Just a few weeks ago, HHS Telecom produced a Spanish version of the daily news. As all of Harding's students, staff, and community know, for a while there was an extreme set back in the daily schedule because of bussing. Consistently having different schedules has taken a huge toll on not only Harding students but teachers as well. Telecom has not been able to produce daily news as much as they used to. After many years of consistent daily news, it suddenly turned into “twice a month” news.
After asking Telecom teacher, Mr. Mullins, whether or not there will be other episodes featuring hispanic students he responded with, “Yes, whenever they are available and we have current announcements.” Mullins then goes on to say that he “would like to do it at least once a week, but with scheduling interruptions and/or technical difficulties, it is difficult to plan a regular broadcast.” The original intention from Mullins and ESL class, was to provide a telecom episode done in Spanish once a week.
One of the biggest questions is, do students actually enjoy filming and producing these kinds of episodes? Mullins replied saying that he thinks they do and they “have plans to continue doing the broadcasts, but ultimately it is up to them.” but “it is hard to gauge when we don't broadcast live announcements anymore.” “Once the district removed our TVs throughout the building our viewership has been limited to gmail links. The plan was to create a live system using the new BenQ boards but they still have not provided the means of broadcast using this technology. In fact, some refuse to watch and have even requested an opt-out for the links. Unfortunately, I send the links by class/grade level, and I don't have individual accounts to either send or not send to individual addresses” said Mullins.
Although there have only been a handful of diverse Telecom episodes, there are plans for more to come in the near future!