Cobra students create documentary, podcast as part of digital media class

In a small classroom in Jackson Heights High School’s lower level, just a stone’s throw from the old “missile tunnel” that was part of the school’s previous life as an Atlas missile base, JHHS juniors Evan Ramirez and Beau McKinley could be found tossing around subjects for a podcast on Tuesday afternoon.

Elsewhere, on the school’s Web site, there’s a link to a student-produced streaming documentary about the JHHS football team’s fall 2024 season, while in another room down the hall from the makeshift studio where Ramirez and McKinley are warming up, another student could be found working on an animation project.

The students are part of a new “digital media” class at JHHS that has young people creating streaming content for YouTube, where the school has its own media channel, and Spotify, where the “Offbrand Podcast” is produced and aired weekly by Ramirez and McKinley.

Brad Alley, who teaches the new class, said it is being used not only to show high school students the nuts and bolts of “digital creation,” but also to encourage students to bring their own ideas to life.

“We’re going to do some things as a class for the school,” Alley said. “But outside of that, I want them to do something they have a passion for, like the kid who’s doing the animation. It has nothing to do with school. It’s something he has a passion for. These guys doing their podcast on Spotify has nothing to do with school, other than they’re students. It’s something they have an interest in, and they want to do it. This gives them an opportunity to do that.”

The hour-long documentary about the Cobra varsity football team’s winning 2024 season is one of the “class” projects, Alley said, adding that since this is the first year of the class, it took them the entire fall semester to create it — and that’s in addition to learning the necessary techniques of putting such a program together.

But during that fall semester, students were able to “stretch their legs” with other projects that promote Jackson Heights High School on the school’s YouTube channel, such as weekly shows with coaches and short productions spotlighting Jackson Heights teachers and students.

“Later on, we want to be able to do weekly news events, where we’ll take the next week’s events that are coming up and kind of do a ‘what’s coming up’ segment and also have the highlights from the past week,” Alley said.

Before the 2024-25 school year began at JHHS, Alley said there were no classes that centered on “digital creation” — at least not since a similar class taught by district technology director Vern Andrews almost 15 years earlier.

“There’s this really big industry right now that focuses on being a digital creator,” Alley said. “We had some interest with the kids, and they asked me if that was something that I’d be interested in doing.”

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