Full Name
Mark Webber
Where (school and city) do you teach?
(retired) Vidal M. Trevino School of Communications and Fine Arts, Laredo
How many years have you been advising publications?
I advised the final 26 of my 40 years of teaching.
How many students are involved in your media program at your school?
We had about 200 combined in my journalism program, broadcasting, and creative writing/literary magazine.
Describe your space for us.
I had two.
The first was on our original campus in downtown Laredo, which I helped to open in 1993, which consisted of two school buildings the district owned, dating back to 1918 and 1923, and several old houses and other old buildings repurposed into the school office and classroom space. I had a tiny 3-room building that I’m told was built in 1945. One room was my computer lab, one was my classroom, and one started as my photographic darkroom for black-and-white film that later became an impromptu video and photo studio when we went all digital in fall 2009.
When we moved to our brand new, purpose-built campus in 2015, I had a 900-square-foot classroom that was larger than my former building and an adjoining smallish room intended as an office that we used for podcasting or when students needed quiet for telephone interviews. The literary magazine staff editors also used that small room for their work. There was plenty of space for my computer lab and to teach in, and lots of space for students to spread out.
For my final three years before I retired, I was assigned the creative writing class/literary magazine program, which was scheduled during my 5th block journalism class. That class period really rocked! The broadcasting class moved into a similar large classroom with four smallish rooms used as a radio station and editing rooms plus a modern broadcast studio and control room. The complex featured a TriCaster production board, teleprompter, green screen, a news set, lighting grid, and three studio cameras: two mounted on dollies and one on a crane. Lots of storage, also.
What do you think are some of the benefits of the workspace you all have?
After moving to the new campus, the broadcast instructor (a former student of mine) and I had modern, dedicated facilities with plenty of space and the latest equipment for students to work with. There was room to display student work so I’d have a perpetual rotating photo exhibit on display panels in the hallway outside of my room. Plus, having a clean, modern, airy, and well-lit facility was such a big plus as opposed to the ancient buildings which, while repurposed for us, were inadequate.
What do your students like the most about the workspace you have?
There was plenty of space to spread out and work independently or in groups as well as having our desktops available for publication purposes. The room was big enough to accommodate both my journalism and creative writing classes at the same time (5th block) with plenty of room to spare. It was just a happy place in general.
What computer programs and/or apps are your staff members using on a regular basis?
We used InDesign, Photoshop, dabbled with Premiere Pro for the occasional video, Audition, and Microsoft Word and Excel. The broadcast classes used Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Character Animator, Audition, and Microsoft Word.
What tech equipment are your students using on a daily basis?
For me, the Dell desktop computers that were brought from the old campus were ancient when I retired in 2019, a Dell workstation to edit podcasts and our longer videos, a range of Canon DSLR models, and digital voice recorders. On a more occasional basis, for podcasts, we used a 4-mic mixer board, headphone amp, and mics/mic stands, and for videos, two simple digital video cameras, shotgun and handheld mics, and tripods.
The broadcast instructor acquired an iMac lab after we moved to the new campus, and had a variety of digital video cameras and DSLRs as well as wired and wireless mics. She also had the studio and control room equipment.
Aside from the computers and the program, what are one or two pieces of equipment that you have that you think other programs should have?
My colleague and I were asking the district for a server dedicated to our programs but that never happened. We needed to have a central storage location for large files, especially, as the external storage drives we used were inadequate.
How is your workspace funded?
I had a budget in the school budget for printing and the website.
What made fundraising challenging was that the school is a magnet school that’s a part of the district’s three comprehensive high schools. One shift of students would come in the morning and take a core class and a fine arts or a communication elective then go to their “home” school. A second shift would come in the afternoon and repeat the process. No students were present after school.
Occasionally I would get a grant or donation for equipment or supplies. Donors Choose was a real lifesaver. And, TEKS has enough journalism-related classes to create a 4-year program. When we went into CATE later, I did my usual thing through whatever class(es) were assigned to me. We usually got a little bit of funding from them.
Do you have anything on your wishlist for your space? If so, what are you looking for and why?
The server would have been an important addition if we could have gotten one. Had I stayed longer, the district would have taken the old desktops as all students were assigned Chromebooks. We would have needed some appropriate desktops for publishing purposes.
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