Media Commons workshop and tailgate

October 12th I attend the Penn State's Media Commons' Tailgate 2012 pre-conference workshop, "Using Mobile Media to Tell Engaging Stories". The workshop was facilitated by Stefani Sese, East Coast Region Director at the Center for Digital Storytelling CDS. It was designed to give an introduction to the CDS process and introduce attendees to the use of iOS devices in digital storytelling. The CDS workshop usually last three days, so our one day session scratched the surface. It still provided a good foundation and allowed attendees to gain "new perspectives, iPhone/iMovie skills or tips, and ideas for implementing digital storytelling."

October 13th I attended the Media Commons Tailgate 2012 themed "Rediscovering Our Roots." The tailgate "is a highly interactive event focused on exploring the possibilities for digital media in teaching and learning."

The day started out with an amazing keynote by Susan Russell,  artistic director of Cultural Conversations and assistant professor in the School of Theatre. The rest of the day was "an opportunity to creatively explore and dig into the role of new media in the classroom and the many new innovations the Media Commons is supporting this year."

I attended a number of the breakout sessions designed to highlight  faculty's use of new media in the classroom and others "designed to engage the audience in conversation." These included learning about the University's plan to implement Wordpress for its blogs and the one button studio.

There was a lunchtime activity where participants were asked to take photos on their way to and back from lunch and capture some aspect of the day. My best shot was of an instructional designer showing another faculty member the movie he created during the pre-conference.

Other images from the day's events and the videos we created during the pre-conference can be found on the Tumblr.