2006-10-04 Minutes

Attendance

Place: Capital High School
Students: No student representation tonight
Members: Adam Fletcher, John Gerecht, Jerome Johnson, Maria Spivak, Marc Turnbow and Kevin Wright
Chairperson: Charlie Kirry
Secretary: Scott Le Duc

Agenda

Introductions
Student representation. Who will join us this year?
Tour new Multimedia Lab, CNS, and VisCom Facility - You helped plan the technology configuration for it last Spring!
To get input on purchases Kevin and Scott are planning and to talk about other expenditures.
Discuss lesson plan ideas.

We ended last year with a request for learning "recipes" for our classroom "cookbook", in other words, good lesson ideas.

Plan the other three meetings for the rest of the school year

Food

No food :( tonight
Next time - Potluck :)
Will email sign up for the November meeting

Student and Program Representation

Scott offered that all courses be represented by students reps and staff at advisory meetings
Maria reminded the group that we want to get kids to come to the meetings that are not connecting with the program to gain understanding of limitations of program and to collaborate on solutions
Maria suggested offering leadership points as an incentive to get kids to the meetings
Scott offered that we call home and work with the parents to encourage the students to show up
Adam suggested that we work with the student, first before calling the parents as this maybe perceived as antagonistic

Tour New Facility

Toured the darkroom, sound room, video control room, photo/video studio and new multimedia class room

Purchases

Color Printer Needs
- Kevin explained that the old printer needs a $300 fix
- Kevin explained numerous Xerox printer options with color samples from some of the options
- John suggested Epson as an option
- Maria works only in black and white but stated that color can get kids excited and we should
- Adam offered that we get two of the less expensive and keep the cost down and think about more high potentially down the road
- Charlie asked what the drives the need and the photography needs were offered by Scott and Kevin
- The suggestions from numerous people about kids using the printer and the need for robustness and less expenditure
Photography Needs
- Kevin explained our Canon SLR cameras are not working very well for the high use student rough use
- Digital option
- Getting K1000 SLR cameras at the lower cost may be good strategy
- Metering with handheld is an important skill
- Adam asked what is going to best prepare kids for industry
- John explained that the silver-based photography is still relevant in industry
- Maria offered that getting cameras in the hands of kids is important
- Charlie supported getting a better equipment to student ratio
- Suggestion to email light meters ideas to group when we are ready to purchase
- John offered the Honeywell-Wen for about $25.00 was a good buy
- Light meter brands Sekonic or Gossen were suggested
- Jerome offered getting an inexpensive Chinese flash slave was a great alternative to more expensive brands
- John recommend talking to Evergreen's media loan for dependable equipment suggestions
- Scott offered that 10 K1000 cameras with lenses can be purchased for the cost of one high end digital camera body
  - He shared that kids need more time with a film-based camera to get results, thus more cameras are needed to achieve competency, than digital
  - A digital SLR camera gives nearly instant feedback of the image details, thus one camera can be shared among many students and competency can be achieved sooner
  - The result is for similar cost each beginning student can be outfitted with a K1000 and have access to a couple digital cameras to achieve competency with the photographic process, a good blend of the old and the new
- John offered switching to Nikon, instead of Canon
- Scott called John silly names for using Nikon
Other Items
- Adam suggested we get a Smart Board for the classroom
  - An option we may pursue in the future
- Kevin shared the Ron Morsette, former photography instructor, recommended using two projectors for compare and contrast of computer based work

Lesson Plan Ideas

We will send out topics we need covered via email
Members can send ideas either through the wiki or email

Future Meetings

We will skip the inter district meeting on October 25th due to schedule conflicts with many members
Next meeting will be in November at Olympia High School
- Topics
  - Marc's budget questions
  - Getting connected students
  - Lesson ideas
Students will be there
We will have food!
2007 meetings will be schedule for after Valentines Day and sometime in May
We will coordinate schedules and email group potential dates
We will stick with Wednesday as the best day of the week

Agreed upon Action Items

Get diverse group of students to come to the next meeting
- Especially recruit non-connected kids
More info of what we need for lessons or activities
Create an advisory wiki for members and students
- Add a food page!
Purchases
- 2 20D or 30D SLR but not the 5D, too expensive for what we are doing
- 1 higher end film camera for the more experienced kids
- As many k1000's as we can afford to get as many cameras in the hands of kids
- Some handheld light meters
- The less expensive Xerox printer that does not print large format
How to get committee members more involved in the classroom?

Advisory Committee