Fall 2013 Report
Media Commons is happy to ring in the New Year with a report on our most successful semester to date. For the very first time, consultants worked with students, faculty and staff from every location across the state of Pennsylvania, representing just over 10,000 interactions in both the classroom and MC facilities. The continued emphasis on making innovative media production tools and facilities as accessible as possible is largely responsible for this tremendous growth in Fall 2013.
Consultants facilitated 118 projects during the Fall semester, nearly twice as many as in the Fall of 2012 and Spring of 2013 combined. Tellingly, 42& of faculty clients were new to the Media Commons, having never assigned a multimedia activity in a past term. The projects were representative of courses in 12 academic colleges and included three notable assignments. In CMLIT 153U at Berks. students were challenged to tell realistic coming of age stories using the familiar framework of comedy and drama. At the same time, public relations professional of tomorrow in COMM 471 at Harrisburg were given iPad minis as part of the Mobile Media Pilot and allowed to practice their trade using tools that encourage unprecedented immediacy. And at University Park, a long-standing cassette-based recording project in HDFS 411 was given new life (and exceptional convenience) by transitioning to using the One Button Studio for simple video recording.
HDFS 411 was just one of many, many projects that passed through One Button Studio in Fall 2013. The facilities saw 667 appointments, representing 4315 videos that were created by 2978 individuals. Since many of these clips are short, 2-5 minute pieces, it’s very impressive to note that over 163 hours of content were recorded using the automated resource. These numbers are sure to grow at an exceptional pace in future semesters as four new, Commonwealth campus OBS installations came online in the Fall, the first of their kind but definitely not the last.
Following up on the re-designed Media Commons website in Spring, consultants added new resources that make it easier to get started with a variety of projects. Several Process tutorials were added over the past term, including Video Production Tips, Interviewing basics and others that focus on best practices for ensuring a quality product. On the editing side, entirely new Interactive Modules were launched that cover all facets of iMovie as well as backing up to the MC Storage Space. The product of 100 hours of production, these flexible modules can be completed in just 40 minutes – and have already been by 777 page visitors during the Fall.
Tailgate 2013 provided a chance for 70 faculty, staff and student attendees from 12 campuses to join together over the course of a Friday in October and celebrate their successes in teaching and learning with media technologies. In addition, the theme, “Branching Out” set the stage for exploration of future applications for the resources, tools and services provided by Media Commons and created a dialogue that will help the MC team to continue refining offerings to respond to a growing community’s needs.
Dig deeper into the Fall 2013 semester by downloading our full report below:
Our goal in the coming months is to continue working with our campus and college stakeholders to increase the usefulness and value of Media Commons through further programming, enhanced and innovative tools, services and spaces and strong instructional content.