Akul, Grade 8
The Direct Message has helped me understand the school a little better. As a new student, I didn't know any school traditions. Thanks to the DM, I learned a lot about middle school and our events. I also met many new people in media publications since we work as a group in the DM, not as individuals. I was pretty nervous when posting my first article as it was pretty scary to let everyone read my writing. But I felt good after posting it. The most challenging part of media publication is getting interviews for your articles, as most people aren't that serious while taking interviews.
Arjit, Grade 7
I was super nervous in the beginning. But later I adapted to posting articles. This felt fun it felt like being an actual news writer. My first reaction with my first article and appearance in News In 90 is “Oh MY GOD This is so COOL” I was just ecstatic
Chloe, Grade 7
When I published my first article, I felt really excited and happy because it was something that I had been excited about (I really like writing and the idea of posting news articles on a site seemed like a lot of fun to me). When this class first started, I thought it’d be like “ok here are some articles who wants to write what?” and then you just go and write that article. But I learned that it was a lot more collaborative than that and that there was a lot more to interviewing someone and writing articles. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and learnt a lot.
Jashvi, Grade 8
On my first day with the DM, I was unsure if this was something for me or if I would be good at that. As time went by, I learned that I like the type of work we do in class, like writing articles about what is going on and making current event news videos for students. This semester, beginning in this class was an excellent experience, and I learned things about my classmates and myself. Personally, my favorite thing we did in this class was this semsters magazine. It was a great way to show everything about this semester, attend fun events, and see them from another perspective. In the end, I had a great time in this class, and I hope you join it too.
Junha, Grade 7
I really liked Media Publications because of the collaboration. It was very nice how everyone always helped each other out. My first article was about the beijing winter olympics. I really liked it because it was collaborative. I worked with 2 other people, we shared ideas and gave feedback. The Direct Message helped me to be more aware of the events at school. I noticed the amount of effort that goes into planning these events. One challenging thing for me was deadlines. I sometimes struggled to keep up with them but now I think this class helped me improve on them.
Kabir, Grade 8
The DM was a great space for me to write and express myself. I had the freedom to write about things that I was passionate about. I had an awesome time crafting articles and making videos. I also enoyed working with the DM team. Everyone was extremely helpful and supportive.
Kashvi, Grade 8
For me, media publications was a very different experience from anything I have ever done. Writing has never been my strong suit so there were definitely certain areas that were challenging for me. I think that was a big part of why I chose this elective, so that I could get better at my writing. But because I wasn’t confident in my writing, I would always choose to do things that didn’t involve a whole lot of writing but rather speaking, designing, or managing. Everybody in the class was a lot of fun to work with and super supportive. This was a great opportunity to share my voice and I hope you all enjoyed reading our articles.
Matthew, Grade 8
Writing was a little tiring and boring to do, but when I finished and published my own project or article, I was really proud of myself. The most impressive project this year. was the yearbook survey. Many people participated in my and Arjit’s survey very passionately, so we could collect a lot of useful and interesting data. The deadlines of the articles were a challenge for me. The deadlines pressured me and my teammates into completing the tasks assigned. The press was a WONDERFUL experience, I interviewed people, and I wrote many articles about the exciting events of the AES. These experiences helped me to consider and learn how the journalists worked hard and how one small piece of paper was made with so much effort from so many people. It was a useful and excellent experience to become a journalist for the AES MS. Of course, I just moved here in January, and I am still learning about the AES. This press experience could help me to understand the systems of the school and its campus.
MinJun, Grade 7
Direct message is good place to find students articles. You can know how school work and activities in the Dirrect message. When I published first article. I think it is hard and I am proud of myself. What I felt in media publication is it is good chance to write essay and articles in the school. And I challenge myself to write articles with proper sentences,words, amounts.
Owen, Grade 7
Working on The Direct Message has been a really eye-opening experience into the world of AES. As this year has been my first here, being on the DM team and interacting with other students in the course of making articles and getting interviews, it has really shown me how great AES is. When I published my first article, Winter Olympics start tomorrow, co-authored with Chloe and Junha, I felt really good, because it was a smooth article and it was well written. I’ve always felt challenged by interviews because I just feel intimidated talking to people I don’t really know, because they’re just really unfamiliar and its different.
Petr, Grade 8
Media publications class was very interesting and new to me because I’ve never done anything even remotely close to this. It showed behind-the-scenes information and that only improved my image of the school because I saw how much the school offered in terms of different, interesting, and useful skills you can learn by joining all sorts of different classes.
My first ever article was about ASAs and ASIAC coming back after we returned to campus from online school. I was more nervous than at any moment over the last five-month. I didn’t show the article to anyone except well the entire middle school but my parents never got to read it. Luckily for me, people don’t talk about who published what.
