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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-2007-03-13Cable Access Oversight Committee Minutes. The Committee [AOC] met at Ithaca Town Hall on Tuesday, Mar. 13, 2007, 5 pm. Present: AOC Members Elizabeth Field (Bauchner), Wayles Browne, Shane Seger [chair], Wies van Leuken, studio manager Lauren Stefanelli. Absent: Will Burbank due to illness. 1. Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary. 2. Minutes of Feb. 13, 2007 meeting: accepted with small amendments. 3. Public comment: none. 4. Presentations /Discussions with Education Access partners Chris Sperry and Fe Nunn. Chris Sperry, Media teacher, Lehman Alternative Community School [LACS]: I began doing video productions at LACS in the late 19701s -early 1980's, working with a group of teenagers. Karl Madeo later took over video at LACS; he has just retired. I work half time at LACS and half time at Project Look Sharp at Ithaca College. Project Look Sharp supports video and media literacy at New York State schools. Mustafa Ali is LACS's new video instructor. He has begun working with a class of 12 on video production and with another group of 10 on a one - time -a -week project, both at LACS. LACS will soon provide programming to PEG: a school play will be put on in a week and a half, and shortly after that there will be Middle East Debates. Both will be videotaped and shown on the educational channel (16). My goal and Joe Greenberg's (the LACS principal's) too is to integrate media production into the curriculum from the 6th grade on. One group of 6th graders will start doing dramatic productions and the other group will do documentaries. The students will continue to use their skills from year to year. For this we will need: 1) at least 1 stand -alone video production class, and 2) some staff member getting release time to oversee the video studio and its equipment. Apart from Mustafa, a new English teacher has just been hired, and will get video training in Project Look Sharp over the summer. This year programming for PEG will begin in the spring. We expect growth in programming amount in the long term. Our experience has been that an English or Social Studies teacher has specific needs to use video in the curriculum. The result is only a brief bit of programming. Alternatively, the school uses the video equipment to document something that is already being done there, e.g. the school play will yield 2 and a half hours of video. LACS philosophy is that students demonstrate their learning, e.g. in the Middle East Debate, organized by Chris, each student takes the role of a different government leader. This debate will be put on PEG educational TV too. School years end with final performances, which could also be televised. Project Look Sharp does in- service training for teachers in other Ithaca City School District (ICSD) schools. The videos of classes could be valuable for them. [meaning that videos would portray how Project Look Sharp trains the teachers? or the teachers would look at videos of LACS classes and that would be instructive for them ?] New Proposal to PEG for Mobile Video Classroom (proposal supported by ICSD administration): we need a simple easy low -labor way to record events happening at LACS (later: those at other schools). I myself can set up equipment for a 3- camera shoot at the Middle East Debates in one evening, but not many other people are able to do this. Therefore we want a mobile setup for 3 cameras and several rooms equipped to host it, we could roll it in and record events easily. We would then be able to share videos and hold videoconferences with other schools in New York State and even other countries. Such a mobile unit should be usable by one operator. If we had this, it would greatly increase the visibility of the school on PEG, and the district will give some money if PEG can provide some equipment. The district needs to handle mounts and installations in the building. The equipment itself would be mobile. In a few (3 ?) years, LACS will get an addition, and then there could be a dedicated room for video. But until then the video equipment needs to go from room to room. Van Leuken asks about the price tag. Stefanelli: This would be a mobile rolling studio like the one the ICSD now has. (One was in the courthouse, then went to ICSD for telecasting its meetings. Another one is available for access producers, but is never used because it is very heavy. It's easier to borrow all the same equipment as separate units.) I recommend this present mobile studio unit for use at LACS. It has no cameras, but it has cables and mixers. Sperry: LACS has 4 or 5 cameras used every day for class, plus 1 or 2 in the library that get loaned out. Some of these are PEG's; some belong to the school. So LACS would need additional cameras. Stefanelli: The cameras proposed are only for remote - control use. The present remote unit can have any camcorder plugged into it, which calls for 1 director plus 1 operator for each camera. Chris's request is for 3 cameras, all remote - controlled, all operated by the same operator. Each such camera costs somewhat over $1000. Stefanelli suggests: talk to ICSD's engineers, who have been installing cameras in the ICSD meeting room. Browne