This fall semester, a group of ten students, nine sophomores and one senior, were blindly placed into Online Communications. Little did they know that they would be involved in writing a blur of articles in order to capture what was going on at Burton throughout the semester. Little did they know that they would be delving into a class with so many different personalities, which required communication and cooperation.
Editor-in-chief, senior Cody Messer, started out this semester as an assistant editor along with sophomore, Taylor Collins. These editors were in charge of correcting and going over articles with each student in this class. During the third six weeks, Mrs. Bias promoted Messer to Editor in Chief because she always thought the blog should be run by students and felt that Cody had the necessary set of skills to step into a larger role. Sophomore, Kira Sturgill, filled his previous role as assistant editor number two, as Cody moved to Editor in Chief. Sophomores Mazzy Tomko and Madison Cardon managed the website's visual presentation to appeal to anyone visiting the blog. Sophomores Austin Lane, Tia Bates, and Dustin Pilkenton had the pleasure of being advertisers and created multiple crafts, candies and even locker signs to get the word out as the class tried to obtain at least 5,000 views each six weeks. The last two participants, sophomores Kaden Fisher and Jailen Bailey, were named Tech Assistants, as they knew the most about the technology used for the blog.
Learning a lot about one another, the students had to communicate with each other, as every role in the class depended on one another. All of the students worked very hard to complete their tasks. The writing process was frequently nothing short of a roller coaster ride, riddled with grammatical mistakes and sometimes even false information. Nonetheless, each classmate grew as writers; some went from very good writers to great writers, others from great writers to almost flawless writers. More often than not, the students learned many skills, which did not deal with writing, including leadership and time management skills.
The blog will certainly be missed by everyone in Online Communications and the students of this year's blog would like to wish the next class coming in next fall good luck and a fair warning: be prepared to work hard. Keep the blog at least almost as good as how we kept it. The class would also like to advise anyone with a love for writing and English, or looking to pursue a career in article publishing, to enroll in the class. It is certainly a beneficial experience.
Written by: Taylor Collins