Feature Friday was a much needed improvement to the morning announcements. In previous years, the faculty would hand the announcement crew a script of things to say every morning, taking up a good 10 minutes of class time. Furthermore, there was little to no difference in the announcements because hardly any time had passed between the previous clip and the one the following morning. So students would waste 10 minutes of class listening to pretty much the same thing that we heard yesterday, and the day before that. Over and over again. this caused students to not pay attention to the announcements. Why repeat yourself when students heard you the first time? Let’s not forget about the ever present technical difficulties either, which suck up massive amounts of class time while teachers and administrators try in vain to solve the problem.

Now, with Feature Friday, there is an entire week between sessions. So events pass by, so those events are not repeated and (more importantly), new information was added in. We are now hearing about an event that is coming one time over the course of five days. The old announcements, on the other hand, would tell you about one event five times over the course of five days. It isn’t really news if the content is old. Another advantage to having the announcements on a less frequent basis is that we never really know what will be on the next Feature Friday. Last year, students could pretty much repeat the announcements word for word because it was always the same. With Feature Friday, students can’t predict what will be shown that morning. Unpredictability creates curiosity, curiousity creates interest, and interest means that kids will pay more attention to the announcements. There is also a lot less room for error if there is just one file. When the morning announcements crew had to shift between four of five different video clips, they were essentially playing Russian Roulette with all the different files, never knowing if it will play properly or not.

Furthermore, Students decide what goes on Feature Friday. Students submit things to feature friday that they know is interesting to other students as opposed to last year when staff members gave the announcements crew information that MIGHT interest a few students. By allowing students to submit pictures and videos of an event to Feature Friday, those students who participated in the event in question will naturally pay attention to see if they made the cut to have their accomplishments aired for the entire school. Student entries also encourage an unofficial competition between their fellow peers to see if the can make it onto the Promethean Board when Feature friday gets aired. It also encourages students to try new things in our school to see if they can get on feature Friday.

As you can see, feature Friday allows for more up to date and interesting announcement which take up less class time and are more efficient by greatly reducing the risk of a computer glitch.