Cameron Wilson and Dr. Geoffrey Wright, School of Technology

My goal was to study how the cinematographic industry teaches multimedia and digital production, and compare that with how Utah schools teach multimedia and digital production. The outcome was somewhat of a surprise to me. I thought that public school teachers, having proper pedagogical training, and all having graduated from college would be able to provide the students with an adequate learning environment. I found this to be wrong. The students at the Industry based schools overall were much more prepared to go out in the world and be successful in the industry of multimedia. The findings are backed by the following facts:

Students in many public schools participate in multimedia centered classes. They range from simple Photography to complex Television Broadcasting. My findings are that in public schools, the students receive a vast amount of knowledge of all the subjects, but that they hardly scratch the surface. They get, as the name of the class implies, “An Introduction to Multimedia”. I find that this is the case in most classes in public schools. The students never really get to delve deep enough into each content area, in order for them to be considered knowledgeable enough to pursue a career. The teachers and core curriculum are partially to blame for this. They are required to teach certain topics and only have the semester to do so. This leads to a lack of adequate instruction and practice time. The teacher has a class of 30 or more students for each period; each instructional period ranges from 50 minutes to 2 hours, based on the schedule type at the school. Each school I visited varied. This isn’t enough time for a student to become proficient at any task in the multimedia world.

Another issue with the public schools was budget. They didn’t have enough equipment for all of the students. They would often have to take turns and had very little time learning what all the functions of the camera or computer program were. By the time they grasped a concept they had to move onto a new subject area.

The students that attended the industry schools, like Camp Woodward and Hollywood School in Salt Lake, received a much better education of multimedia. And I feel that they should. They are focusing on one subject area. They devote all of their time to learning multimedia and digital production. The students want to be there, and in most cases they are paying to be there, unlike the students in public schools, where many were just taking the class because it sounded fun, or they thought it might be an easy A.

The students at these industry based schools are required to bring their own equipment, which needs to be top of the line. This gives them all adequate time to work and learn how it operates. Then when they do go into the professional world they already have their own camera with which they are familiar. The classes are also much smaller; they ranged from 10-20 students. They are also in these types of classes, all day, and every day. They are able to go deeper with each topic and not merely skim over the surface. While they are at Camp Woodward, they are constantly around the sports in which they are learning to film. There isn’t anything else to do to distract them from learning. The instructors are able to give each student more one on one time. The students have more time and everything they need to make good quality films at their fingertips. The teachers have been professionals and learned by experience. They depended on their work, to provide for themselves. They were able to learn all the secrets that you don’t learn by just studying it from a book or in a class. They are then able to pass this knowledge down to the students. I feel that real life knowledge benefits the students more than the general public education given to them. Although they may not know all the pedagogical teaching techniques, they were still great educators.

Overall, I found that the camps, and multimedia based schools taught by industry professionals are more effective than the efforts made by public high schools in teaching multimedia and digital production. The reason for this is now obvious after having conducted this grant.