MAY NEWSLETTER REFLECTION by Ms. Lloyd

Casey Martin

killaskilla99o — 2014-06-03 14:29:22 UTC

This newsletter is definitely one of my favorites so far. One of the best parts, in my opinion, is the section with the satires. I especially loved Chaka's about the Duncanville student riot. On this newsletter, I spent about an hour preparing my article, along with the help of Mac, just compiling the pictures and actually writing the thing. Some good things about my article are the fact that it is well organized and flows well. It is also good that it covers such a good thing, the Claycomb Architecture awards, and that it relates the TASB contest to STEM. My overall impression of this edition of the newsletter is that it is fantastic. I love the satires, I love what the articles are about, and I love the look of it on weebly. There are some things that could be improved, like more pictures would be nice. I think next year there could be a requirement that you have to have at least one picture so that it makes it look nicer and more full, but all in all it is a great edition of the STEM Newsletter. I have had a magnificent time this year on these newsletters, and it is fascinating to know that more people than we even thought read our newsletter do read it. This year has been changing a lot, what with Mrs. Horn leaving, but I think Mrs. Lloyd took it over well and possibly even improved my experience. The Newsletter this year has been way better than the ones in the past years (the seniors stink), and it looks better, and we actually wrote the articles, whereas they hardly did any work and Mrs. Horn was writing them.

Ryan Johnson

ryan_johnson — 2014-06-03 14:30:18 UTC

Although the newsletter may seem lengthy, it Is well organized. In addition the theme is cool, I like the header in with the robot it makes the newsletter look friendly and colorful. I believe there needs to be more pictures of the articles because if you scroll down the first page it just seems like a bunch of words and some look boring. Furthermore, I like how April's newsletter is added to the may so it shows people that we do this every month, and I hope we plan to add more so that people can view all of them and know what STEM is doing. lastly, I personally like the newsletter and that we did the best on this one than the other ones in the past, especially from the ones in the beginning of the year.

My team and I have spent about a week to get all our footage together and we used the work day to get some more from just STEM in general. After school we had to put all the videos together and upload them to Youtube. One good thing about our article is that we show how stem is actually doing, we provide videos of stem in class as well as projects that are happing. I can personally improve the next newsletter by maybe interviewing higher people in stem or a principle. In addition the team could have videos from outside of stem to represent how stem is different from regular classes. I believe that this current newsletter has been the best one we have done all year. For the next newsletter they could add it to the newsletter that is currently there so that it can show how stem just improves over time. But I know that next year the newsletter will just get better because stem is always improving.

Tucker Chaka

tucker_chaka — 2014-06-03 14:30:21 UTC

After looking at the overall newsletter, I think it could use more color. It is very white and bland in many places. I do like the fact that there are videos and a place where the reader can tweet about the Newsletter and events in STEM.
I noticed that the section titled, "Technology and Innovations" (specifically #3) has a few capitalization errors in the title and in the paragraph. The word, "app" does not need to be capitalized within a sentence.
I think that my article has improved from last month. I previously had a single paragraph where multiple were needed. I have fixed that problem and still kept the same satirical tone throughout the article. I think That for my last article for the STEM newsletter, I performed very well.

David Bricker

2014-06-03 14:30:32 UTC

I definitely think the newsletter needs a little more color and pictures because right now its a little boring. At the same time its also lengthy so you lose the reader really fast because its just a boring looking newsletter. I mean the articles might be awesome, but the page itself is just words and a few pictures here and there. It's really just boring.

On the upside it's a really cool newsletter with the articles. They are all over some really cool things and are really well done. In terms of articles and how well built and written they are, I think this newsletter outdoes the rest.

Ridge Hanson

2014-06-03 14:30:59 UTC

My team and I actually wrote two articles, so we spent a good amount of time preparing, we started around two days before our workday. Our articles were great because we covered some of the cooler stuff like the rocket launch and shark week. I also liked how we put multiple pictures in one of our articles. In the next newsletter, I think if we put some more pictures in articles then it would be more appealing than it was this time. I had a good impression of this newsletter, mostly because it had a lot of information. It does look a little chunky in text and that could scare some readers off. For the next newsletter, I think we should go back to the old website. We could all donate one or two dollars to be able to use that website, it won't cost that much money individually. I think that would be a good investment because the past newsletters looked a lot more appealing. The grey sides look blank and boring. It should be fun read as well as look at. Our names weren't on our articles as well, that's a problem we've had multiple times in the past.

