Mrs. Owens

So your student is in Digital Mixed Media! What does that mean?
This class has been created as a career pathway class to fields in communications. I have 10 years of professional experience in media relations, digital media and content creation, website creation, graphic design, videography, and photography all supporting a brand's marketing, advertising and communication initiatives. Every brand is in need of passionate, honest and hard-working storytellers, and I hope to show students the many career opportunities communications offers throughout this semester.

How will we do that?
We are covering hands-on topics in class that expose students to photography and videography techniques, writing, graphic design, and website creation and diving into how to infuse all of those communication methods to tell one complete story. Students have been using cameras to photograph events at school and portraits of their classmates. You can video some of their work so far below.

What does the class look like, specifically?
You can review the class syllabus here.

When the semester ends, what's next?
This class will briefly touch on the topics listed above and allow students many projects and opportunities to display what they are learning and turn their knowledge into a physical product. I hope the class leads students to passions and interests they can carry with them to the next level of education (working for their college's yearbook or newspaper staff — which oftentimes are paid positions; starting businesses in creative fields — photography, videography, or graphic design; and hopefully choosing further study of these art forms the world needs.) For certain interested students, I will be offering a Digital Mixed Media II class in the spring that will explore some of these topics in further detail and provide students real-world industry experience in their chosen area. More details to come on that.

So your student is on the yearbook staff! What does that mean?
Brainstorming and planning with this group has been the best way to begin the day in first period. These talented and eager students have agreed to take on the important task of recording the events and notable moments throughout the school's 2022-23 school year. That means they will be responsible for writing stories, gathering information, designing layouts, taking photos and putting it all together in a beautiful history book for the CAC community to enjoy today and cherish forever.

How will we do that?
We have created four teams that will each be responsible for a specific area of creation/production — photography team, design team, story team and production team. These teams will focus on their specific area of responsibility for the entire year during class and work together to make sure this book is the best representation of our students, staff and experiences of the year.

What does the class look like specifically?
You can read more about the yearbook team structures and responsibilities here.

When the year ends, what's next?
At face value, students are creating a yearbook in this class, but the experience goes so far beyond the product at the end of the year. These students are operating a business. I include them in the budget conversations. They're figuring out how to collaborate with people on different teams who have different skills. They're learning how to use a camera and find moments worth capturing. They're writing stories and learning how to be ethical and honest storytellers. They're organizing a master document and assigning a topic to each page of the yearbook (240!). They're getting more leadership experience, more collaboration experience and more business experience in a class than any of their peers, and that can lead to some incredible career opportunities in their futures in a variety of different fields.