Digital Media Offerings Grow in District

A required elective for freshmen this past school year is expanding at . Digital media has opened up opportunities for students to learn how to create their own videos and tell a story through moving images.

Jody Lazarski, who taught the first digital media course, said the class is a partnership with MSG Varsity, which provides equipment for the students. Because of the volume of student-produced content, Westwood High School won a V Award, or Varsity Award.

"We won it for the amount of student produced content we turned into them this year," Lazarski said. "We did a lot of projects and turned everything around quickly."

Students handed in projects on a variety of topics from public service announcements to sports coverage to their own version of "Iron Chef." Lazarski said students, in groups of four, were required to cover one school event together. They used Final Cut and iMovie to edit.

Instead of sharing the videos produced by students on a site like YouTube, Lazarski has uploaded many onto SchoolTube, which moderates comments. Videos from the Westwood Regional students can be seen here.

Lazarski has an extensive background in video production. She worked as an associate director for Court TV, worked for Maury and MSNBC and freelanced for Fuse and MTV. After she got laid off in 2008, she turned to teaching. She was an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and for the 2009-2010 school year taught TV production in Plainfield.

Lazarski said she hopes to continue work in the field when she can. "I just got a call to AD," she said. "I still hope to do that in my summers."

She's excited for the new school year to begin though. "We're going to be growing the program here," she said, explaining the students will have access to newer, more professional grade cameras. "MSG Varsity gives us the platform to strive to get stuff seen."

So far, the students have achieved success with their work. A group of four digital media students, Raechel Sontag, Jacqueline Romeo, Melissa Bui and Colin Keatin, were .

Another group of four, Renee Gioe, Brandon Eo, Darian Henry and Jackie Hanna, received third place at the North Jersey Craftsman's Fair for a video they did about the Athletic Varsity Dinner.

One of Lazarski's independent study students, , won first place at the North Jersey Craftsman's Fair for his video about improvements to the science programs in the Westwood Regional School District.

Lazarski hopes to continue the progress in the digital media program at Westwood High School.

"I went from one to five [cameras] with MSG Varsity," she said. "Because of the growth and what we were able to bring here, we had individual finals for the first time. Now I can see what each individual can do."

Lazarski added that by receiving a "Studio-in-a Box," which is a virtual set, students will be able to do even more in the coming school year.