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Faculty Stories

This section of the Media Commons site aims to give our faculty clients from across the Commonwealth a space to share their stories: where their project ideas came from, what goals they had for their students and how Media Commons helped bring it all together.

To schedule a media software training workshop for your class, fill out the Workshop Request Form.

SOILS 071 at University Park

Estelle Couradeau, an Assistant Professor of Soils and Environmental Microbiology at the University Park campus has been working with Media Commons to engage her SOILS 071 students. By using Adobe Express, learners in the class are able to present their research into local and regional sustainability topics in ways that appeal to a broad audience. Professor Couradeau then packages these presentations into an Adobe Express class portfolio, highlighting all students’ work for the semester.

English 015 at Beaver

Athena Pangikas-Miller teaches in the English department at Penn State Beaver where she focuses on grammar and creative writing courses. Students in all sections of ENGL 015 participate in video assignments and Athena’s sections have had their projects refined over numerous semesters. This continual revision has steadily raised the level of student work – and also gotten the class closer to the learning goals of the initial grammar lesson video assignment.

Sustainability 200 at Behrend

Ann Quinn has been a leader in sustainability efforts at Penn State for years, advising and leading initiatives including Greener Behrend and International Coastal Cleanup. When she learned she’d be co-teaching the SUST 200 as part of the Sustainability Leadership Minor in Fall 2012, she began working Media Commons to develop a video project that would connect her students with sustainable practices, resources, technologies and organizations in the larger community. Listen in as Ann discusses her experiences with multimedia in her SUST 200 course.

Geosciences 320 at University Park

Dr. Richard Alley is an American geologist and Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State and is one of several Penn State earth scientists who are contributors to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Prize. After years of teaching GEOSC 320, Alley found that his students ceased to be inspired by traditional group projects and, in Spring 2012, he changed to offering video projects with the help of Media Commons. After the switch, he found that his students, who needed to be able to explain paleoclimatology in layman’s terms, were far more able to do so through video. Listen in as Richard discusses his experiences with multimedia in his GEOSC 320 course.

Social Studies Education 430W at Berks

Dr. Jessica Schocker has been working the Media Commons for several semesters. She teaches upper level Education students at the Penn State Berks campus. She wants her students to focus on using technology in effective ways in their future classrooms. Schocker has had students create videos supporting content they are teaching in their student teacher classrooms. Additionally she challenged her students to produce a “virtual field trip” for some of their student teacher classes.

Listen in as Jessica discusses her experiences with multimedia in her SSED 430W course.

Image from Field Trip

Let’s Hear Your Story…

If you’ve been using Media Commons to help assign your students exciting projects that push them to engage with the topics of the course you teach, why not share your experiences with your colleagues across the Commonwealth?

There are a few easy ways to get started: You can either run off the four quick questions, find someone to ask them and stop by a One Button Studio on campus, set up in your home office with our One Button Studio at Home guidance – or contact your location’s consultant to film your responses as a recorded Zoom meeting. Our team will handle the editing and uploading.