This much is for sure: It’s a Friday Thing and it will be on Fridays.
Other than that Great Bend High School students of Dan Heath will just let the weekly program develop organically, riding the wave of their own creativity.
“We wanted some sort of program about what’s happening at Great Bend High School,” Heath said, trying to nail down the concept of the information-based program.
“We knew we didn’t want the regular news format where someone reads the news and introduces videos,” he said. “We wanted something different – quick and to the point. We want it to be our own.
“The show will be under five minutes and give a feel for what’s happening in 15-20 second videos,” he said. “There is nothing in-depth, nothing newsy.
“A lot of it will be fun and entertaining,” Heath said, noting humor will come from whatever his students think is funny.
For instance, they may ask classmates to try something they’ve never done like roll a pencil down their foreheads and catch it in their lips or provide a meaning for a word they’ve never heard.
Production 2 and 3 students will act as the writers, editors and producers. For the most part, the Production 1 students will receive the assignments and record them using their own cell phones. The clips will then be downloaded and edited into a single package and shown on Fridays at school and also on line.
“We don’t exactly know what the outcome will be because it will always be changing,” Heath said. “We want lots of feedback and want to give students what they want.”
Even though the first program isn’t until Feb. 7, It’s a Friday Thing already has more than 400 interested followers on Twitter.
“It should be enjoyable and let the students learn something at the same time,” Heath said.