With students out of school amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a Kirkland Lake school has launched a new way to stay connected.
Today, Kirkland Lake District Composite School aired its first episode of KLDCS TV News.
It features student Molly McCormack at a home news desk, delivering the news of the day, including morning announcements, information and other cool stuff. The goal is to produce a daily broadcast for their YouTube channel, KLDCS TV, until school gets back to normal.
The episode opens with McCormack talking about the virus and how it has upended their daily lives and routines, and how the students have lost a month of the semester isolating in their homes.
After some school announcements, they featured the first Maker's Corner, a segment looking at what students are doing to pass the time in quarantine.
KLDCS TV News was initiated by Dan Kurz, who is the specialist high skills major lead in the communications technology program, and Joe Mcinnis with the goal of connecting families in an entertaining way.
According to District School Board Ontario North East, KLDCS has converted a space that used to be the library into a makerspace for students. The Greenhouse, as they call it, has equipment for coding, videography, music recording and mored.
“We can take the kids out of the Greenhouse, but you can’t take the Greenhouse out of the kids," said Kurz about the project.
McCormack, who is the chief correspondent and main anchor, and Mcinnis had been preparing for the video production Skills Ontario competition until everything was cancelled. With a little persuasion, they are now using their skills to produce the news show, and Shaylan Pratt has joined as assistant producer.
"It think this works because there is a vibrant school culture at KLDCS. This show is merely a new expression of the way we live and work together each day. I've worked with Joe and Molly since they were little kids in JSANO, it's really great to be collaborating with them on this project," said Kurz.
