Every high school broadcast program runs into the same moment. A game's a few days out, and the sign-up sheet for who's covering it is still empty. Nathan Ladehoff sat down with Jordan Burns, who runs event coverage for Nixa Live, to work through the two ways teachers solve this, and why neither one is a permanent answer.
The Case for Letting Students Sign Themselves Up
Self sign-up hands students the actual ownership this whole show argues for, picking their own role, showing up because they chose to, not because they were told to. It saves the teacher real time too. Jordan runs it on lower-stakes nights and away games specifically because it means he isn't the one building the schedule.
Where Self Sign-Up Actually Breaks
It isn't free. Students forget they signed up. The less exciting roles, wide shot, wireless camera nobody wants, sometimes go unclaimed entirely. And a student who picked a spot doesn't always know the SOP for it the way a student who was placed there deliberately would. Jordan's workaround is a small one: students know that if their friends don't fill the remaining spots, he'll move them into the gap himself. It turns picking your own role into a reason to help recruit the rest of the crew.
The Case for Assigning It Yourself
Teacher-assigned solves the readiness problem directly. You know your students, so the right one ends up in the right spot. But it puts the teacher back in the middle of every single event, the exact bottleneck a self-running program is supposed to avoid.
The Hybrid Nixa Live Actually Runs
Jordan doesn't run one system. Away games and lower-stakes nights are self sign-up. The bigger games get assigned. And regardless of which system put a student somewhere, he'll still move them if it isn't working. "Both systems have their place," Nathan put it. "They have their time to be used."
Why Broadcast Ops Supports Both
The Event Board doesn't force a program to pick one mode. A teacher can assign a student directly, or open a role for sign-up, event by event. It's built that way because, as Nathan said on the episode, most programs are going to need both at some point, even across a single season.
Watch or listen to the full episode on YouTube. If you're a teacher feeling like you're on an island, Future Ready Educators is a free community of digital media and broadcasting teachers at futurereadyeducators.com. The Broadcast Ops Playbook is a product of Striv Education, learn more at striv.education.