Though we fellows began our Public Media Corps fellowships in early July, I’m just now getting to a point where I can start getting my hands dirty. And I’m glad the ideas are starting to flow, and I finally see a chance of carrying them out.

I started out based at a high school in Northeast DC where the leadership was in flux. I thought I’d be preparing to work with a student body largely made up of young single mothers. But plans changed, and as of last week I’ve moved to Washington Metropolitan High School, formerly the Youth Engagement Academy. The school opened just two years ago and is an extension of Big Picture, a nationwide network of schools that share an educational philosophy.

Last week I got my first assignment: The principal of Washington Metropolitan – Tanishia Williams-Minor, formerly principal of the school where I was first working, wants me to help students develop a daily video morning announcements broadcast.

It’s a project that we could take in a lot of exciting directions. I have my own ideas, but I know that it’s important to let the students steer us. First, though, I’d like to get to know the advisors who are involved with the high school’s newspaper and literary magazine. Convergence is underway throughout the media world why should it be any different for a high-schooler who might want to work in media someday? We could equip the newspaper reporters at my school with audio recorders and video cameras. Contributors to the literary magazine could create video art or slideshows to accompany poetry or stories. Student musicians could perform in studio with a live audience. I envision video projects that go beyond news and embrace a full range of possibilities.

As I’ve been casting around for inspiration, I’ve been considering formats for the broadcasts. Most high-school broadcasts I’ve seen mimic the style of the nightly newscasts that air on local network affiliates. Anchors in a studio interact in what feels like a somewhat forced manner and deliver intros to pieces produced by reporters in the field. The anchors are usually planted in front of a vaguely industrial/futuristic set and those video inset boxes float alongside them.

This approach has its merits, but I fear that very shortly it’s going to be outmoded, a remnant of another time. I’m well beyond my teenage years, and even to me it looks unnatural. Few people I know watch network TV news. Media consumers increasingly seek out the exact clip or movie or music video they want, download it or stream it, make and share playlists, even remix the news. It’s a part of the sweeping trend in all media toward slicing and dicing content, serving it up on-demand on multiple platforms. I’m guessing that most of my students are far more likely to have watched YouTube in the last week than to have watched the local Fox 5 news broadcast. And I mean with genuine interest and engagement not just while someone else had it on TV in the living room.

Whatever my students and I do, we at least need to have a channel on YouTube or Vimeo where we break our show out into segments and offer them that way as well as a full show. SchoolTube is another platform we can use to share our productions. Maybe students can go out into the community surrounding the school and report on local happenings, expanding our reach and value.

I have more questions than answers, but finding those answers will be the fun part.