Sandburg’s One-Button Studio Inspires ROWVA to Build One of its Own

  Aaron Frey
  Friday, March 27, 2020 3:31 PM
  Campus News

Galesburg, IL

Traci Johnson saw Carl Sandburg College’s One Button Studio and was ready to do whatever it took to get one of her own.

Johnson, an English teacher and instructional coach at ROWVA Junior/Senior High School, recognized it could be a simple, new way for herself and her co-workers to implement video into their teaching.

“Many of our teachers have shown interest in using video in the classroom,” Johnson said. “However, taking the time to teach students video skills in order to do so makes it less enticing.”

The One Button Studio alleviates that concern.

All users have to do is walk into the studio, install a flash drive and press a button that starts a countdown to begin recording. Once done, users just need to press the button again to stop the recording and can have their video ready just seconds later.

Sandburg opened its One Button Studio in 2015. ROWVA — with the help of Johnson’s inspiration from Sandburg and funding from the ROWVA Public Schools Foundation — unveiled its own in time for the start of the current school year. Johnson said it has been used “almost daily” since. ROWVA students (and even Superintendent Joe Sornberger) have used it for green screen productions, showing science experiments, recreating scenes from books and producing district media broadcasts.

“Our students live and breathe videos,” Johnson said. “Whether it be TikTok, Snapchat or YouTube, they are fluent in video. It only makes sense that we give our students and teachers a simple way to show their learning using this media.”

READ THIS STORY AND MORE IN THE 2020 EDITION OF SANDBURG MAGAZINE