suggests: Stefanelli and Sperry should put together a written itemized request. Van Leuken is favorable to the proposal, but notes: at present we have no LACS programming on PEG. Can we have some soon? Sperry: We just hired Mustafa (thanks to additional funds from the Superintendent, Judith Pastel); that will provide programming this spring. We should be back on board in the fall for regular programming. With the new remote studio we will have more programming than ever and provide a model for other school in the district to provide unprecedented levels of programming. Fe Nunn: I have Boynton Middle School students come down to Boynton's dedicated studio. I have been at Boynton for 1 1/2 years. The students mainly make presentations in performing arts, but this month and last month we've had presentations on women's history and black history. We have about 9 8th graders and a few 7th graders. We recently discovered that we can also go into the library and do a 7- minute broadcast during "Home Base" - every classroom has a TV and (almost) all students can watch it. Lauren Stefanelli has come from PEGASYS and Paul Smith has also helped. 1 day a week a science teacher does an experiment on TV. Park Scholars from Ithaca College have come and worked with students. We were doing news every day - now just Mondays and Wednesdays, so that we have more time to plan the programs. These are useful for drawing special- education students in and giving them a feeling of accomplishment. The news, the science experiment, and the arts presentation all together take 7 to 12 minutes. We were just about ready to do a PEG broadcast but I had to leave for knee surgery. Now I'm back, and we hope to do it sometime this spring. I am not making a funding request, though we may have some repairs needed. Ithaca College [Mr. Nunn's alma mater] will probably upgrade our control board over the summer. Stefanelli: PEG gave Boynton some hand -me -down items, but I.C. gave much more equipment. AOC did not fund any new equipment for Boynton. Boynton shoots a program in the afternoon and broadcasts it in school the next morning. If you bring it to PEG in the afternoon, I can put it on cable, and both Boynton and the public will see it the next morning. Sperry: from PEG's point of view it would make sense to get all school principals together to integrate their schools' broadcasting. Stefanelli: Margaret Grace of Dryden just dropped 12 tapes off for broadcast. It would be great if all schools could know what all others are doing. Could they all broadcast on a coordinated schedule? Sperry: There could be a day for schools to come and present for each other. Stefanelli: Teachers often say "yes, if there were in- service time for it." Sperry: I could help facilitate that. Stefanelli: Channel 16 is programmed and organized by I.C. for the part of the day belonging to I.C., but nobody organizes it for the K -to -12 part. Someone ought to. 5. Member reports. Seger: update on conversation with Mayor Peterson and Asst. City Attorney Pat Dunn on the possibility of organizing the access studio as a nonprofit entity. The Mayor (and Ms. Dunn) want to put this together with a number of issues concerning TWC. She was generally supportive of another model for access operations, but concerned that it may be outside AOC's purview. AOC should give them some questions to ask about the access setups that other communities use, and then City Clerk Julie Holcomb can do some research on them. Seger will circulate a list of proposed questions. 6. Access Studio coordinator Lauren Stefanelli submitted a report in writing (see Appendix, below). Note: the Ithaca Journal published a notice about our PEGASYS awards in February. Seger: I sent (on -line) a notice of this AOC meeting to the Ithaca Journal. It wasn't published, but the Journal apologized, citing a technical malfunction. An application for use of the satellite dish has been received from Mary Loehr. We'll take it up at the next meeting. 7. Next meeting: April 10, 5 pm. Adjourned about 6:50. Appendix Access Coordinator Report to AOC March 13, 2007 PEGASYS Center • AOC Reports: 2006 programming, equipment usage and training stats are attached [not included here]. • PEGASYS Awards Our 2007 PEGASYS Awards were held on Friday, February 23. About 3 dozen people attended, the event was cablecast live on channel 13, and repeated several times. Thanks to AOC member Shane Seger for serving as a judge! Numerous volunteers were involved, from judges to television crew, to make this event possible. The 4 highest - scoring programs, plus 1 additional Ithaca entry, will be sent on this week to the national Hometown Awards. • Training: The February Studio class was had 7 people attending. The March Portable Production class has 9 people enrolled, another full group. Due to popular demand, I will be adding several pre - production modules to the field production class. The next PEGASYS Orientation is scheduled for April 4. • Notable Public Access Productions A new weekly series was started by CU History Prof. John Weiss. "CSI- From Darfur to Iran" will continue weekly. Institutional Access • College: Cornell cablecast a live event on March 5 featuring the presidents of CU, IC and TC3. They are considering making this a monthly live telecast.