West Virginia Broadcasters Association Grant for Video Journalism and Media Classes.

On a day this past March, I left my school right after the bell rang to go to a hearing aid clinic in Clarksburg to get my hearing aid checked out.  I pulled into the parking lot and I got a cell phone call from my assistant principal who was yelling at me "Where are you?" and I was started and I thought I was supposed to be at an after school meeting.  She was yelling at me because she was happy that I got a grant for $7,500!

I have a Media Productions class at Grafton High School.  I don't receive much funding for equipment from the county budget, but I want to update equipment to catch up with technology.  I have been working with $150 WalMart video camera and $35 tripods.  Funds for these came from selling t-shirts in basketball season and selling Graduation DVDs.    I was able to get the contact information from the West Virginia Broadcasters Association Foundation from a colleague in another county.  I wrote a grant request by January 31st that was my "wish list"  and how I teach my class.  You can view my grant request document by clicking on this link.  The request was over $11,000 but the foundation put a limit, but they had said it was the largest grant they ever had given.  I didn't get everything I would have liked and I made some substitutions.  I worked with B & H Video who quoted me with educational prices. This link are some of the items that I had purchased with the funds. I talked with my county Tech Coordinator and she said I should purchase extended warranties for the pricier items as the school district would not cover repair costs on those items.

I view the role of my Media class is to be a public service to the school and the community as I try to record school events and post it to SchoolTube.com and the City of Grafton Public Access channel.   We produce a daily newscast that is posted online and shown to students throughout the school.   I also promote Digital Citizenship in my class as I feel their is not much instruction in that area at my school as well at the First Amendment Free Speech rights for students, school, and society as a whole.  Now I have more equipment that I can record  student projects, teachers instructing, and other events in the school and community.

If you live in the state of West Virginia and would like to modernize technology and have budding video journalists, take the time to apply for this grant this winter.

Rich Zukowski accepting WVBA check from WDTV's Nate Smail