Sebastian Reyes

john_reyes — 2014-06-03 14:33:13 UTC

For Cratty and I, we spent about a week gather info from the presenters we interviewed during. Something that was good about our article was the quality feedback we got from the interviewees. Something we could improve on would be to incorporate more of our own writing and less of the response's text. I definitely feel that this is a good way to end the year with our final newsletter along with major improvements from the very beginning. A suggestion that I have for next months newsletter would be to maybe use attractive backgrounds for the pages and/or overall newsletter.

Vanessa Marlo

2014-06-03 14:33:32 UTC

This month we used another different venue for the newsletter. Instead of using joomag we decided to use weebly.com. Overall, I liked this one the best because not only does it look good but it also is easiest to use. I also like how you can view other issues by clicking the tabs on the top. I'm excited to see what next year holds for the newsletter and for the incoming Juniors. I would like to commend my class for writing good articles and attaching the pictures to the email and making it easier for me to put them in the newsletter. I would have liked to see more pictures, and also I would've liked to have everyone's names on the word document that was sent to me. I'm sad to say that this is the last newsletter I will be designing and editing and we've all had a good run. I'm happy to say that everyone has come a long way since the first newsletter was published at the beginning of the year. We've all become better writers because of the newsletter and had a good time doing it! I feel like overall, this newsletter is one of the best we've ever done and looks the best as well. Once again, thank you guys for being a great class and writing wonderful articles for our newsletter, it's been a great year!

Julio Santos

2014-06-03 14:34:10 UTC

This months newsletter is probably one of my favorites. I feel the newsletter recently has seen an influx of effort being put into in turn producing some of the best quality work seen to date regarding the stem news letter. My team spent about a week and a half preparing the satirical articles. This is including finding a piece of media worthy of satire that so school appropriate as well as actually writing said article. A good aspect about my article as well as my team's articles were the sheer sense of humor. We used very dry humor in order to ensure a sense of emotionless fun. Its perfect. Improvements that could be made in the newsletter would be more color! Maybe, make it a requirement to include pictures in the articles. At least one picture per article. As of this year, I believe the newsletter is heading in a great direction and will only improve in the future for all future stemmers and stem parents to see. I really hope next year's juniors enjoy writing articles for the newsletter as much as I do. Especially the satirical ones, they are the bomb dot com.

Brandon Fryer

2014-06-03 14:35:06 UTC

This is one of the best looking newsletters that we have created. I really like the fact that there is now a section for important events included at the top. My team and I actually wrote two articles for this months newsletter. This made us make sure that we were very prepared for work day. We actually started writing our articles the Monday before our workday. Seeing as this is my last newsletter there is not much I could do to improve on my next article. The newsletter is going in a great direction since it was put on weebly. This is a great site that allows for a really creative layout. One thing that can be improved is to add more color to the layout, it is a little bland.

EDITS
On the Shark Article and the Rocket article it does not have all of our names

they both need my name, ridges name, and Jacobs name

Clay McClendon

claymcclendon33 — 2014-06-03 14:35:10 UTC

Brad and I wrote the STEM Tours article. In the article we told people how middle school students visited STEM. I had to look through twitter, facebook, and I went through several of students to find possible pictures of the tours. Luckily we found one. Brad and I wrote the article together. I believe the article looks professional and fits the theme of the newsletter.
Improvements for next years newsletter would be setting standards for students to include either pictures or videos. I believe it would get the readers attention and would make the newsletter more professional.

Danny Helfer

danmcman11 — 2014-06-03 14:35:35 UTC

my team wrote two articles with a satire undertone. if i could go back i would do articles like this more often because it is a lot of fun to make fun of stuff so i really enjoyed the articles. its bitter sweet that we wont be doing the newsletter anymore because although i may not have always enjoyed making the newsletter we had a lot of good times making.

