End of April, beginning of AWESOME.
The semester is coming to an end, but my "skillz" are just now developing!
As a prelude to my "lessons learned," I would like to say this one thing about the difference between writing a print story and editing a video story:
THE VIDEO WILL TAKE YOU LONGER!
Even if it is only a 30 second video, do not be fooled! It could take days if you want it to be awesome (and we all want awesome...no one wastes their time on the "un-awesome" YouTube videos).
A professional in training.
Although I am not yet awesome in the YouTube world (I dream of reaching "sneezing panda" status), I am learning a lot of things. For instance, I have to make sure I save my videos something other than WMZ0098 to something more interesting like, "Meet Laura Castro." I also learned that if you have 45 minutes of interview, you should go through the whole thing and highlight important parts. Trying to go piece by piece to start is VERY TEDIOUS and CAN BE AVOIDED with good planning.
Do not get me wrong, 45 minutes of interview is great!
And I was lucky enough to spend 45 minutes with attorney Mark Trustin, a Triangle lawyer who represents students suspended from school.
It is clear Mr. Trustin is passionate about what he does, and I did my best to capture this on our YouTube channel. His description of who is suspended from high schools is similar to those who are more likely to drop out. Is there a correlation?
Uh, duh.
A student's perspective.
I was also fortunate to meet with Laura Castro, a sophomore Hispanic student at Carrboro High School Monday. Laura was born in Colombia.
Since my meeting, I have gone a little YouTube happy and posted her responses to our video questions (something EVERYONE should do). I also posted what she says about why Hispanic students drop out of high school. I especially like the following:
"A lot of Hispanic families have to do a lot of extra stuff like work after school and take care of little siblings and that's getting in the way of school. I think it's all about attitude and look honestly, but if you want to work hard enough there is nothing that can get in your way and if you want a good future you can do everything...you just have to be motivated."
Bravo, chica!
Senior year, almost done.
This week I am going to get in touch with more Spanish students and radio stations. Time may be winding down, but our Web site will be up and running!
It's going to be great!
- Sara Kelleher's blog
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