Next year at Oakdale High School, new opportunities may be offered due to the joint collaboration of  journalism and digital communication. This will allow for sporting events to be livestreamed and create more effective articles to catch readers’ attention with live on-the-spot news.

Mrs. Alexia Isacco,the journalism teacher at Oakdale High School, was asked about her thoughts on what the new journalism program will be like mixed with live broadcasting: “I’m not too sure, I’m hoping to look at all journalistic opportunities in this classroom”. She also added that there will be a new website with a platform that would be similar to how the current website is, but the design will be different.

The motivation to create the new website is to have more maneuverability such as being able to search for articles easier and navigate the web page. Whether live streaming will affect the gate entrance income, Isacco said, “The livestreaming company doesn’t really affect games because people who want to see will go to the game. There will be a problem finding color commentators and we will be livestreaming other events such as Mr. Oakdale and school concerts”.

Mr. Roger Rich, the digital communications teacher at Oakdale High School, will be managing the tech side of this new class. Explaining how the live streaming will work, “We’re looking to get an upgraded laptop and we’re also looking for a new camera due to the poor quality of what the school already offers, which isn’t good for live streaming.” He reassured a concern about Oakdale losing money from the games, due to students not going by confirming that you will have to pay to access the livestreams. “It will be a monthly fee or you can get a season pass which won’t be a lot of money.”

When it came to combining the two classes, Rich gladly replied, “I think it will be interesting- students can do reports that we can get on the air. Journalism can be on both the post and the air to give their reports and help communicate more information to the school”. Rich also commented that livestreaming at home games is all they’re looking at now to see how it goes.

Overall this new class sounds like it will make a tremendous impact on not only the students but also the whole community. From more opportunities to learn about broadcasting for Oakdale’s students, to family members and former students wanting to watch Oakdale’s events, this will make a great improvement and allow more people to be active in this ever growing community as it expands into the future onward.