For me, by far the most difficult and challenging part was coming up with pitches for a new article. From time to time there wasn’t much happening and I needed to publish something to keep up consistency so I went through everything I knew to find something worth writing about.
Doyun, Grade 7
I like this class because teacher is nice.
Salma, Grade 7
The direct message changed my thinking by teaching me how important deadlines are. My first article was the “Opinion: Back to Campus is Best”. I was very interested in learning about how to publish and all the work that goes behind an article. I felt challenged whenever I had to work in a group because then you always have to have this responsibility of not letting your group down.
Charlie, Grade 8
Being on the DM team has been great fun. It’s improved my writing skills and the ability to find a story in the most overlooked places. The first-ever article I published was about the upcoming International food fair. It was a cool experience, and I loved working with the other team members. Sometimes finding a story was challenging. If I didn’t have something to write about, I would be very unproductive. Overall I have loved being in this class, and I feel I have grown my voice and developed my writing skills.
Milla, Grade 8
On the first day of this class, I wasn’t sure if this was something that I would enjoy because for one, I wasn’t good at making decisions which was something necessary when it came to writing all these articles and deciding what to write about, including the lens. After a while though, I found that this class was a fun way to express myself and write about the things I wanted to. It was a way to express my thinking. It also helped me keep up with the things going on at school and remind me of exciting things that were coming up. The first article I wrote gave me this feeling. The article was an opinion piece that I worked on with a group. It was published just before school opened again and was about if we thought school should open (due to covid). It felt great to publish my first article and be part of students excitement. Overall, being part of the TDM team has been amazing and a great experience. As well as a great way to improve my writing skills and a great way to keep up with all the amazing things going on, not only at AES, but in the world.
Ken, Grade 8
Although I was unsure about being in this class it was great fun and I learned alot about interviewing people then writing about them. I was unsure because I didn’t like writing about something I was uninterested in and had a hard time coming up with something to write about. I understood a lot about what to write about, what angle, who is the audience etc. I really enjoyed writing about advocating for reopening the Tiger Kiosk. It was really satisfying when I woke up the next morning after posting the article seeing so many views and supporting comments. It was the most viewed article in TDM. It was like Christmas came really early. I think it found success due to how well the angle was (good job Charlie). I found a lot of difficulty in finding things to write about that have a good angle and are targeted to the right audience. But in the end I learned alot about interviewing and writing articles and had a lot of fun.
Savion, Grade 7
How has the Direct Message changed your thinking about the school?
The way it changed my thinking was by getting things on time and being more responsible in life so it helped me out a lot.
What did it feel like to publish your first article? And which article was it? My first article was the WOW and what it would be like and the way I felt about that was kinda amazing because I have never made an article like this before.
When did you ever feel challenged in media publications and what was it you felt challenged by? Maybe doing some articles I felt challenged to do and complete them but I got through it.
Wonwoo, Grade 7
How has the Direct Message changed your thinking about the school?
So first i thought the school subject was boring but after
When I published an ikea article I was really excited to publish because it was my first article to publish. I think the most challenging part in media publication was interviewing someone, because it was the thing that i don’t usually do
John, Grade 7
In the first i thought that most of the students didn't read the TDMEAS articles but now i understand that some do aktule do it. i felt proud when i posted my first article and showed my family as fast as possible this was the article about if it is best to stay at home or to go to school during the covid wave I feel challenged when creating my top 10 summer holiday destinations because I needed to go on google to find things to do and it was hard.
Aarnav, Grade 7
How has the Direct Message changed your thinking about the school?
I think the direct message made me feel that i need to put more work into my classes
What did it feel like to publish your first article? And which article was it?
It felt good and my first article was the pop one
When did you ever feel challenged in media publications and what was it you felt challenged by? I have felt challenged in media publications by the strict due dates
Harel, Grade 8
The Direct Message helped me understand what school is about and why school is doing what they are doing.
The first article that I wrote was "Back to Campus is Best," which was an opinionated article about returning to the school's campus. Before publishing the article it was quite stressful because I didn't know what people would think about it.
One of the biggest challenges in media publications was the WOW video that Milla and I edited. It was challenging because there were a lot of tech issues that we had to overcome.
Anne, Grade 8
Being in a DM team was quite enjoyable for me. Before I participated in our team, I didn’t pay attention to who was behind the scene. But as I work on a DM team, I could see how much effort people backstage make to make an event happen. And I was happy that I could appreciate them.
The first article I wrote was the opinion piece called “Returning to Campus is Not Worth the Risk”. I wrote this article while we were online learning, and at that time, I thought that the COVID infection would spread out faster and faster. But thank god, it wasn’t and I am so happy about it.
The most challenging part of a DM team was being aware of deadlines. It pressured me a little. But that also was a charming part of being in a team.
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