HURLOCK, Md. — A Dorchester County middle school has a whole new way of starting the school day, trading its traditional PA announcements for a live video broadcast.
North Dorchester Middle School's morning announcements are now livestreamed, powered by a new camera, mic stands and lights.
Teachers and students watch the broadcast in their classrooms every morning.
RJ Larimer, the student to pilot the program says it’s a great way to start the day.
"Doing this gives me a whole lot of energy,” Larimer said. “Makes me feel like I can go through the whole day and help people out…The only intimidating part is it's live, and then you're in front of a camera in front of the whole school. But after like your first day or two, it becomes just natural and easy.”
The upgrade was made possible with a $1,000 grant from the Dorchester Education Foundation, a community-supported nonprofit built to fund innovative programs in Dorchester County public schools.
Seventh-grade Assistant Principal Mark Pages, who runs the morning announcements with Larimer, says the new program helps students develop a variety of skills.
“Obviously public speaking and making sure that students are comfortable in front of the camera like, you know, fix your face kind of stuff, but making sure that they're emoting and being, energetic, but also reading through a script and then also taking that script and being able to ad lib,” Pages said.
The idea for a video broadcast grew out of a podcast Pages started with a student while working as an assistant principal at North Dorchester High School. When Pages moved to North Dorchester Middle, Larimer, then a seventh grader, discovered the podcast and asked to get involved.
The two started an audio-video podcast last school year. This year, to make the project more purposeful and involve more students, they turned it into daily morning announcements, which began Tuesday.
Pages said the building has had a TV studio for years, but the equipment had grown old and outdated.
Pages said with this new equipment, he hopes to eventually expand the program so classrooms can sign up to use the equipment for their own projects.
"Eventually what I would also like to do with this program and with the equipment, is that classrooms can sign up to use that equipment to create projects and record things, or like if they're doing Anne Frank they can record the different voices for that. For a science project, maybe they're filming the experiment as it's going on,” Pages said. “There's so much potential with this.”
Larimer says he also hopes the program shows his classmates what careers could be possible for them.
"Being the first student to start this makes me feel good because I want to let others do this and it go on for a while. As more people come to the building I hope it gains popularity so that we can get people interested in other careers,” Larimer
An interest meeting will be held in a few weeks for any student looking to get involved in the broadcast morning announcements.
