Emerging media permeates our academic programs, ranging from the
next generation of storytelling to
building a hotel that can double as a hospital in a pinch.
Emerging media is the evolving use of technology and digital content to enhance work, play, and learning; broaden access to information, accelerating communications and understanding; and enhance personal connection by eliminating the constraints of time and location.
Here is a sampling of how we meld emerging media with academics.
1. Digital Corps (Emerging Technologies)
Digital Corps is a group of professional and student media software experts who provide high-level customer support in two high-end campus computer labs and media software training for students and professionals in Apple's Final Cut Studio and the Adobe Creative Suite.
Students learn emerging media applications, enhance their knowledge by teaching others, and use those skills to create a variety of projects for the campus community and outside clients.
Digital Corps projects include Web sites, videos, widgets, digital billboards, and much more. Perhaps one of the most fun recent projects from the Digital Corps is the Chirper, a way to show school spirit with your iPod or iPhone. You can download the program in iTunes. Jonathan Huer led the project.
2. Digital Storytelling
The digital storytelling program encourages students to stretch the boundaries of storytelling. This master's degree program cultivates creative storytellers through an emphasis on developing and understanding the storytelling process, becoming proficient in story design, and honing the skills needed to craft stories for new media.
3. Institute for Digital Entertainment and Education (Center for Media Design)
The Institute for Digital Entertainment and Education (IDEE) is a destination point of digital media learning as well as a creator of new content and distribution products for traditional and nontraditional media platforms such as film and video, DVD, Web, and podcasts. Students with talent in writing, acting, Web design, and photography are closely mentored as they collaborate and create groundbreaking ways to tell stories, all the while gaining unparalleled professional-level experience.
4. Institute for Digital Fabrication (Center for Media Design)
The Institute for Digital Fabrication (IDF) links cutting-edge industrial computer technology with architectural design, allowing greater customization, increased efficiency, and greater output potential in digital manufacturing processes. Students involved in immersive digital fabrication experiences develop relationships with professionals that can position them at the forefront of the fabrication industry when they graduate.
5. Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation (Center for Media Design)
The Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation (IDIAA) is an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and immersive project-based environment that explores the evolving intersection of art and technology. Thought-provoking digital art installations, edgy computer-animation, sound design, and interactive games are just a few of the projects created with the support of IDIAA, where digital artists are given room to explore and experiment.
6. International Virtual Architecture Studio
Through the online virtual world of Second Life, students from Ball State University's College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) are working with their counterparts in Central and South America to design a downtown hotel that can be converted to a medical facility during an emergency. The students may be meeting in a virtual studio, but they are working with Indianapolis-based BSA Life Structures and addressing an actual building site in Indianapolis.
7. Minor in Digital Media
The digital media minor teaches students how to bring the power of new media to their areas of study. By combining writing, video, and sound, new forms of storytelling are created that will ultimately apply to a vast audience of consumers, colleagues, and clients. Participants include the Department of Art, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Journalism, School of Music, and the Department of Telecommunications.
8. Multimedia Production
Telecommunications students specializing in multimedia production are preparing for a career in the developing and changing media arenas of television, radio, film, and the Internet. The program uses digital technology to create content for television, radio, film, and interactive products, including DVDs, CD-ROMs, blogs, podcasts, Web sites, and more.
Courses focusing on emerging media
Ball State offers a wide range of courses through these programs and others that focus on emerging media. Here are just a few notable examples of the experiences available to our students:
The Aesthetic Camera
The Aesthetic Camera is a film course pioneered in the virtual Internet environs of Second Life. Through the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation (IDIAA), years of innovation in 3-D animation and virtual applications now allow students—through their avatars (Second Life personas)—to check out cameras, dollies, light systems, and more to create their own original movies. The course received top honors at the 2008 Campus Technology magazine Innovator competition.
iMedia News Design
This collaboration between the Center for Media Design and professors from the computer science, telecommunications, and journalism departments, seeks to prepare students for a converging and interactive news environment. Students conduct research to learn about different interfaces. The course focuses on incorporating advertising into the news interface, and students are developing interfaces for the iPhone and iPod touch in addition to the standard TV interface.
NewsLink Indiana
NewsLink gives viewers the news about east central Indiana through TV, podcasts, vodcasts, and the Web. Students spend a semester getting a firsthand experience in what it is like to work in a real-world newsroom.