Multimedia section of The Alligator

I try to start every lecture with the announcement of a “professional opportunity” – a professional organization’s meeting, a special guest speaker on campus, an update on the College’s Job and Internship Fair, etc.

Today, I included The Alligator Online’s announcement recruiting a Multimedia Editor.

Alligator.org is expanding and needs a Multimedia Editor to coordinate stringers and create multimedia. The editor must be familiar with basic video shooting and editing concepts and at least one of the following:

• Photography and Soundslides
• Audio capture and editing
• Advanced PhotoShop skills
• XML and data entry
• Flash

The editor will have the opportunity to learn some of the above concepts if he or she is not already familiar with them. The Alligator is striving towards posting a new piece of multimedia each day, with a focus on video. Other pieces of multimedia may include: Soundslides, audio clips, audio recordings of speeches, podcasts, photo galleries, interactive charts and graphs created in Flash, Google maps, etc.

Eyes widened.

I told them that many of the jobs and internships that they’d be seeking would require one or two of these skills and that they should be taking courses (pre-registration for next semester is coming up) or seeking other opportunities to learn some of these skills.

I asked, “How many of you have a blog?”

Many smiled as they raised their hands, as starting a blog was the assignment for last week’s lab. All 230+ now have blogs.

I told them we’d be talking about photography next week and that they would be creating a Soundslides before the end of the semester.

I could see several students asking classmates, “What is a Soundslides?” But they’ll know in two weeks.