Grant Proposal Project 1

Grant Proposal Project

Kevin Adams

ED 587: Technology Leadership

Dr. Robert Lipton

September 29, 2008

Kevin Adams

152 Oberlin Avenue

Sinking Spring, PA 19608

Monday, September 29, 2008

Beverly A. Martin, Ed.D.

Exeter Township School District

3650 Perkiomen Avenue

Reading, PA 19606

Dear Dr. Martin:

As I have discussed with you in the past, I believe Exeter Township Junior High School would benefit greatly from the addition of a television studio. On the following pages, you will find a description of my plan to create one over the course of the next two years. I believe this will not only create great memories for our students, but it will also help to prepare students for ETV at the high school.

My initial plan is to gauge student interest by surveying Mr. Myers’ and my classes as well as our after school Computers and Technology program. Once we find an appropriate amount of interested students, we will meet to discuss their ideas and what they would like to see on a school news program. By the beginning of next semester, we will begin to use existing technology in the school to create a weekly news update.

I have included a description of my plan, an itemized budget, approximate timetable, and methods of assessment to gauge the success of the studio. Please contact me if you have any questions or if you would like to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Kevin Adams
Introduction

From the moment closed-circuit televisions were installed in every room in Exeter Township Junior High School, I thought about how exciting it would be to have students broadcast the announcements and other news to the entire school. Over the past few years, I have discussed my ideas about a school television network with several other teachers in my building. This is my plan to make the ETJHS TV Studio a reality.

Rationale

Our high school has “ETV”, which is a public speaking class in addition to a place where students can learn the finer points of broadcast journalism. Mostly, they produce the morning and afternoon announcements, but they sometimes do on-location reports from various school activities (Farrell, 2008). I will use the curriculum of this course as a basis for my new course, but on a slightly smaller scale. My goal will not be to replicate or replace what ETV does, but rather to use it as a model and give my students something to strive for. Also, I feel it will be beneficial to students to have experience in broadcasting prior to the high school, so the quality of ETV will improve. From what I have seen, many of the “anchors” of ETV are seniors who do not take it very seriously, and I hope to change that.

Timetable

My plan begins this November in our Computers and Technology (“CaT”) challenge program, which meets after school. I will pitch the television studio idea to the students in the CaT program and see if they are interested in trying something new. There are approximately fifteen students in this program. In addition, the other Computer Applications teacher (Ryan Myers) and I will begin surveying the students in our classes. I would hope to get one or two students out of each class interested. If we are unable to get at least five volunteers, I will ask a few of my more outgoing or higher achieving students in my regular classes to meet with me after school to discuss the new TV idea.

I also hope to find interested students in other classes and existing activities. We also have a Drama class where the students write, perform, and videotape short skits. If my previous ideas fail, I will ask the teacher of that class to suggest a few students to come and meet with Mr. Myers and I after school and discuss their ideas of what a school TV studio should include. Finally, I am one of the advisors for our school musical which will be wrapping up around that time. If there are any students that I think might enjoy being on camera, I will ask them to come to our after school meeting.

After meeting with the interested students and getting their ideas down on paper, I will then present them, along with Mr. Myers’ and my original plans, to our principals. Assuming that they find the idea worthwhile, we will then submit an application to create a new “Challenge” program or club beginning in the spring semester of the school year. Starting in late January, the new TV Club will meet once a week after school and will be open to all 7th and 8th graders with at least an 80% average in Computer Applications class. My ultimate goal would be that this club would become a daily class within two school years.

TV Club Timeline

Date / Event
November 2008 / Survey “CaT” Students
December 2008 / Submit TV Challenge Application
January 2009 / Begin TV Challenge
Summer 2009 / Complete TV Studio Curriculum
January 2010 / Submit TV Studio Budget Request
September 2010 / Begin TV Studio course

Description

In order to run a successful television studio, we will need some new technology. The computers in my lab are brand new Mac minis by Apple, Inc. Though they are capable of dual-booting Windows and Macintosh operating systems, they are currently set up to run only Windows XP. In my experience, students have a much easier time using Apple’s video production software. Therefore, I will formally request that all of my lab’s computers be re-imaged to run Macintosh OS 10.5.

I do not feel that the software packaged with Windows XP is conducive to producing news broadcasts. We have Macromedia Flash and Fireworks, so we will be able to create graphic overlays for our programs, but we will need something a little bit more powerful and intuitive than Windows Movie Maker to produce our shows. Our school does have a couple of digital video cameras, and if the television studio remains a weekly club we will be able to survive without purchasing additional cameras. However, if we were to become a daily class, we would need new cameras and accessories.

I will propose that the district purchase three new computers, all by Apple, Inc. One of these computers would be a desktop, and it would be kept in my classroom. This would be the main computer where we would record, edit, and broadcast our programs. The other two computers would be laptops, so students would be able to work in any classroom, including study halls in order to meet production deadlines. Also, since the main hub for our existing television network is far away from my classroom, we would need to be able to have mobile computers in order to hook them up to the network. Because of the existing closed-circuit network, no labor would be required.

