Since January one project we’ve been excited to share with the campus is our new Lightboard in the main studio. We’re currently piloting the tool with faculty in a few classes, and look forward to making it more broadly available in the future. Join us next Thursday in the Adams Center for a quick tour.
If you find yourself regularly describing key ideas visually through diagrams, outlines, or images on a whiteboard, we’d like to introduce you to Lightboard. This spring we’re piloting a new video tool in the Learning Studio that gives faculty the ability to create video content with annotations quickly and easily. Join us for lunch and a demonstration of the newest addition upstairs in the library.
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.
Last week we released a short documentary on the Maker Movement as part of broader discussions on campus about the value of “learning by doing.” We’re pleased to share it with the ACU community as so many here on campus contributed to its final shape.
We spent several weeks in March interviewing key voices thinking about the impact of making in different contexts—in community centers and libraries, in education and museums, and in hackerspaces and online.
We’ve already had a chance to thank those who welcomed us into their makerspaces and workshops while shooting in Austin and NYC, but we did want a chance to share a few of the Abilene connections.
thanks to Michael Daugherity and the department of Engineering and Physics for return visits to film their 3D printer and begin thinking about its future impact
Sandy Freeman welcomed us into the ACU Theatre Costume Shop where Amanda Martin made a dress on the spot
we spent a great afternoon with James Langford dusting off our macro lenses to shoot tools in his shop
Megan May in the library not only shared her lightening-fast knitting but also introduced us to student maker Brittany Bunch who is both an Etsy seller (at Projects for Bliss) and a part-time Disney princess
Evan Young helped edit the additional footage for wearemakers.org while Matt and Nathan were heads-down on the final film
and finally Elvis Sanchez who worked with Nathan to score the transitions in the film with stunning work on a tight deadline
The production of the film itself just reminded us how many makers surround us here in Abilene, making this a logical spot to open a makerspace of our own.
Al Haley, writer-in-residence and professor of English, was an alum of our very first digital storytelling workshop in 2011 and has been helping us lead faculty workshops on campus for the last year. His work with the scholarly storytelling group last December helped many of the participants see the potential of mixed media writing and storytelling in their teaching and research. Here are a couple of Al’s past stories.
This semester Al asked students in his Creative Nonfiction Workshop and a new class on Micro-Narratives to produce their own digital stories as an extension of their other writing in both courses. Here are a few examples of their work.
Thanks to Dr. Cole Bennett and his ENGL 325: Advanced Comp class for sharing their Literacies projects again this year. .
The course introduces students to “theories of literacy from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, paying particular attention to readings that emphasize social and political issues related to reading and writing.” then concluded with student-produced videos introducing a cultural literacy of their own:
“Rhetorically, this video should attempt to convince the viewer that 1) the activity under consideration qualifies as an expanded form of literacy; and 2) society would benefit as a whole if such argument were accepted. How does the subject fall under a definition of literacy? Which definition? Why does it matter? How are our lives enriched if we agree with you? How might your opponents disagree with you, and how would you address such concerns?”
