Over the last two years, students in Dr. Mark Hamilton’s honors sections of BIBL 211: Message of the Old Testament have produced short films in teams. Groups of four develop short 4-5 minute video projects that reflect on themes such as lament, sacrifice, atonement, among others.
Once groups have selected biblical texts they consider how they respond “to the historical background, literary shaping, theological purpose, and interpretive history (i.e., the understanding of the text on the part of later readers) of the given text.”
Here are a few examples of their work.
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Fall 2013
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Fall 2012
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Other Requirements
Here are a few other elements of the assignment:
1. The video should not use footage created by other people. (So, no Lego Bible stories or similar things.)
2. The video should include appropriate voice work by all the team members and should show some measure of creativity.
3. The team should produce a script for the video and submit it along with the video.
4. The video should be well-informed by deep reflection on the biblical texts and themes on which students have been working.
In our first year of Lynda.com, we’ve had 731 users view 4,310 different videos. Teachers have assigned Lynda content to support specific assignments or as a textbook replacement in some subject areas.
To get a sense of the variety of potential uses of Lynda content, just look at the list of our 12 most viewed courses in 2013.
1. Excel Essential Training
2. Premiere Pro Essential Training
3. C# Essential Training
4. QuickBooks Pro Essential Training
5. After Effects Essential Training
6. XML Training
7. Illustrator Essential Training
8. Time Management Fundamentals
9. Photoshop Essential Training
10. Sales Skills Fundamentals
11. Ruby Essential Training
12. Maya Essentials
If you’re looking to learn a new skill or piece of software over the holidays, don’t miss our 12 Days of Lynda playlist.
And if you’re teaching with Lynda.com next spring, you can create your own playlists to share with students as well. Here is a quick tutorial for how to create them.
This week we’re celebrating 12 Days of Lynda.com, giving prizes to some of the top lynda.com users from the ACU campus over the past year. You can also enter to win some stocking stuffers including 8gb key drives.
Over the holiday break if you’re looking to learn a new skill and try out some new software, check out this playlist featuring 12 of our favorite new Lynda courses.
And if you’re teaching with Lynda.com next spring, you can create your own playlists to share with students as well. Here is a quick tutorial for how to create them.
This week the Learning Studio is saying thanks to the ACU campus with stocking stuffers for your holiday media projects. Enter in one or more of the following ways. Give-aways begin Thursday, December 5th.
Later in the week we’ll share other ways you can get involved along with a few of our favorite projects from the last year. Thanks for being a part of a great 2013.
This week a group of faculty and technology leaders from campus will be in Washington, D.C. to explore the future of 3D printing in the arts. The Smithsonian X 3D event will include representatives from the Department of Art & Design and from the Maker Lab, sharing the process of digitizing Jacob’s Dream.
The 34-foot-tall bronze was dedicated in 2006 as part of the university’s Centennial Celebration and became an instant campus icon. ACU art and design professor Jack Maxwell and a team of students, engineers, and construction and landscaping specialists worked for two years to plan and produce the towering project.
Jack sat down with us last month to talk about the process of digitizing the 8-foot maquette.
The project was led by Jordan Williams, ACU graduate and co-founder of Captured Dimensions in Dallas, who will also be a part of the Smithsonian event. Jordan’s team scanned the scale model last summer, providing a digital record of this one-of-kind of piece, along with the ability to reproduce Jacob’s Dream at sizes beyond the reach of traditional methods.
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Maker Stories
This is one of two stories we produced this semester about ACU faculty and alumni actively working with new maker technologies. Last month we shared the story of Dallas artist and alum Rolando Diaz and his collaboration with ACU faculty and staff in the Maker Lab on a mixed-media project combining 3D modeling and precision laser cutting in the final piece.
We’re thankful to Ro and to Jack for sharing their experience connecting emerging tech with artistic vision.
