Amazon Alexa is just one personal assistant device popular in many homes. Whether you have Alexa, Google or any other personal assistant device, it's a way to conveniently consume content. What if this content was related to news, updates and celebrations in your school or district? Thanks to Taylor Siebert and Striv we have been able to build on this idea and provide a student opportunity that is also a win for our community.
Here's how we got started at Northwest:
1. A Shared Google Doc: The weekly flash briefing is shared via a Google Doc. Collaboratively we share ideas, reminders and celebrations. Notes are turned into a story for a weekly audio recording.
2. Cell Phone: You have plenty of options here but our student content creators prefer phones for recording the written script. Recordings are usually done in our green screen room.
3. Alexa Audio Upload: Obviously, there are a few tech requirements and specifics to incorporate directly with an Alexa Skill. We are provided this service by STRIV.
Here is where we are going:
Knowing Alexa is not something in everyone's home, we wanted to expand our reach. We had the writing and the audio already, we just needed another way to share. Headliner was suggested as an audio tool that also had easy download and sharing options. By taking the audio file already recorded, uploading it to headliner and adding a background image we had a shareable file with news, announcements and updates. We also had options to share captions right within the recording. Our headliner creations are shared on our school's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts weekly. This has expanded our reach and helped bring more content into homes of our followers.
Our Alexa Skill content creation team has been going strong for almost a year. What started as just another task for me has evolved into a weekly writing, recording and publishing project for students. We currently have a team of two students working collaboratively on each briefing. Both are able to use and explore passions for writing and recording. They are producing content that is heard well beyond the classroom. They are practicing skills that will open doors and opportunities as they move beyond high school. Each week I am in awe of the content and quality they produce. I look forward to the growth of this project, the doors it opens and the celebrations of success. We truly are creating way more than a flash briefing.
Here's how we got started at Northwest:
1. A Shared Google Doc: The weekly flash briefing is shared via a Google Doc. Collaboratively we share ideas, reminders and celebrations. Notes are turned into a story for a weekly audio recording.
2. Cell Phone: You have plenty of options here but our student content creators prefer phones for recording the written script. Recordings are usually done in our green screen room.
3. Alexa Audio Upload: Obviously, there are a few tech requirements and specifics to incorporate directly with an Alexa Skill. We are provided this service by STRIV.
Here is where we are going:
Knowing Alexa is not something in everyone's home, we wanted to expand our reach. We had the writing and the audio already, we just needed another way to share. Headliner was suggested as an audio tool that also had easy download and sharing options. By taking the audio file already recorded, uploading it to headliner and adding a background image we had a shareable file with news, announcements and updates. We also had options to share captions right within the recording. Our headliner creations are shared on our school's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts weekly. This has expanded our reach and helped bring more content into homes of our followers.
Our Alexa Skill content creation team has been going strong for almost a year. What started as just another task for me has evolved into a weekly writing, recording and publishing project for students. We currently have a team of two students working collaboratively on each briefing. Both are able to use and explore passions for writing and recording. They are producing content that is heard well beyond the classroom. They are practicing skills that will open doors and opportunities as they move beyond high school. Each week I am in awe of the content and quality they produce. I look forward to the growth of this project, the doors it opens and the celebrations of success. We truly are creating way more than a flash briefing.
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