Making The News
Funded by the Department of Education and run through the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN), Making The News (MTN) is a web-based system derrived from ROSTRA, the news portal that has been in use by KMi almost since its inception.
We live in a society where news is everywhere. The media industry generates news 24 hours a day. Why not create your own news? Its easy. You can submit news stories that contain text, images, sound and even video clips. The media industry (television, radio and newspapers) have supplied to us expert guidance and resources to help you understand how to create that local story about you, your school, local community, or region, as well as national or international topics that matter to you.
Over and above the features offered by ROSTRA is FlashBlogging. This enables students to record short sections of video, using a low-cost webcam via a small Flash webpage, instead of simply entering the text and images of their story. For more in-depth stories, FlashBlog messages can also be combined with other media.
MTN is moderated: all stories submitted by students enter the system and await approval from one of a number of teachers before becoming live. They can preview and alter their stories, if necessary, before grading and publishing them. Each school on the system has their own set of moderators and administrators.
Trialled on 11th November 2004 by a group of year 9 students from Lord Grey school in Bletchley (see photos), and shown at the annual BETT show at Olympia in January 2005, MTN will eventually allow schools from all over the country to post news stories. The best of those stories, as judged by their own teachers, are passed up the system's heirarchy to appear on the region's central website. An RSS feed will then take the best of those stories to appear on the national website.
Visit Making the News (externally hosted).
