Tag Archives: class

PRODusing New Media

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You’re a senior in high school. You’re over halfway through the school year, and you’ve just spent the last four years of your life trying to forget that you’ve spent a good majority of it flipping through math, science, English, and history textbooks. You’re ready for your summer of freedom. But, that’s not going to happen. It’s time to decide your place in life. Your teachers tell you that college is nothing like high school. It’s hard. It’s tiring. You need to know what you’re doing before you do it, because there’s not much wiggle room. And all you can think about is what you haven’t been prepared for.

Our educators expect us to understand the world enough to know exactly what we should do with our lives, even at the age of ten. It’s a scary thought. But there lies the problem. People aren’t expected to have everything figured out once they reach college. However, our younger selves are somehow coerced into believing that picking a major field of study for higher education is a singular choice.

On the contrary, college is a place where learning the steps to make that decision actually takes place. The misconception that high school is where you make your final decision is just downright stressful. Some people get so worked up it actually decreases their likelihood of going to college. They feel so overwhelmed that their solution might be to wait it out. But education isn’t knowing everything in advance of doing it. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need education.

Venturing further into your academic career offers new discoveries and options everyday. The electives at Texas A&M University – Texarkana offer multiple teaching and learning styles, material, perceptions.

Photo by Allison Hall

One class in particular is Dr. Drew Morton’s Intro to Media Production course. The name suggests filmmakers would receive the most benefit, but anyone on campus can gain something. The course teaches students how to properly use DSLR Canon Rebel cameras for photography and video, and how to mash those clips together in Adobe Premiere. The course requires no necessary experience or skill (Hint: “Intro”). The series of projects in the course moves in an elegant and gradual way to ward away nerves about technique and to compliment your available skill set. The course is all about you: What do you want to make? What do you have to say? Film is an easy way to tell a story. A section of the class teaches you to do this without words. Visual elements can instill meaning into a person that words just can’t.

Photo by Allison Hall

One junior history major has ventured much further into the field of mass communication thanks to classes like this. Josh Wattigny has taken several MCOM classes and is now enrolled in Intro to Media Production. Prior to any of these, he hadn’t thought of branching out into media studies. Now, he has his own camera, equipment, and a YouTube channel. “I had an interest in learning about film history, and from there I found out that I really enjoyed everything that goes into film production. I wanted to learn more and make my own movies,” Josh said. The truth is, with or without a degree, we’re all involved in the field of mass communication.

You might think you know what you want, and maybe you do, but there’s always something else worth exploring. Something you might think is too hard, or not worth the time might turn into a consistent hobby, as it was for Josh. Here, we’re discussing videography, but maybe you have a knack for poetry or writing. So, a word of advice: get out there and take as many classes as you can. Wander around and find new media of expression. You never know what’s possible until you apply yourself in a new, scary, wonderful way.

Texas A&M University – Texarkana has some upcoming workshops and lectures you can use to test the waters. November events include a GIS (Geographic Information System) day hosted in the Digital Humanities Lab on November 14th, a Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) screening accompanied by discussion from Jaime Cantrell, Drew Morton, and Rachel Stonecipher on November 20th in Eagle Hall with a live podcast taping, and a walk-through of Audacity applications and podcast recording on November 27th at 12:15 in the Digital Humanities Lab. All these opportunities provide a variety of explorable content. Please check them out and don’t hesitate to ask questions.

Demon-Haunted PechaKuchas

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Dr. Rebecca Martindale gave a PechaKucha presentation at the end to give her interpretation of the book.

On Friday December 1, Dr. Rebecca Martindale, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology, had her students present their PechaKucha presentations over the book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.

 

“When we first started these presentations, I kind of did it in the middle of the semester and Caleigh started at the beginning. She’s going to do her presentation of The Demon-Haunted World the way most students and faculty would present when they use PowerPoint Presentation,” said Dr. Martindale.

The event began with Caleigh Bailon’s traditional presentation summarizing chapter 1 of the book. She discussed the key points of the chapter and her slides were text-heavy, which is common in many traditional presentations.

“After learning the new method of presentation, it’s kind of gruesome to go back and look at something like this,” Bailon said.

Next, Philip Dorouen explained what a PechaKucha was and how they worked. PechaKuchas are presentations that follow a specific format. 20 images are shown for 20 seconds each and they advance automatically.

“They are a great creative way for students to express themselves,” he said.

