Testimonies
Professor Deborah Brooks
Department of Government
Dartmouth College
Using video projects within a competitive campaign simulation was an invaluable component of my Political Communication seminar.
Beyond the study of campaign advertisements in scholarly articles and books, my students also created their own political ads.
Through the process, they learned just how much information can be included in 30-second ads. They learned that "information"
in that context goes well beyond words, and includes potentially powerful music, sound effects, voiceovers, text, colors, photos,
and video selections. Students had to react to the ads of other teams in a dynamic campaign environment, and grapple with the
implications of those decisions for longer-term governance. As a result of this exercise, we were able to debate the roles of
emotion, information, partisanship, strategy, the increasing professionalization of campaigns, ethics, and voter knowledge within
democracy in a far more dynamic manner than would have been possible otherwise.
Few of the students in the class had ever worked with video equipment or editing prior to this class, and all emerged from the course
with near-professional level work by the end. The quality of their assignments was truly impressive, and was only possible with the
training and support provided by Jones Media and RWIT.
Professor Txetxu Aguado
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Dartmouth College
"The students really enjoyed the project and they only wrote positive comments about it
in their evaluations. All of them remarked that it had been a wonderful experience.
From my point of view, I am convinced that through this hands-on activity they have become
more aware of the ways
images construct meaning and more sophisticated in analyzing a film."
Interview with Elizabeth Rexford
Elizabeth was assigned to do a video project in her Writing 2 - 3 course. She explains her project and
how incorporating media seems to be a natural fit. Elizabeth's final project is the last video listed here on the Writing 2-3 final projects page.
Interview with Terra Branson
Terra talks about how she used the peer tutoring center, RWIT, for assistance with her paper and her video project assignment.
Terra's final project is the first video listed here on the Writing 2-3 final projects page.
Heather Kofke-Egger & Kamil Walji
Students in LATS41: Representation of Latino/as in the Media and the Arts
Dartmouth College
"Heather: As Kamil and I used iMovie, I realized that this technology was truly
liberating. Anyone who has access to the technology can make their own media, and
the technology is becoming more accessible all the time. I think New Media offers
us [an] opportunity by allowing someone who has the desire to tell their story or
have their message be heard. Digital video editing is one way, but a website can
also be an effective way of expressing a message. A little bit of technical
knowledge and access to a computer can allow you to put your message out in
cyberspace where anyone who is looking for it and maybe some people who aren't
can see it. Technology gives us the power to distribute ideas, media, and
messages worldwide, which only used to be able to be distributed locally. These
media have the potential to have a wider impact that previous media have because
of the potential for distribution and their relative accessibility to people
outside the mainstream media business.
The project-based aspect of this course is what drew me to it in the first place. A project gives you a chance to do what you want to do, to put effort into something that is enjoyable as well as educational, and that will entertain/enlighten/fascinate other people in the community, as well. My friends don't usually read my final papers in my sociology classes, but they were all at LATS culture night. Events like our culture night help to blur the line between academic and social life, and encourage the dialogue that we have talked about in class as so essential to changing people's perceptions and assumptions that occur outside the classroom."
"Kamil: The experience of creating a final project in a given or combined set of media gave me an insight into the media we studied that no other textbook, movie, or show could have given. Also, it allows us the creative freedom to explore the subjects we studied in a more hands-on approach, allowing us, in essence, to teach ourselves by doing as opposed to a professor teaching us by lecturing.
Many times, I have walked away from a course feeling as if I hadn't learned much,
but simply went through the motions, blindly wrote a bunch of papers, and talked
in class to fulfill a participation grade. However, I can say that this has been
one of the most rewarding classes because it was a real class. We were exploring
relevant real issues and actually using our theoretical foundations in a
practical manner. We discussed the futility of stillborn knowledge and this class
was an exercise in using a vibrant education practically."
Alexandra Ludewig
Faculty of Arts Multimedia Centre
University of Western
Australia
"iMovie. A student project with many side-effects"
"If learners actively build their own interpretation of the world, they can have
more ownership of those thoughts."
"Moreover, as students involved in the iMovie project work in groups of three, their learning environment is socially challenging, demanding collaboration. In such situations, students generally experience a shift in their intellectual development as they learn to articulate their own point of view and listen to the view of others."
"...learner-centered and divert the control over the material from the teacher to the learner who must actively construct their learning around the given task."
"Students who chose to participate in the iMovie project have been exposed to a variety of information adding to their technical literacy and their ability to communicate technical issues"