This school year, LHS Student Council has made an effort to create more videos that are frequently shown during third period classes, in addition to the daily bulletin, and they have been well-received by students and staff.
These videos range anywhere from informing students about school dances, to increasing participation in the annual blood drive. The goal of these videos is get important information across to the students in a fun and interesting way.
Student Council secretary Jenny Pahng, along with the rest of the executive board, helps come up with the themes and messages for the videos. Every day during eighth period, the executive student council board meets as a class, where they discuss upcoming plans and ideas for the videos.
“I think everyone enjoys getting to watch them during their third hour class, and we try our best to keep them interesting,” said Pahng.
Because reading the bulletin and listening to announcements isn’t always enough to get students interested in school activities and events, relaying the message in an exciting manner is a great way to get students involved, according to student activities director Mrs. Jennifer Uliks.
“With all of the multimedia things that kids are exposed to and interested in, we thought it would be better to create videos,” said Mrs. Uliks. “I think the videos are visually stimulating, rather than words or audio that you can easily block out or not hear.”
The videos help spark the attention of kids and aim to keep them interested in school events. “Some of the videos that we have shown this year were advertising our new campaigns or for school events. Those include our be the giving type campaign, the blood drive, homecoming, the black light dance, and the canned food drive,” said Pahng.
The reaction to these videos has been positive among students.
“My class is really into them,” said senior Emily Behnke. “Not everyone always listens to the announcements, but when there’s a video on, everyone’s attention is on that. Being able to see upcoming events is way better than just hearing it!”
One potential downfall to showing these videos to third period classes is that not all classes get to watch them. For example, students who have gym third period don’t have the opportunity to watch the videos, as many gym teachers aren’t able to use a Smartboard or TV in the gym facilities.
Junior Riley DeLude, who has gym during third period, said that “it’s disappointing that we don’t get to watch them because we’re in gym class.”
However, there is a place on the LHS website, as well as on the Drops of Ink website, where students and staff can locate the videos to watch them as many times as they would like.
“Much of the time, these videos are put on the main web page or are on Youtube,” said Mrs. Uliks.
So far these videos have been a hit.
“I definitely like watching them because they’re usually pretty interesting and they’re a great way to get new news out to the whole school,” said Behnke.
This positive response means that students can expect more videos in the future.
“The students seem to really enjoy the videos, especially the ones that are entertaining and filled with a message that directly affects them,” said Mrs. Uliks.
And Pahng said that Student Council has big upcoming plans: “Student Council is definitely going to continue making these videos for the rest of this year, and we have even bigger plans for next year!”
