Objectives
This one-hour course will provide students with a basic understanding of a core set of digital skills relevant to all Grady majors. This course will provide students with the mastery of digital skills allowing other Grady courses to focus on the higher order learning objectives.
Structure
During their first semester in Grady, each incoming student will be required to register for the one-hour Digital Media Skills (DMS) course. This course will be offered as a pass/fail laboratory class with each student being scheduled for a one-hour section by Grady advisors. With 300 incoming students each semester, 20 sections of DMS enrolling 15 students will be taught each week. Ten sections will be offered on Monday and ten sections on Wednesday. Friday will be reserved for students to schedule out-of-class lab time. Four Teaching Assistants will be utilized to teach the 20 sections of DMS with each TA responsible for five sections.
Course Materials
A Grady committee will decide on the modules to be taught in the DMS course. This committee will also be charged with developing the Online Instruction Modules, the DMS Exercises, and the Module Exercise Template.
- Online Instruction Modules - The instruction for the DMS course will be provided via short online video segments that students will be responsible for viewing outside of class. These modules will be less than 20 minutes in length and will be available via iTunes University of another online repository.
- DMS Exercises - After viewing the Online Instruction Modules, students will be given a set of exercises to complete to display their mastery of the topics in the module. Students can only complete these exercises after viewing the online modules. Students may complete the exercises outside of class or during their scheduled lab section. However, the exercises will be due at the end of their scheduled laboratory section.
- Module Exercise Template - The TAs will be provided with a grading process that will allow them to quickly determine whether the students’ work demonstrates the requisite competency with the techniques and skills covered in the module. TAs will grade each exercise as pass/fail. Students will be allowed to repeat modules. However studto the next one.
Proposed Modules
The following is a tentative list of the modules to be covered in the DMS course. The Grady committee charged with responsibility for the DMS course will decide on the final list of modules. And each year, this committee will review the modules to decide if they should be changed.
- Management of Digital Assets - Students will learn how to organize, annotate, archive, and reference digital files in a variety of formats: text, graphic, audio, and video.
- Creation of a Digital Portfolio - This will be an online collection of every assignment the student completes during his or her Grady Course of Study.
- Web Building - Students will learn the skill sets necessary to construct and place online rudimentary web pages. Students will learn the basics of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) programming.
- Presentation Software - Students will learn how to create effective computer-based presentations using current presentation packages such as PowerPoint.
- Digital Images - Students will learn the basics of digital imagining: capturing digital images, compression for online delivery, image editing, incorporation into presentations, and inclusion in web pages.
- Digital Audio - Students will learn the basics of digital audio: capturing audio, compression of audio for online delivery, methods of audio presentations, audio editing, incorporation into presentations, and inclusion in web pages.
- Digital Video - Students will learn the basics of digital video: capturing video, compression of video for online delivery, methods of video presentations, video editing, incorporation into presentations, and inclusion in web pages.
- Blogs - Students will learn the basics of how to create web logs – blogs.
- Podcasting - Students will learn how to create audio and video podcasts. ??Redundant with digital audio modules??
Challenges
We believe this course offers the best opportunity to guarantee that Grady students have a mastery of basic digital media skills before they enroll in upper division Grady courses and graduate. However, this approach is not without challenges.
- Facilities - A new lab with 15 workstations and the software used in other Grady computer labs will need to be created. This lab would be used extensively on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but could be available for other courses on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- Creation of Modules - The success of this approach ultimately depends on the quality of the Online Instruction Modules. Creating high quality videos that effectively teach the skill sets in a short period of time will require a great deal of work and, therefore, could be expensive. However, there are opportunities for funding through internal grants programs (such as the Learning Technology Grants) or through making these modules available to other colleges or programs.
- Teaching Assistants - The DMS course would require a special set of Teaching Assistants. In addition, close faculty supervision would be necessary to guarantee that the course was running smoothly.
- Program Management - The DMS would be the most expansive and complex course offered in the Grady College. As such, it would require a great deal of management to ensure that it was working properly. Clearly, Grady would need to appoint a committee to oversee all elements of the program. And an important precept in this course is that we want to make sure that we design a program that does not create unreasonable demands on the facilities, systems, or faculty of the Grady College. Therefore, we believe that students must “buy-in” to the importance of this program. There will be little opportunity to adjust the program for individual schedules or pre- existing skill sets. To accommodate the many, the few will have to be flexible.
