Interview Transcript:
CG: So today we’re here with Tom White, who’s the AVTF teacher at Morgan County High School. Tom, thanks for joining us.
TW: Thank you, Chris, for having me. I’m excited about this.
CG: So I know that in the AVTF programs throughout the state, oftentimes the programs will reflect the personality of the instructor and their passion and what they’re interested in and tell me a little bit about what the focus or passion is at Morgan County High School.
TW: We want to take over the world. And I don’t know if that’s a reflection of me or not. But you know, we do news production. We have a daily news show that we just kind of tweaked to kind of to go directly at the students a little bit better. We do live sports, we do graphic design. We do a lot of social media actually starting a full on social media course in January, using a hybrid of the AVTF Intro to Digital Media and English standards to to to get kids doing some different content creation stuff. But you know, my goal is to create an environment where the kids can come in and and really kind of bloom into what they want.
And it’s fun to see the kids come in and really find their passions. And my my overall outlook on the world is try to try to learn as much as you can. And our program, my program really kind of does that.
CG: Well, let’s talk a little bit about one of the exciting programs that you’ve kicked off. I don’t know if you started it last year or developed more this year, but it’s with the Carmical Sports Media Institute at the University of Georgia.
TW: That actually started when I was in Rockdale. When I was at the career academy at Rockdale, I could build whatever we wanted. We had a great Administrative team and we kind of created two paths. James Densmore, he did the film side and I did the live production side and I called it the Sports Broadcast Institute because we served three high schools and we streamed everything we could. We actually at one point streamed 1000 events a year…and as a part of that, I was looking for support from other places and I’ve always… I’ve always been one to kind of look up and they started the Sports Media Institute at the time. It was before it was the Carmical Institute, and they started that about a year before we started ours.. So I reached out to Professor Michaelis out there. And she was having struggles that I didn’t know about, and I was having struggles that she didn’t know about.
She had tons and tons of talent, but no technology and I had no talent and all the technology. So it became a great partnership and we we worked together for the last, like I said, five or six years and there was a period of time where literally when our football team played football, their class met wherever we were playing and her students on air, talent, sideline talent, they would do social media posts.
They literally would come in with a full on everything. I mean, really would come in and we were just…. we were there to point cameras and plug in cables….and it was…. it’s been a great partnership and it continues today. I mean, we’re doing some pretty fantastic stuff in the future and it’s great.
I mean, it’s been a great partnership, but it just started with me harassing her until she would actually answer an email from a high school video production teacher. And I think that mentality has changed a good bit in the last five years of collegiate level too.