This second core course will introduce students to IT in the classroom, focusing on cognition and design. Interest areas include research in digital media; hypertext and narrative structure; visualization and design; modes of learning within and outside the classroom; and conceptualization and production of educational media products. The course also provides a hands-on introduction to key educational uses of new-media applications, including online writing tools, electronic archives, and experimentation in virtual spaces. The class will meet frequently in GC computer classrooms. The course employs an interdisciplinary approach to the application of digital media to classroom teaching and scholarly research and presentations. Students will learn skills and concepts and then will design and prepare a proposal for a multimedia-based project in their discipline, for their final grade. The second core course serves as the “content course” for the certificate. This course makes it possible for participating doctoral students to build on the theoretical insights gleaned in the first core course to begin to conceive and develop an IT project in their own disciplines.
This course as it is being taught this semester will emphasize collaboration and minimal viable product as a means to avoid the scope creep endemic to first-time-makers’ projects. We will engage in weekly technical workshops outside of class, and students will be expected to gain enough competency in an area of technical expertise such that they can deliver a proof of concept in their term project, a proposal for a multimedia-based project.