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Technological ProficiencyTechnological proficiency was the central goal at Suburban High but was not entirely ignored at the other two schools. The Media 3 teacher reflected the significance of technology in his desire for text books geared to it and in offering additional equipment, such as microphones, to students; he attempted to address what he viewed as a deficiency in student projects. On the other hand, the Media 1 teacher gave no attention to technical matters. At Boarding High, the man who was program director during the first two courses spoke clearly about using an apprenticeship model in which technology was taught more on a need to know basis, believing it was a more effective method of instruction yet addressing its centrality. The “correct” use of technology—a perspective that asserts a standard use—was part of the institutional ideology only at Suburban High. Teasing apart when standard practices are truly better and when they are merely a style can be difficult, but inadequate use of technology can distract audiences from a project’s message, perhaps clouding it all together. Sometimes a problem is evident when voices we are supposed to understand are inaudible, and sometimes a problem is clear when a few frames of a stray scene flash past. Therefore, despite my initial intent to not consider technological proficiency (in the same way papers are often not graded for grammar), it became clear that some direct consideration of technique is necessary to fully understand learning and development in video production courses. The most common technical problem, which was noted by Reilly (1988) in his observations, was in the audio. Suburban High had the necessary equipment—an array of wireless and wired microphones as well as a mixing board—but there was a tendency among beginning students to use it wrongly or to fail to use it at all. One such example was with the cooking video produced at Suburban High: When they arrived at the recording site, they discovered that the microphone was not working and so used only the built- in microphone. The result was poor audio. At Urban High, the Media 1 class did not have access to a lot of the school equipment and what existed for advanced students was limited. In “Sex Talk” (Project 8), students used a non-working microphone as a prop and even pretended to have ear pieces that enabled them to communicate with teams at other sites as if it were a live show, but the lack of a real microphone seriously interfered with the ability to hear interviews. On the other hand, it should be noted that even in professional live television, technical problems—particularly with microphones—arise, and this is not viewed as the most important type of problem to evaluate if some effort has been made to remedy it. The real need to consider technical proficiency is evident when considering “The Good, The Bad, And The Techies.” As noted, this project was an attempt at a very different production process than other projects at the school, and perhaps the problems are a result of this difference, but the fact is that it suffered from several lighting problems (being either over- or underexposed), a failure to white balance, distracting movements of the camera associated with never using a tripod, and a complete lack of attention to the sound problems. These problems—with the poor editing due partly to insufficient time—made for a project that was very hard to follow. Luke indicated that some of these “flaws” may have been partly intentional, but the audio problems and some of the lighting problems seriously interfered with following the video’s activity. Given the emphasis of the program on technology, this poor or absent use of technology stood out. |
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