Johnson hosted a mid-winter journalism workshop for students and teachers with different keynote speakers from the University of North Texas, Texas Association of Journalism Educators, and more.
“I really did enjoy the workshop,” Hays High School journalist Marcella Garza-Gondora said. “I liked Jena Weber’s presentation. She presented about photography and I liked it because I’m the head photo editor. She taught us about Adobe Bridge which is something we hadn’t used before and I think it will really help us get more organized.”
Ms. Crowe, Johnson’s journalism and yearbook teacher, hosted the workshop during the school day, in the library. About 41 students from the central Texas region attended the workshop with their teachers. Speakers spoke about tips and tricks for photography, yearbook management, and current readership trends.
“I really liked the student-led presentations. I think that it was really awesome that they could share their perspective. I know as a teacher, a lot of times students will tune you out, so I know for y’all as students, it’s nice to hear from your peers,” Cady photography company representative, Jena Weber said. “I really enjoyed the Hays Free Press’ presentation, I never heard her speak before and I didn’t know they offered all of those things for y’all.”
The idea to host the workshop transpired after Taft High School in San Antonio hosted theirs last year in January. Smithson Valley High School coordinated with the Jan. 25, 2024 workshop.
“When I went up there to present I was a little nervous but I knew I had prepared, so I was ready,” Scarlett Teague said. “I had already done that presentation for an English class, so I really just wanted to dive deeper into it and it was just a topic I was really interested in last semester.”
Scarlett Teague designed a slideshow in Canva to show the pros and cons of AI and how in some cases it can assist in writing news articles. Other journalists Abby Rios and Antonella Reynozo, presented about staying motivated during the creation of a yearbook and Ryan Sheely presented about overcoming fears during interviews.
“I really enjoyed it. I think I learned a lot and it’s really beneficial to our freshman side of our team,” Aliss Kastle said. “I really like the AI presentation because that’s a really big problem. I know some of the people in my classroom use AI, which is beneficial in some ways like she said but I feel like we should still use human produced stories and show how creative our team is.”
Smithson Valley High School asked Johnson journalism team for a tour of the campus. They showed them the many amenities and told them the many courses that we offer here at Johnson.
