Jamie Beavers Selected as National Content Generation Award Winner
Congratulations to Midway High School Teacher Jamie Beavers, a Baylor Journalism alumna, who was recently selected as the 2022 Content Generation Award Educator Winner! Distributed by Class Intercom, this award celebrates educators for their creative use of social media to connect with students and school districts.
Beavers graduated from Baylor University in 1999 with a major in journalism and a concentration in photojournalism and a minor in sociology. At Baylor, she was Jamie Kmiec (kim-ick).
“I did not have a paid position on the yearbook or newspaper staff there, but I frequently submitted articles and photos to both,” she said. I worked for four years as a student photographer though the work study program in the Baylor Public Relations and Photography Office.”
During the school year, she was a photographer. During the summers, she was a receptionist and press release writer for the PR office. Two days after graduation, she started working at the Waco Tribune-Herald and Waco Today. She is still a stringer for them. She got the Tribune-Herald job because she had a job fair/mock interview one day before her senior year of Baylor, and the Trib managing editor and I hit it off at that event!
She has been at Midway High School since 2001, and she teaches commercial photography, yearbook, newspaper, and an independent study in journalism as well as coaches the UIL Academic Team. She is also the adviser for the high school social media pages and the website. She writes the principal's newsletter every Friday.
As a teacher and adviser for the high school yearbook and newspaper classes, Beavers has demonstrated how social media can be used to enhance critical thinking, communication, and collaboration among her students. Her award- winning submission met or exceeded all of the categories scored by the Content Generation Award Educator Finalist selection committee and received the highest number of online votes from the public.
Beavers’ nomination highlighted how students in her newspaper class profiled all Career and Technical Education teachers on social media in celebration of CTE month in February. This student-centered project allowed high school students to work together and use their creativity and critical thinking skills to connect with others.
Beavers is also the district’s leading teacher content creator on the Class Intercom
platform.
“We are very grateful for her dedication and contributions to our education community,” said Traci Marlin, Midway ISDA Director of Communications.
Midway High School yearbook and newspaper student media staff not only spend time creating print publications but also make a conscious effort to create social media content to promote their work.