Michael Hammel

2014-06-03 14:35:56 UTC

I spent three class periods working on my satirical essay. My essay was over a vending machine that dispenses a variety of interesting products, I believe that the information that I included into my essay was interesting and entertaining. I think for the next newsletter (if there was one) I would spend a little more time editing and checking for grammatical errors. This month's newsletter was pretty good in my opinion, I think we had a good issue, and a lot of people really stepped up and did what they were supposed to. I believe that next years juniors need to be very productive and on track of things when it comes to the newsletter because it is a big responsibility, and it is one of the main ways parents and facilitators can view stem.

Brad Dam

2014-06-03 14:36:29 UTC

Clay and I both wrote the 8th grade tours article during our newsletter work day. During the workday, we were able to put the entire article together as well as a picture for the article. We only spent the 48 minutes we had in class to work on and perfect the article. I like the layout of the newsletter and how "simple" it is for people to read. I think for next year, every newsletter should have a new editor, so everyone can be doing something different.

Jacob Suchors

2014-06-03 14:37:10 UTC

Over the weekend prior to the workday, Brandon, Ridge, and I got together to begin working on our newsletter. We gathered our pictures and all of our interviews together and began working. Since we were a group of 3 we decided to take on the responsibility of 2 articles. We chose the rocket article and the shark week article. The rocket article was very detailed and had lots of good pictures and likewise the shark week article. We had lots of details and good quotes from multiple people. I don't like the new format of the newsletter because it looks boring. The way it is laid out and the lack of pictures make the newsletter quite boring to me. Too many words, and long articles overtake the few pictures that are present. More pictures would greatly improve the newsletter for next year because nobody wants to sit and read for 2 hours. The background of the newsletter could also be more lively. It is rather dull and boring, maybe if there is some way to jazz it up that would make it more interesting and fun to read.

Mac Barrow

mbarrow7786 — 2014-06-03 14:37:43 UTC

We spent a few class periods to perfect our article. We had a lot of information on the actual award ceremony and what people won and who won it. I feel that the newsletter is very thought out and well formatted, and the satire is funny and have good information. Michael's satire is funny knowing how people are becoming around the world. Some of the spacing of the articles change. I would add my name next to Casey because it got left out for the Claycombs award ceremony.

Caleb Baker

danmcman11 — 2014-06-03 14:38:03 UTC

Me, Cole, and Ryan spent a total of 5 hours in all working on our video to make it the best that it could be. What was good about our article was that there was multiple videos for our article, and that each of our videos was long enough to make the article more interesting. I think we could improve our article by editing the videos a little bet better and making some of them better then usual. This newsletter however was much better then all the newsletters that we have stem STEM have created. For the next newsletter we should have more pictures put into it, and make it more of a magazine look for it.

Austin Lee Cratty

2014-06-03 14:38:51 UTC

Sebastian and I have really improved on manging our time when preparing an article. We made it so we could come into class on the work day and just collaborate and put our work together. We also took some time at the Showcase to take some pictures along with interviewing some individuals. Our article is special in its own way, because it contains what people like to read about; Robots, trebuchets, rockets, futuristic devices, and AutoCAD. We really highlighted the engineering aspect of this project in this months newletter. A possible way for us to improve would be to format it like the others, because it is differently. The newletter as a whole was enough to satisfy, but not to much.

Collin Deffner

2014-06-03 14:39:16 UTC

Kyra and I spent around 2 days working on getting interviews and information from the student participating at the Career Day at Clara Love. The good thing about our article is that we have plenty of interviews from students, and we could have improved it by interviewing one of the elementary school students (but I don't know how we could've). I think this newsletter is one of our best, because all the interviews, articles, and satires were very well written.

Cole Usher

danmcman11 — 2014-06-03 14:46:03 UTC

we have really done better on the STEM newsletter videos over each newsletter, although this one has not yet been submitted due to internet issues with you-tube, but it will be uploaded ASAP. Me, Caleb, and Ryan have worked hard to interview students about what they are currently doing in STEM. this newsletter looks really good for this month. the only diffrence i would make is more pictures.

Dakota Kernodle

dakota_kernodle — 2014-06-03 14:46:54 UTC

I really like how this News letter is set up. It looks very well, but it also vey empty. It needs more pictures in my own personal opinion.

