Student / Youth Digital Media Enrichment After School Program

Many people have said that, "the youth are our future." This mindset is not only a rally cry for doing business but is what we stand on as an organization. Helping our young people develop skills and abilities that can help impact their future is something every organization should ultimately strive for. The CW Radio Foundation's Youth Digital Media program is one that educates the community and young people about media arts, digital media, and broadcast journalism.

Based on this premise we are proud to offer a great selection of after school programs that can not only impacts the lives and futured of many young people, but can spark a new and revitalized interest in journalism and media in our schools.

Media Arts

The media arts portion of our program teaches students how to communicate effectively and creatively using the new technologies of visual and auditory communication. Creative and imaginative exploration are central to the communication process in media arts. This is not only important when using technology-based mediums for artistic expression, it is equally essential if students are to excel even in communication. Students should understand media arts as challenges in “communication” rather than as challenges in employing “ technology,” as languages for the exchange of meaning rather than as so many lights and knobs on a box.

Digital Media

The digital media portion of our programming will specifically deal with audio and video production and content creation. The main benefit of digital media within our program is to increase student engagement. In addition, it helps young people learn new and innovative ways to not only express themselves, but gives them a platform in which to learn how and why to disseminate information. It also allow students to work through difficult concepts, develop time management skills, and collaborate with others to achieve group goals.

Broadcast Journalism

The Broadcast journalism portion of our program is the culmination of all of the work and efforts put in by our students to showcase all of the benchmarks they have achieved through our program. This is anything from producing a podcast or news report, Announcing and commentating a football or any sporting event, all the way to being an anchor or on air personality on a radio show or tv news outlet. This would include interviews with community members, other students or anyone that would be of interest based on the type of show or story that is being produced. This function will not only include the in front of the camera or microphone talent, but the audio and video engineers, the production crew, the camera operators and all the other aspects of a professional radio or tv operation.

Our Approach

The CW Radio Foundation Inc. primarily provides our services as a school year long (185 days) after school program at the schools we have an ongoing relationship with. For example a school who has a desire to establish a digital media program but either does not have the money or staff to facilitate this could partner with our organization. We would use their facilities to house our programming and any students in that school district would be able to participate. We do this for both the safety and security of the students as well as to safeguard the equipment being used. For any other students that wishes to take part in our program but does not have access through their school, we would utilize a hybrid model with the public library closest to them being the in person location and then virtually for the other parts of the program. Even though we offer our services to any young person wishing to take part, we prefer for it to be a partnership with the schools so that the schools can support the students providing them to access to the supplies and equipment being used during the after school program. This also mitigates any abuse of or misuse of the supplies and equipment being used.

As an additional incentive any students that are of legal age to be employed will also be given an opportunity to work with our radio station, based on their proficiency and ability. It is the goal of program to actually hire as many of the students that are in our program or who graduate from high school and were a part of our program.

Our Programs

Elementary Level K-5th

Teenager Level 6th-12th

All of the techniques, best practices, and programming we use is based on the Ohio’s Learning Standards for Technology as well as the Standards for Media Arts. This is to ensure that everything our students learn will be immediately transferrable to their regular learning regimine.

Elementary Level Program

Our elementary aged program is designed to teach the children the fundamentals of digital media and broadcasting. Due to the ages and abilities of the participants, there program is more structured and controlled as they progress through the program. The age group for this particular program is 6 years old through 11 years old. Each young person who signs up for the elementary level program will walk away with the following key skills and abilities:

With prompting and support, share ideas for media art.
Create and assemble media art content that displays expression and meaning.
Share ideas about artistic elements found in media art.
With prompting and support, choose and practice different roles when planning media art in a group.
Describe and demonstrate basic creative skills within media art.
Experiment with and share different ways to use tools and techniques to create media art.
With prompting and support, identify criteria for choosing work for presentation.
With prompting and support, identify components and messages in media art.
With prompting and support, identify how a variety of media art creates different experiences.
With guidance, identify the meanings of a variety of media art. 1.4RE Identify the effective parts of and possible changes to media art, considering personal preferences.
Create media art based on personal experiences, interests and influences.
Share meaningful experiences of media art.
With support, combine varied academic, arts and media content into media art.
Define safety concerns when interacting with media art.

Program Cost: $950

Teenager Level Program

Our teen aged program is designed to teach the participants the fundamentals of digital media and broadcasting. However they will also be responsible for much more content creation and execution of task and abilities that are age appropriate. This includes many of the things you would see at the high school and even college level. The age group for this particular program is 12 years old through 18 years old. Each young person who signs up for the teenage level program will walk away with the following key skills and abilities:

Participants will learn the basics of how to convey messages through journalism, commercial advertising and marketing. They review the accuracy and impact of words and visuals used in news, advertisements and commercials. They learn essential terminology and basic tools for delivering messages. They understand the content length, deadlines and responsibilities of various delivery channels.
Sound is essential to broadcast journalism and advertising. Participants compare and contrast how sound alone and sound combined with visuals can entertain, inform and initiate action. They generate content, record, edit, mix and produce voice and music for airwaves, podcast and/or Internet. They adapt for analog and digital audio while adhering to Federal Communication Commission rules and regulations related to bandwidth and advertising.
Participants will learn the basics of video broadcast for the journalism industry. Skills attained include interviewing, image capture, color manipulation, audio and video blend, lighting and editing. Students critique news broadcasts and research content. They plan and shoot video for live and recorded use in a specific time slot while adhering to laws related to defamation, libel, copyright and privacy.