(Posted July 14, 2003)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Staff members from Juniata College?s Teaching Learning Technology center will take the college?s digital filmmaking expertise on location to Tyrone Area High School to help teachers and students at the school to establish a video production program.

The all-day workshops will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the high school library, starting Tuesday, July 15 and ending Thursday, July 17.

?This is the beginning of a pilot program with Tyrone, where Juniata will continue training sessions for students and teachers throughout the year,? says Nathan Wagoner, instructional systems developer at Juniata. ?We hope that we can offer this type of service to other area schools by 2004.?

In addition to training teachers at the high school, the Juniata personnel also will train students from the school?s Academic Academy program. In preparation, two students from Tyrone attended Juniata?s Extreme Media day camps to learn digital filmmaking skills such as production, editing, soundtrack scoring and special effects.

Five Tyrone teachers and technical employees will receive training from Juniata?s staff, as will six Tyrone students.

According to Rebecca Erb, principal of Tyrone Area High School, the students who receive summer training will identify student video projects that will be used as multimedia projects to fulfill the school?s Academic Academy requirements for language arts and social studies. She estimates 24 students will work on projects in the coming school year.

?Our hope is that in the long run we can adapt this approach and use it in many of our other programs,? Erb says. ?One of our students who attended the Extreme Media camp at Juniata is so excited at what she learned that she wants to take a leading role this year.?

Tyrone Area High School also secured a grant to purchase video production equipment that is virtually the same as the equipment used by the Juniata technology center, to ensure smooth transitions in video production instruction.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.