Gage Gwin

2014-06-03 15:16:28 UTC

I was given the task to edit the newsletter and make sure that everything is looking good and that everything runs as smooth as possible. The articles this week, to be honest, were quite bad. I spent over 2 hours editing obvious mistakes and misspellings, and quite frankly, it was a pain in the butt. If each person takes 30 seconds to look over their essay before submitting it, that saves me over an hour of my time trying to review dumb mistakes. I realize that it is my job to edit the newsletter, but it shouldn't be consumed by errors that are so easily noticed if one were to just look over what they wrote.

Damon Lanum

2014-06-03 15:20:50 UTC

My article was over Mr. Browns automation project for the second semester in his robotics class. Unlike my previous articles, I worked on this one alone, which turned out to be an advantage. From day one I knew what the article needed, and it was solely up to me to get the requirements. I was able to take responsibility and get the article done, on time. As for how the newsletter itself looks, Weebly has been a vast improvement over the past programs used to make the newsletter. It's simple enough to use, and it makes it easy to add pictures and videos which make the newsletter as good as it is. My only suggestion for the next newsletter next year is to prioritize pictures, they're vital in giving an easy visual to the audience, and break up the large masses of text.

Austin Megallon

2014-06-03 15:22:21 UTC

I stayed after school to gather information and interviews for a few afternoons. I spent a whole day writing the article and making finishing touches. My article finished up the last article I did because the project that was the topic of my article had just begun. Therefore I had a minimal amount of information to work with. The newsletter looks very organized and I would go as far as to say that the newsletter is one of our best. There's not much to improve on besides maybe a few little gadgets. Altogether it was a really good newsletter.

Briana

2014-06-03 15:23:39 UTC

I don't spend enough time creating the base of the story but I do believe that it has a good story line and is overall a very well rounded story. well for the next newsletter I would spend more time preparing because I procrastinate a lot. the overall newsletter is fairly good and has a well rounded base more then the others.

Armani Frye

armani_frye — 2014-06-03 15:23:53 UTC

I spent only a few days preparing for and working on my article. What made my article good was that it was super informational about what the freshmen in STEM are doing. I cannot improve for the next newsletter because I will be a senior! However, if I were continuing to work on the newsletter I would add more pictures. My overall impression of the newsletter is that it meets the expectations Ms. Lloyd gave us. I have no suggestions for the next newsletter I think it is cool the way it is!

Karina Chav

2014-06-03 15:24:01 UTC

For my article, Skyler and I worked on taking pictures and interviewing people at the STEM Showcase and other events. We asked students and parents about how they felt about STEM and the progress we have done throughout the year.

Josh Selman

joshuaselman1 — 2014-06-03 15:24:21 UTC

My article was The STEM in Sports and we did it over the sidekicks to which I spent a couple of class days gathering pictures and making sure the interview was of good quality. My article was good because we incorporated some pictures to better show off the article. For the next newsletter a better use of technology can make it much better. The newsletter has some mistakes with spelling, random spacing, terrible sentences that don't go with the article. The next newsletter could use more videos because most of the articles are words and pictures.

Michael Morgan

2014-06-03 15:25:29 UTC

My article was over the upcoming STEM camp over the summer, me and beau spent about two days preparing for this article. We gathered about four pictures from past STEM fish camps as well as an interview from a participant in a past STEM camp. I thought that our article was extremely well written and informative about the subject at hand, it was also visually appealing because we had multiple photos relating to the topic. For the next newsletter I fell that the only area we could improve in is technology, possibly by creating a video interview. My over all impression of this newsletter is that we are getting much better about getting information and completing our work on time for the newsletter. On the next newsletter I think we should have more pictures and videos to make it look more like a magazine.

Christian thomas

ctviolinmeastro — 2014-06-03 15:27:13 UTC

I spent a fair amount of time. I really made sure the article background paragraph was up to good standards.to the point I rewrote it again to make sure it flowed well, even thought I didn't have the interviews in I did my up most best to cover key points in the project for our article.. I think our article was good in a sense of being informative on the topic we wrote about, I also do believe that the structure of the article was a little better than last time. Well for one, turning it in earlier and have the every thing ready so we can get done faster. Especially the interviews, not having them made it really hard to cover points, so that it would better flow and better inform our views on what it take to do stem, but really show what we do. Next newsletter for next year, I would recommend that find a way to have mabye two back to back workdays, like one to check of everyone has their stuff, if not their able to work on it. And the next day to really compile everything and have every think for the final edit

