S. Elgin High students get cutting-edge training in latest media

A budding journalist, Abby Smith didn't let a broken camera or a jam-packed schedule keep her from documenting history in the making.

Smith, a South Elgin High School freshman, in January attended the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference in Washington, D.C.

For four days, in between seminars, inauguration activities and tours, she snapped away on a friend's camera, and spent nights journaling about her trip of a lifetime.

Returning back to school, Abby created a digital story about the inauguration from her own perspective, adding a personal twist to a BEACON academy assignment.

"It was a tough," she said of creating the digital story. "But it's getting easier."

BEACON, an acronym for Broadcast Education and Communication Networks, is the newest of Elgin Area School District U-46's specialized academies. This year, 50 freshmen from across the district are learning mobile broadcasting, directing, media ethics and theory, broadcast journalism and Web design. The academy will expand to include sophomores next school year.

The academy classes, director Carol DePue says, work like an elective course, with students spending a portion of their lunches and a full class period each day learning the specialized skills. Students spend three periods each week in production class, creating various pieces, and then two periods in post production class, editing and refining them.

The inauguration video, BEACON teacher Holly McNeill said, is one of about a half-dozen projects the students will work on this school year.

"Like so many people, we almost found ourselves obsessing over the inauguration," she said. "We talked about what (the students) thought would be important to tell someone in 20 years."

Classmates who, unlike Smith, watched the inauguration from home, a took on a variety of different perspectives for the assignment, DePue said. They included John McCain's view of the inauguration, that of servicemen, Sasha Obama, Chelsea Clinton and elderly African Americans living in the south.

Each digital story, produced through Windows Movie Maker, had to contain 10 to 25 photos that helped support a perspective, teacher Joe Sieczkowski said.

Students, McNeill said, were graded in several categories, including the digital story's point of view; the research involved; images used; use of detail; the chosen soundtrack's emotional response; and its originality.

The academy will focus on preparing students for placement into journalism programs at two and four-year colleges, and hopes to prepare students who wish to go straight into media jobs after high school graduation.

"These are exceptional kids in many ways," McNeill said. "They're regular high school kids, but with this intense determination that (a career in media) "is what I want to do with my life.' They're focused, they're passionate."