The benefit to this presentation style is that it can prevent the speaker from spending too much of their time talking about one part of the presentation. They have to keep speaking to keep up with the presentation and it can shorten a lengthy topic to highlight the main points. You can visit the PechaKucha website for more information and to watch other presentations. He also played the following video for the audience to give them a visual of how this presentation method worked.

“One of the things they do is have PechaKucha nights. It was originally designed by a couple of architects who basically had this philosophy where if you give an architect a microphone, they’ll talk for hours and hours. People all around the world get together in lots of different venues and have PechaKucha nights to talk about whatever they want with this particular format,” said Dr. Martindale.

Abram Garza presented his PechaKucha to summarize chapter 3 of the book.

Abram Garza presented the first PechaKucha of the event to summarize chapter 3: The Man in the Moon and the Face on Mars. This chapter was about pseudo-science and how people tend to believe tales without proof of their validity. He used note cards to aid his presentation because this format relies on images without text. Roslyn Swofford was the last student to present and she summarized chapter 21 of the book.

Dr. Martindale ended the event with her own PechaKucha presenting her interpretation of the book. This particular method made it easier to stay engaged during the presentations. The absence of text put more focus on the presenter and what they were saying, while also providing an interesting visual. Next time you have a presentation for class, try using this method to make your presentations more fun, engaging, and interesting.

Too Many Distractions

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I know I am not the only person in the world who finds studying to be boring. After spending an hour at my desk with an open textbook and notebook, I reward myself with a break to keep from getting a headache. I usually pull out my phone and scroll through my social media feeds just to see what my friends have posted recently and make a comment or two. Before I know it, I have turned a quick study break into 40 minutes of watching videos on Youtube or Facebook. At that point, I become irritated that I wasted time I needed to study or complete a project or paper. I had this problem a couple of times this weekend as I tried to study for midterms and thought back to the other days this semester when I had wasted my precious time and found myself too sleepy to get back to work. For this reason, I have decided to log out of social media for a week regain focus on my priorities.

It can be difficult for me to focus on a task and that is made worse when I have many distractions in front of me. Social media is not my only distraction. I get bored and eat chips, watch movies or music videos, or sometimes carry on long conversations with friends and family to keep from getting back to the books. If you also struggle to focus while studying, I have found a few tips that can help you.

1. Find a space

Studying at home is comfortable, but I prefer to study in the library during the week. When I’m at home, I get distracted with the TV or get too comfortable in bed and decide to take extra-long naps that last for two hours and leave me with little time to work. The library is perfect for me because it is quiet and it puts me in a mental study mode. I have room to lay out all of my materials and I am not comfortable enough there to take a nap. If you find yourself unable to focus where you are currently trying to study, find a space that has fewer distractions. It might also be helpful for you to study with friends that encourage you to stay on task.

2. Limit your gadgets

If you do not need your laptop out to take notes, put it away. If you do not need your phone on your desk to study, put it away. Having unnecessary gadgets out while you are trying to concentrate can break your concentration. When I have my laptop on my desk while I’m reading chapters form my textbook, I have a habit of randomly browsing the internet and looking up questions that have nothing to do with what I’m reading. For this reason, I will shut my laptop and push it away from me or place it in my backpack to force myself to pay attention to the book. If you use your laptop or phone for notes or flashcards, practice restraint.

3. Time yourself

I got into the habit of timing myself while studying when I was freshman in college. I only had morning classes and would give myself and hour or so for each subject that day to complete the readings or assignments. Between subjects, I timed 10 or 15-minute breaks to give my brain a chance to rest before diving back in. When I had a visual reminder of how much time I had to work on an assignment, it made me work harder to finish or accomplish as much as possible within that span of time. I was less likely to get distracted because I could see that I only had to stay focused for a few more minutes before I could take a break. When I didn’t time myself, it felt like I had hours to work on one assignment and I would drag it out instead of just getting it done.

4. Split your tasks

If I know I am going to spend more than one hour on homework for one class, I prefer to split the work. It can be tiring to force yourself to sit and read one textbook or write one essay for two or three hours straight. Take a break somewhere in the middle to rest or work on something else before you get too distracted to finish.

One important rule about study breaks is to keep them short. Anything more than 20 minutes can lead to you spending an hour or two binge-watching that new TV show you found out about on Netflix and having to cram for the big test tomorrow. Use your break time to eat a meal or do some stretches to keep you awake and alert. I like to read a book or listen to music during my breaks.

Staying focused while studying can be difficult when it is not a subject you are interested in or you just do not feel like studying. However, I hope these tips above can help you make it through you course work this semester. Remember, if you set good study habits for yourself now, you can reduce the stress of final exams at the end of the semester!