May 20th, 2016

By Meddie Lozano, Elizabeth Castillo, and Astrid Onesto

Jeff Rhoades is the advisor and teacher for Digital Journalism. Digital Journalism is a class that requires advanced skills in video production, photography, and basic writing skills, which contributes to the PHTV news website as well as the yearbook. This class is fairly new to PHS with the running time of two years, including this year. Before this class there was only a yearbook club, with meetings after school and on some weekdays during lunch with around five students. Digital Journalism is an opportunity for students to flourish with their media skills and potentially lead to careers for their future. Giovanni Pulido is a former PHS student who took the class and PHTV (another media class offered here at Phoenix) and was immediately offered a job at KOBI after his graduation, which doesn’t happen often for many high school students.

 

The students create a wide array of stories and projects that demonstrate high levels of journalistic integrity, skills, editing, lighting, and sound mixing. Students become comfortable using special effects, transitions, and generating video segments as well as news based articles that are both engaging and enriching for the PHS student body.They contribute to the weekly student news website as well as the annual yearbook. Students develop individual projects that reflect student’s personal interests. This helps students take roles that immolate professional positions within the field of digital journalism production. In order to gain a percentage for the class, each student is required to have four quarterly coverages, obtain enough daily employment points, and finish their assigned pages, as well as articles, which includes pictures and videos. Pages are assigned at the beginning of the year and when finished are checked by Jeff Rhoades, Kelly Singleton, and the three editors Ariana Segura, Meddie Lozano, and Guillermina Rodriguez.

 

Any students that have taken digital media one and two are eligible to take digital journalism. In digital media one, students are introduced to photo and video technology and learn basic skills for digital photography and video production. In digital media two, students develop intermediate skills and hands on work with photography and video production which is accessed  through the use of digital cameras, video cameras, and video editing software. If students take four years of any program, they are then able to acquire their purple completion cord at graduation, including any classes that Rhoades offers.

 

Although this is a class of seventeen, all students are able to remain beyond productive. Nearly every week students have been able to post their articles about school related topics along with their videos, and featured images, as well as finding time to work on their assigned yearbook pages. Everything these students do wouldn’t have been possible without the help of other teachers and staff like Kelly Singleton, Ana Redding, the Office Staff, and Jeff Rhoades. Kelly Singleton stayed after school to correct grammatical errors on yearbook pages along with weekly articles, and Ana Redding who kindly sends photos to students when requested. The Office Staff offered help to any students and never turned them down. Finally Jeff Rhoades, who has made this class possible, offered his time and input all year long, making this year an enjoyable one for many of his students.