laugh or become unprofessional.  This could be an issue if we were ever to run a live show.  We need to be able to roll with it and not make a big scene of our mistakes.

Something we do well is keeping our shows easy to understand and follow.  Most students like watching ONW Now because it informs them about what all is going on at our school.  The best way to keep improving our shows is getting interesting content and making informative packages.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Who Are You as a Convergence Journalism Student?

My name is Isabel Lauby.  I am a Junior at Olathe Northwest and I am a convergence journalism student.  Taking Convergence Journalism through the ecomm program has given me the opportunity to further explore my interest in telling news stories.  My passion for journalism has grown by taking this class and my skills continue to improve.  I enjoy informing students what's going on around the school and taking interesting angles that grab viewers'/ readers' attention.

I would describe my writing style as business casual.  I'm learning how to keep my writing formal, but also interesting.  Because I'm writing for high school students, I'm allowed some room to keep my writing more casual.  It is also important for me to focus on displaying my stories in a simple, easy to follow way.

My work ethic is very creative and dedicated.  I'm very much a perfectionist. I can't stand turning in work that is half decent, I try to always avoid it.  This can be an obstacle for me at times because I will end up working on projects right up to the dead line.

Being in broadcast journalism has taught me a lot about how running shows would look like.  I've anchored and I've been behind the scenes working the teleprompter.  I think it's important to have experience on both sides for further understanding of how everything works.

I plan to continue to advance my skills this year.  I'm excited to further explore all the career opportunities in this field.  I have accomplished so much this year already.  This class has given me an edge and a better idea of what I want to do in the future.