An interesting man in The Maneater, a student publication at the University of Missouri, about the demand for all of their journalism students to make an Apple iPod Touch for use in their class work. It`s of special line to me as we at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia are starting to discuss what equipment students should be needed to have.
In class lighting demo with everyone's flash set on the same slave channel. (Photo/Mark E. Johnson)
Currently, we take an excellent programme in order for all of our photojournalism students which supplies them with all the train they need. Intro students are issued a digital single lens reflex camera and lens at the beginning of the semester which they use to utter all of their assignments. (And those assignments are tailored to that gear very carefully. In the upper division courses, they are issued a higher-level camera body, three lenses, a flash, audio recorder and a few other widgets to do it all work. They likewise get admittance to high end bodies and specialty lenses and lighting gear.
It`s a large system, for sure. The downside? When they graduate, they incline to own nothing. EVen in the reporting classes when we enter an audio module we add the gear, so they don`t own anything there.
All of this eliminates financial barriers to winning the classes, but it also disengages the students from the real costs of being a journalist.
So, where does this lead us? We are batting around the thought of requiring our students to own a couple pieces of equipment (an audio recorder, a digital camera of some form and perhaps a pocket video camera). Other programs require those and specific computer kits, too.
I see the frustrations of the students in Missouri - it doesn`t sound like their faculty are actually incorporating the equipment into their classes. That`s a leadership problem - if 40 of 49 faculty members said they take this because they will use it in their class, then the government needs to measure in and say, hey - get with the program. (Academics, feel free to scream about your academic freedom here.)
As for the estimation of not requiring anything, that opens up an altogether different problem. One of the reasons my kids are successful here is because we don`t wast time figuring out different pieces of equipment. When I was in grade school and teaching basic photo classes, I`d have 20 students with 18 different kinds of cameras in presence of me. When I said check your depth of field, 15 hands would go up asking how . and so I had to suffer a pair of minutes looking at every camera and exhibit them how to do that. (If the camera even could.)
Here, I can learn to the gear - do this, here`s how.
If we say, "You must take a digital recorder and a digital camera with video capability," who knows what will point up. How much time will we suffer in the schoolroom to teaching individuals how to operate their own gear?
And if we say, "Figure it out," the students will condemn us in course evaluations for having not taught them how to use their own equipment.
So what is a section to do? I think stipulating specific requirements for pitch is ok as tenacious as the staff will incorporate them into the classrooms. If you can`t see that, then you need to define or eliminate those requirements.
Which leave it be for us? Damned if I know _