[Bob Mowen]

I recently retired from my high school job teaching TV production. Covid was the reason, as my district insisted that I return to the classroom in person. Back in the Spring I had to scramble to continue to engage my students who were all learning remotely. The first thing was to eliminate one of my classroom rules: No shooting with phones (excluding newsworthy events witnessed by students who didn’t have a school issued camera at the time)

My 2nd rule: The word “film” is the F word. Students were not allowed to use this inaccurate term. There’s no “film” inside a video camera I would say, while showing an actual reel of 16mm film, and holding it up to the light to show the individual frames.

I told students they could shoot with their phones and to my delight I received many creative and well produced videos. Some were edited using in phone apps, and others used free editing programs such as iMovie, Resolve, Avid, and WeVideo

Yes the videos sometimes contained shaky cam, vertical video, rule of thirds errors,etc. But I was happy just to receive submissions from a student body in an urban public school where engagement is always an issue. Music video was a very popular assignment. Also, I always had links to tutorial videos on my Google Classroom that the students were required to watch and then comment on.

As a professional who worked in production and post for 26 years in nyc, I wasn’t the typical hs teacher with no real experience who is usually thrown into teaching video. I met many of these teachers in my district during PD (professional development) days. They were in awe of the output from my classes: Daily morning announcements, including weather and sports, shot in studio and edited the day before; plays, concerts, and other events shot with 4 cameras and edited using multicam; periodic newscasts with student produced packages, etc.

Yes it’s tough to teach a hands on course without access to equipment, but with a bit of outside the box thinking I think a teacher can still keep their students engaged, interested, and participating. If I was still teaching this year I would be sending school announcements to students to record themselves speaking, and then edit into a weekly show.

Good Luck

Bob Mowen

Goshen,CT