Koby B.

kobyboun — 2014-06-03 15:28:11 UTC

I had to write the senior servery and those were a little time consuming. i wrote 14 of the reflections and that took 1-1.5 hours. overall they were pretty simple and formulaic but o tried to change up the words and phrases i used in each summary. i think that the newsletter turned out really well this time. we've had a lot of problems with the old format and trying to transition to the new format but i feel like we've got the hang of it now

Skyler Blancett

skyler_blancett — 2014-06-03 15:30:23 UTC

For my article, Karina and I spent most of the showcase taking pictures of all the projects and everything that was going on. Also asking parents, student, teachers that are in and outside of stem, and mr. childress about how they thought the showcase was and their feelings about seeing what the students have done throughout the year and how they succeeded. in the newsletter all of our quotes were put in under the wrong article and we weren't given credit for them either. also none of our pictures were there either. some of the articles didn't have pictures at all and some articles don't have titles and the format isn't consistant.

Kyra Hays

kyra_hays — 2014-06-03 15:30:57 UTC

For my own article I spent time actually going to the event of the article I was assigned which was Clara Love Elementary career day and spending time with the kids showing them all the advantages of being in the STEM program and the possible careers that could come from it. Our article was good because we got multiple interviews with detailed descriptions of what happened that day because I was actually able to experience it. Well, since this is the final newsletter for us juniors I don't believe we can improve but our articles over all have progressed greatly since our first newsletter. My overall impression of the article is good however, at times the newsletter is all writing and no pictures and it can look kind of boring with just a big bundle of words with nothing breaking it apart. For the next newsletter instead of having the middle of the newsletter with different articles being all words, try to mix it to have it every other article with pictures or perhaps getting pictures for articles that can have them.

Beau rasberry

2014-06-03 15:31:06 UTC

I feel like this was a fantastic news letter. I spent about an hour on this news letter with gathering research and an interview. Our article had a few good elements inside of it such as an interview. In the next news letter we can improve by recording the interview and embedding it in the article. I feel like the next news letter could have more videos in it as well as more interviews. I feel like the news letters are a great way to teach our stem students how to properly use journalism and is a great source I knowledge about the stem academy and all that is offers.

Hunter Marks

hmarks4 — 2014-06-03 15:33:56 UTC

For my article, i spent a few hours writing. i felt that my pictures were good and my information was solid. i feel that i could of gone a little more in depth but i believe i did OK. This article is well formatted and flows easily.

Mia Zaro

2014-06-03 15:35:27 UTC

For the April newsletter I spent multiple 30 min periods of conducting interviews and well as contacting my other teammates about compiling information. My groups article had many interesting aspects one of which was the imbedded interviews that let the reader see a different side of the event. As far as the next newsletter goes I feel that I can work on contacting my team soon than I did. I feel that this April newsletter overall was OK, but could of used more pictures to engage the reader.

Chance Hutson

c_hutson — 2014-06-03 15:44:09 UTC

I spent nearly an hour on working on the news letter I could have gotten more pictures and more depth in the interview. I feel like it was okay for what I did and it flows and enplanes what the project was.

Corey Mallon

2014-06-03 15:50:14 UTC

We spent several days before the work day, as well as the day that the article was due in order to complete the article. One good point of our article is the amount of interviews that we included for the article. For the next newsletter we can focus more time on our conclusion so that it ties the entire article together.

Richard Warren

richard_warren — 2014-06-04 13:24:12 UTC

There was not much preparing, since my article was just a lot of information that I had to put together into paragraphs. A good aspect of my article is that I use all the information given and tie it together very well. I do not think I can improve much on these types of articles. The newsletter is great; however, I wish I could have written an article. The articles are somewhat half butt. I think the newsletter grade should be worth more to enforce good articles. This was my last article and I am very sad about it, but I know next year juniors can do a better job then the class of 2015.

Elias rosario

2014-06-04 14:26:59 UTC

I like how the news letter is set up, however I do wish it has a little more color. The only eye catching parts of it are the STEM logo and the pictures. The titles of articles them selves are different colors but it doesn't pull me in and want to read them