I have a small grant for equipment and I'm currently scouting around for best stuff at lowest cost. I'm looking to buy videocams, audio recorders, mikes, headsets, and if enough is left over, maybe digital cams. We're working with Macs here at UMass -- actually we are setting up the first "Mobile Journalism Lab" here. We just bought 15 mac laptops which will be used primarily in my multimedia class, in a wireless classroom. They will be predominately for classroom use but if the opportunity arises, students could take them out to blog for an assignment. We'll be using mostly Mac editing software for now (intro class) but photoshop and a few other bells and whistles have been added.
Anyway, considering the need to keep costs down and that students are just learning how to collect and tell stories via video and audio, I was wondering whether anyone had suggestions on equipment.
Thanks, Steve
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Steve Fox
Lecturer/Multimedia Journalism Coordinator
Journalism Department
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-9313
I've stretched dollars by purchasing lightly used and/or new equipment for news gathering (both radio and TV) on eBay.
I choose models that are still new but last year's or even 2-3 years ago. I'm fortunate that our purchasing director has no issues with using an official purchasing credit card via PayPal.
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Sandy Ellis
Journalism Dept.
University of Wisconsin-River Falls
