The 11-year-old program at the high school is an over view of several media programs that students will need while progressing in college and their careers, according to instructor John Hill.
“We take them through the basics of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, iMovie, Final Cut, Garage Band, and other programs in the Adobe Suite,” Hill said. “We don’t go into depth into any one program, but allow the students to learn at their own pace. They can pursue the programs they like and just touch on the ones they do not have as much interest in. But they get to know each program at least a bit.”
The class goes through a variety of assignments which allow them to learn visual, textual, motion, still, graphic, and typography programs.“
Students should be able to enter in motion and still images to the computer and manipulate them to create a very strong end product,” Hill said. “They don’t just learn how to generically put together a slideshow or edit in iMovie, they learn to layer and make a real mini film.”
Some of the projects students embark on in the semester-long course are creating a commercial for an existing product by emulating a commercial already on television, creating their own production company and advertising for it, and creating videos for goings-on at the school such as pep assemblies.
Hill said the demand for the class has been very high this year.“
There has definitely been a lot of interest this year. It meets the fine arts requirement for students and is particularly exciting for college bound students. It is teaching them a skill they need in several industries,”
Hill said. “Professionals expect you to know this stuff. These programs have become like basic skills. They need to know how to integrate these programs, not just know how to use a keyboard.” Hill said that students are surprisingly independent in his courses and can usually work at their own pace with tutorial videos he created for them.
“This is a different kind of classroom atmosphere. I cannot get up here and lecture because all of my students are at a different place in their learning. Some students take my class two to three times and have progressed well beyond the first timers, ”Hill said. “They obviously have markers along the way so I can grade their progress, but they are highly independent.”
Hill teaches three periods of multimedia, one period of digital photography, and one period of yearbook. His yearbook students also get a large lesson in multimedia skills and have several assets that other yearbook teams do not get.
“We are a Mac lab, which is a huge benefit to these students. They get to learn on the computers and with the programs that they will likely be using in college and in the future,” Hill said. “They also have a studio with a green screen, 60Dand 70D cameras, soft boxes, and strobe lighting.”
The studio and other additions to the yearbook class and multimedia lab are completely funded through yearbook sales.
“They do a lot with green screening and layering and editing. Some of them struggle with the concepts, but most of them jusT gobble it up,” Hill said. The first project the students take on is a compilation video of 20 different people counting down from 20.
“Video assembly is probably the biggest skill I hope they will acquire,” Hill said.
There are currently 110multimedia students, 20 digital photography students, and 30 yearbook students in Hill’s courses.
“I am always impressed when my students go in to school for graphic design or something similar. It is beneficial in college. They know how to get an inter-application operability and learn to not be afraid of programs,” Hill said. “The things they are learning how to do are transferable to life skills. They are being creative, incorporating their imagination and technology.”
Photos by ASHLI SIMIOLI/ The Valley Chronicle