Orlando, FL (June 12, 2013)—While many companies have shifted their education courses to the Web, the benefits of an in-person, hands on educational experience still proves useful for students. To help reinforce the positive impact of the hands-on learning, Synergetic Audio Concepts (SynAudCon) has brought its Sound Reinforcement for Technicians course to InfoComm, training nearly 60 audio technicians this year on ways to improve the quality of their audio projects.
Run by SynAudCon president and head instructor Pat Brown, the course teaches students the technical aspects of an audio system, and provides them with the tools necessary to produce a high quality reinforced sound for a variety of events.
“This particular course is geared towards those that install and calibrate sound systems,” explained Brown. “We teach them everything that is expected from an audio technician and break it down to individual services they are expected to provide.”
Since 2010, many of SynAudCon’s courses have been converted into Web-based courses, offering students a chance to absorb a larger amount of material at his or her own pace. However, for students looking for that in-person classroom experience, SynAudCon continues to bring select courses to numerous cities in the United States and Canada.
“I’ve had to [get an course extension] to finish a web course just because I couldn’t dedicate the time,” said Joe DiFalco, an audio sales manager and student at this year’s SynAudCon course. “This course forces me to dedicate a chunk of time to learn the material.”
“The Web classes are great, but in person, you can immediately ask a question,” added AV support analyst Chris Robinson.
The in-classroom education approach has also proved beneficial for SynAudCon, as Brown explained he uses his experiences teaching the course to constantly adjust the program to make the material easy to understand for his students.
“We’re constantly changing the course. Every time I teach, I go through the manual page by page…and I see students’ expression. If it looks like they’re not getting it, I might go back and come up with a better way to present it. Sometimes in doing that, it helps me come up with a better way to teach the topic,” Brown said. “I’m constantly doing that. Courses never perfect, and there’s always better ways to explain it.”
Also new to the program this year is Brown’s use of iPods and apps to test audio equipment, versus the bulkier equipment they used to use.
“So far so good [with using the iPod],” Brown said. “We still have some kinks, but those are getting worked out.”
SynAudCon
www.synaudcon.com
