Unfortunately, a lot of teachers (especially in English departments) are asked to teach Media Studies, and often lack the subject knowledge in order to feel confident in doing so. The general problem is that English teachers often feel comfortable talking about print media or film, but know little about the practical skills of graphic design, typography, photo-editing, or making short film and video projects.

While this blog is primarily aimed at students in Years 12 and 13, you should find useful discussion points here.

I’d also recommend you get your department to pay for a subscription to MediaEdu, which is a very useful source of tips and resources (a bit like Teachit is for English teachers). You will also find a selection of useful presentations at Slideshare. Permanent links to both of these locations are in the sidebar of WeStudyMedia, along with other useful/interesting sites.

equipment recommendations

First of all, get Macs. Macs are widely used in the media industry, not because they look pretty, but because people who work to tight production deadlines have found, over almost 25 years, that they are easier to use and maintain, more reliable, and more capable. There is widespread ignorance among technical support staff about Macs, and many decades-old myths still in circulation. Don’t take no for an answer!

• Macs typically require 1/3 of the technical support that Windows PCs do.
• Mac user accounts can be “locked down” to prevent unauthorised activity. Apple Remote Desktop allows an administrator to view/control what users are doing.
• “100% MS Windows” sites are rare in nature. 80% of businesses keep an enclave of Macs for marketing/design departments.
• Macs are interoperable with Windows networks – including RM – and are able to share printers etc. very easily. They speak TCP/IP, not AppleTalk.
• Macs can be used by all departments – especially Music, Art, Humanities, English, Maths and Science. Google Earth and Google Sketchup can be downloaded for Mac, Graphing Calculator is free, and free software like OpenOffice and Inkscape will work on a Mac.
• Macs come with just about all of the software you need to run a successful Media Studies course – right up to ‘A’ level:
• iMovie – for nonlinear video editing
• iDVD – for finalising student work on DVD
• iPhoto – for basic photo manipulation and cropping
• GarageBand – for multi-track music production and mixing
• TextEdit – a basic word processor capable of opening and saving Word documents, as well as Rich Text Format (RTF)
• You also get a 30-day trial of iWork, which includes Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. These are for desktop publishing (DTP), presentations and spreadsheets respectively. All the Apple software works together: so it’s easy, for example, to bring photos from iPhoto into Pages, or music from Garageband into iMovie. It’s worth buying a licence for iWork to enable your students to produce posters and magazine pages, as well as slideshows (Keynote is superior to PowerPoint, but will open and save PowerPoint documents).
• It is also possible to get Microsoft Office for Mac, and for those with the budget, education licencing for the Adobe Creative Suite is available.
• All documents can be saved as PDF files very easily, so they can be printed elsewhere without losing design/fonts
• Macs handle typography and colour management easily. Fonts are easy to preview/enable/disable using Linotype Font Explorer software
• Macs have Audio/MIDI set-up and low-latency recording/MIDI built into the operating system.
• Macs come with Intel processors and can run both the Mac operating system and Windows!
• As well as running Windows natively, Macs can connect to servers running Windows using the Microsoft Remote Desktop client

iMovie is easier to learn and work with than Adobe Premiere (easier to get professional-looking results in the time available) and more powerful and fully-featured than Windows Movie Maker. The ‘09 version of iMovie is much improved in comparison with the ‘08 version, with some useful effects restored to the mix. One nifty new effect is the “Night for Day” one, which allows you to make footage shot in daylight look more like it was done at night. Could be a lifesaver for those student projects. The Mac Box Set is an ideal upgrade for older Macs, and will update the operating system, iWork, and iLife. The Family Pack is a good solution for smaller suites of Macs – allowing you to install it on up to five computers. I bought 3 Family Packs for my 15-Mac classroom.

If you find the new iMovie to be underpowered, then the next step up is Final Cut Express, which is £118 for the education version from Apple, or slightly cheaper elsewhere.

For filming, I recommend several smaller (top-loading) camcorders rather than one big expensive one. Make sure that the model you buy has a headphone output and a microphone input – this cuts out the bottom of the range models, and ensures that your students learn about sound while they are learning about filming. Cheap video microphones and related equipment is available from Røde. Care must be taken with these, as they are not terribly robust.

Buy headphones with curly, not straight, cables for video use.

For further advice on video/sound equipment, contact Jigsaw, from whom you can request a catalogue.

For further information, leave a comment with your contact details.