In the 2015 Spring semester, the iStudio hosted the College Mentors for Kids program, merging the experience of children interacting with College students with learning through digital technologies. to use televisual broadcast technologies. Each visit is tailored to the requests of the student group. The first event took place on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 and centered around giving weather reports.
The group listens as Dr. Stuve describes the role of the CTE at Ball State and introduces the day’s events. Picture by Olivia Ave.
The most successful outcome of the day came in seeing college students encouraging elementary school students to take on various broadcasting roles and those students in turn having success. Students had the opportunity to use weather applications on iPads to learn about weather patterns and then they worked as a team to produce a weather report. Students collaborated to operate cameras, a video switcher, interacted with a composite overlay of a weather radar on a green screen, wrote out scripts and performed as anchors and meteorologists.
The event was highly educational and fun, with the grade schoolers wishing they could run through the weather broadcast once more before the bus took them home. Each student left the studio with a lanyard that described their role in the group, and it is our hope that the kids will professionally pursue these and other roles connected to research and technology in the future.