The other items necessary for this to become a successful program cost far less than the computers mentioned above. They include two new Canon digital video cameras, two tripods, four microphones, two packages of digital videotapes, a package of DVD-R discs, and two external hard drives. The purpose of the cameras and tripods are to record the programs from more than one angle. As mentioned before, we will be able to begin the after school program with the school’s existing cameras, but if we were to put this program into the school curriculum we would need access to cameras at all times, not just when they were available. The microphones will consist of two lavaliere-style microphones (for our “news anchors”), one handheld wireless microphone (for on-location stories), and one handheld wired microphone (for in-studio guests). The digital videotapes will be used to record the shows and can be reused with no loss of quality. The DVD-R discs will be used to archive past programs. These archives will be used to show future students both good and bad examples from previous broadcasts. The purpose of the external drives will be to store in-progress news projects as well as storyboards, graphics, and original music for the broadcasts.

We will use existing materials as much as possible. Our studio will be in my classroom or a small office adjacent to Mr. Myers’ room. We will use a discarded table and chairs for a news desk. We will use scrap paper for cue cards. Each of the computer labs have a supply of headphones which will be used for audio monitoring. This program will require no training for Mr. Myers or myself, as I already have excellent knowledge of the iLife suite which is standard on all Apple Macintosh computers. iLife contains iMovie and iDVD, which will be used to produce, record, and archive our footage. It also contains Garageband, which we will use to create our original theme music.

Below is a list of each of these items as well as their features (where applicable):

  • 2 Audio-Technica AT831B Lavaliere Condenser Microphones
  • Gem Sound GM16 Handheld Wireless/Wired Mic
  • Shure Pro Microphone 8900W
  • 2 Canon ZR900 Digital Camcorders
  • 2 Canon Deluxe Tripod 200
  • 2 MacBook Pro laptops
  • 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
  • 250GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
  • SuperDrive 8x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  • MacBook Pro 17-inch Widescreen Display
  • Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS (MacBook Pro, 2008)
  • iMac desktop
  • 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 4 GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2 GB
  • 500GB Serial ATA Drive
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS w/512MB GDDR3
  • SuperDrive 8X (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  • Final Cut Express HD preinstalled
  • Apple Mighty Mouse
  • 24-inch widescreen LCD
  • AirPort Extreme
  • Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (iMac, 2008)
  • 2 JVC Digital Mini DV Tapes, 3-Packs
  • Verbatim DVD-R 4.7GB 16X Discs, 50-Pack
  • 2 LaCie 500GB Hard Disks, Design by Neil Poulton

Budget

Below is a table showing the breakdown of the costs of all requested items:

# / Unit / Item Specification / Unit Cost / Total Cost
1 / Each / iMac desktop computer / $2,418.00 / $2,418.00
2 / Each / MacBook Pro laptop computer / $3,004.00 / $6,008.00
2 / Each / Canon DV camera / $239.95 / $479.90
2 / Each / Canon tripod / $44.95 / $89.90
2 / Each / Audio-Technica lavaliere microphone / $179.99 / $359.98
1 / Each / Gem Sound wirelessmicrophone / $29.95 / $29.95
1 / Each / Shure wired microphone / $49.95 / $49.95
2 / 3/Pk / JVC Digital Mini DV tapes / $11.99 / $23.98
1 / 50/Pk / Verbatim DVD-R discs / $19.95 / $19.95
2 / Each / LaCie FireWire hard drive / $139.95 / $279.90

Total Cost of Proposal$9,759.51

Here is a breakdown on how the $9,759.51 will be spent:

Category / Cost
Computers & Accessories / $8,725.85
Digital Video Cameras & Accessories / $593.78
Sound Equipment / $439.88
Training & Labor / $0.00

Evaluation

In order to assess the success of the challenge program, we will survey homerooms to find out what students like and dislike about the broadcasts: Do they have a favorite anchor, segment, etc.? Also, I feel it might be useful to see what information students have retained from viewing the programs. Perhaps we could have our anchors present a weekly quiz question for each subject and have students hand in their answers to their teachers.

For the class itself, I will have the students take pre- and post-tests for each unit that we will study. Also, there will be weekly assignments where students must view specific national and local news programs and we will discuss details of the way the professionals do things. I find public speaking and the creativity it takes to produce daily news broadcasts to be valuable and often overlooked skills. With the creation of a TV studio at Exeter Township Junior High School, this will no longer be the case.

References

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - Canon Deluxe Tripod 200. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - Canon ZR900 Digital Camcorder. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

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Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - iMac. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - LaCie 500GB Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - MacBook Pro. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - Shure Pro Microphone 8900W. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Apple, Inc. (2008). The Apple Store (U.S.) - Verbatim DVD-R 4.7GB 16X Discs, 50-Pack Spindle. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from The Apple Store Web site:

Farrell, C (2008). Home. Retrieved September 27, 2008, from Exeter High School Television Studio Web site:

MacMall (2008). JVC Digital Mini DV Tape - 3 Pack MDV60DU3. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from MacMall Web site:

Musician's Friend (2008). Buy Audio-Technica AT831B Lavaliere Condenser Microphone at Musician's Friend. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from Musician's Friend Web site:

Musician's Friend (2008). Buy Gem Sound GM16 Handheld Wireless/Wired Mic at Musician's Friend. Retrieved September 28, 2008, from Musician's Friend Web site: