Students help train editorial, advertising staffers

So Juli Metzger, Tim Underhill, five editors from the Daily News and I had a great time yesterday doing a mobile video seminar for reporters, editors and advertising reps.

This was for the Hoosier State Press Association Foundation. The very nice Karen Braeckel, the foundation's executive director, had some kind words in an email today:

"Congratulations on a job well-done. You and your team made a lot of people happy as you did an amazing job of teaching a new skill in a day."

This was for three dozen folks - as far away as Princeton in western Indiana and The Times of Northwest Indiana in Munster. The Smart Video and Mobile Money seminars were designed for editorial and advertising personnel respectively. We taught both groups how to use the Voddio editing app for iPhones.

The DN editors served as teaching assistants. Everybody loved them, including Karen.

"The students played a great role in assisting the attendees in a courteous, professional manner," she said. "No question seemed too simple."

Juli produced a video (above) that caught the flavor of the conference:

Ninety five percent of attendees who responded in an online satisfaction survey said they would recommend the training for others

"I had an awesome day and am so thankful for this learning experience," one said in the survey comments.

Another called the program "very challenging and engaging. Nice balance of teaching skills focused for both beginners and advanced video professionals."

"It's a lot of information to take in," another wrote. "But I liked that we got to shoot and edit our own video while we were here. That helped the most with learning to think through the process."

The team produced two conference blogs for editorial and advertising attendees to post examples of their practice work. Also on the blogs is a video recap from Strauss covering the essentials of the video software training.

Forty percent of the attendees arrived with little or no experience in editing video.

"I came in with very little experience in broadcasting and video," one wrote. "I left knowing tons more about each for a low price. This was well worth the money, time, and drive! I would love to come back."

Karen called the conference a good pilot project and said she would like to expand the training to two days, including one for video neophytes who might need more assistance.

She echoed the comments of many attendees who found the school's new Unified Media Lab a great place for the training:

"The facility is beautiful," she said.