Emerging media often are part of
immersive learning experiences, the hallmark of a Ball State education. Students, often working in interdisciplinary teams, find real-world solutions to real-world challenges.
Our students produce tangible results. Their projects provide a good laugh, present interactive news and advertising on your cell phone, teach schoolchildren about ecosystems, help businesses expand, design a building with dual purposes, and more.
Interdisciplinary experiences are a deeply held value at Ball State because our students graduate into a world requiring them to collaborate on projects that will stretch their knowledge and skills, combine specialties, and cross boundaries. Here are some examples in the field of emerging media:
- Working with Ball State alumnus Doug Jones, students learn what it's like to make—and market—a movie, the comedy My Name is Jerry.
- You can watch Evenly Odd, comic webisodes about college life, whenever and wherever you want—and enjoy the extras.
- Schoolchildren have fun and learn about Indiana's ecology by playing the video game Navigating Nature.
- Because of iMedia, you may someday get customized newscasts and interactive advertising—even place an order at your favorite restaurant—on your TV or cell phone.
- Architecture students are meeting with their counterparts in Central and South America in a virtual studio in Second Life to construct a brick-and-mortar hotel in Indianapolis—a hotel that can be converted to a medical facility during an emergency.
- Students help the environment and find more uses for an Indiana resource by setting up a digital catalog of scrap limestone.
- Students with no computer programming experience create applications for Google Android, including a bird-watching program, several games, an English-to-Spanish tutoring system, math flashcards, and a Dungeons and Dragons character generator.
- Ball State students use new media to enrich high school students’ visits to the Ball State Museum of Art.
- Journalism professors help pioneer extensive coverage of an extreme makeover of an Indiana home by guiding students in their 24/7 coverage of the project, from the demolition of the old house to the unveiling of the new one.
- Emerging Media Fellows develop a high-tech tool to help landscape architects make better informed planting decisions, facilitating more environmentally sound planting designs sensitive to the specific ecological context of each site.
- A team of journalism, graphics, and computer science majors produce a model for an interactive experience for viewers of CSPAN.
- Using GIS (geographic information systems) technology, students help Advanced Hearing Care of Anderson, Indiana, find the best place for a second location and make marketing recommendations.