Educator’s multimedia studio

Educational Technology 0858-620, Spring 2023

Multimedia Studio 2023: Generative AI Studio

Keywords: studio pedagogy, interaction design, multimedia learning, digital studio, ed tech capstone, instructional design, school segregation, urban education, urban technology

Description: How can digital media best support learning? Working on semester-long projects, students learn about interaction and instructional design. In this hands-on studio, develop and extend skills in multimedia authoring: digital images/audio/video, and interactive web development. Apply these skills to create a original educational resources.

Class meetings:

This asynchronous online class will be run on a Thursday-Wednesday schedule, with new weekly assignments beginning on Thursday morning with completion dates by end of day Wednesday. In addition to the Moodle course website, we will use Slack as a required tool for this course with many of the class discussions taking place on Slack. If you are not a member of our Slack yet, you can find the invitation on the course website.

Instructor: Matthew X. Curinga, mcuringa@adelphi.edu

Office hours: (online)


What is a multimedia studio?

Each semester the multimedia studio features a different challenge, dealing with an important, global topic. Students will be asked to work on a semester long multimedia project that teaches some aspect of this challenge.

The Spring 2023 Studio theme is generative artificial intelligence. Generative AI refers to using computers to generate new work. Current examples include computer generated images, video, news headlines, fiction, essays, computer code, and much more. Our goal, in the studio, will be to create multimedia learning materials that help us (as a society) to better understand the technology behind this type of AI and to explore the social, ethical, poltical, and economic implications of this new tech.

Goals

This course is designed to challenge students to develop their abilities as instructional designers and as authors and producers of digital media for learning. Specifically, they should learn to:

At the end of the studio, every student will have a high quality, published multimedia artifact that will be part of their portfolio.

Required texts

Multimedia Learning Book Cover

Mayer, R. E. (2020). Multimedia Learning (3rd edition). Cambridge University Press.
Buy: [Indiebound] [Barnes & Noble] [Amazon]

Other readings provided through course website.

Class meetings

week date topic
1 Jan 26 Generative AI & Science of Learning
2 Feb 02 Multimedia Principle
3 Feb 09 Multimedia Group 1
4 Feb 16 Multimedia Group 2
5 Feb 23 Multimedia Group 3
6 Mar 02 Multimedia Group 4
7 Mar 09 Topic Briefing (1 & 2)
- Mar 16 Spring Break
8 Mar 23 Topic Briefing (3 & 4)
9 Mar 30 Pitches
10 Apr 06 Studio: photos & illustrations
11 Apr 13 Studio: video & audio editing
12 Apr 20 Studio: data viz
13 Apr 27 Studio: web publishing
14 May 04 Critique
15 May 11 Studio Session
16 May 18 Final Show (live zoom)
a robot stands in front of a blackboard teaching a class
This image was created by [DALL-E 2](https://openai.com/dall-e-2/) using the prompt: `a human teacher in front of a classroom with robot student seated at a desk. the teacher faces the class. the perspective is from the back of the room. the teacher is teaching algorithms with a graph diagram on a whiteboard. 4k, detailed, vivid colors, digital art`

Assignments

Grading

Assignment % of final grade
self-evaluation 10%
multimedia group 15%
topic briefing 15%
pitch 10%
critique 20%
final project 30%

Self-evaluation

Everyone will complete 2 self-evaluations during the semester. This online studio is a collective effort, so when you fail to participate, you are not only affecting your own learning. Your self-evaluation should consider your contribution to group projects, completing readings on time, effort into your assignment, and participation in discussions and other online activities.

Multimedia group presentation

Working with your assigned group, you will create a multimedia slideshow that demonstrates the key multimedia cognition concepts assigned to your group from Multimedia Plearning. The total presentation must be between 10-15 minutes long. You are only required to read the sections for the week you are presenting, but everyone should read the section/chapter headings and is encouraged to read the chapters. Your presentation must follow all of the principles in your and all preceding sections. Groups must also include some germaine examples of multimedia (created by other people) that either make good use of the principles discussed or deviate from the principles. You will submit the link to your video on the #generative-ai slack channel and comments/discussion will be posted as a thread in responst to your post.

Topic briefing

The “briefing” sessions will help us develop our domain knowledge of generative AI. You will choose a specific topic of your choice related to generative AI and then create a 3-minute briefing report – a narrated slide show on your topic. We will watch your presentation in class and then have time for some follow up questions regarding your topic. In addition to your slideshow, you will also post the bibliography used to create your briefing. You should have at least 3 sources, one of them being an academic source. The specific topic of your briefing will probably relate to the aspect of generative AI that you will highlight in your multimedia project.

Multimedia project

The culminating work for this class is your multimedia project. Everyone must work on their own individual project. They will produce a multimedia work that demonstrates their skills as a designer and producer of multimedia, their knowledge of the studio topic, and their understanding of the learning sciences of multimedia.

You should begin thinking about your project during the first week of class. Consider:

Past Studio projects include:

Pitch

You will formally pitch your idea for your your final project. The purpose of the pitch is to propose your project in a way that makes it sound exciting, worthwhile, and feasible. You want to tell a good story about what you plan to develop. You should also have some sketches, mockups, sample art, etc. that may be required to make your point.

Plan for a 5 minute presentation.

Critique

You will formally present a working prototype of your project to get feedback from the instructor and your peers. You should have a solid plan for completing the project.

Critique and Final Evaluation Criteria Refer to these criteria for the evaluation of your multimedia project.

Originality & innovation

Does the project take a novel approach to teaching with digital media? Does it combine existing practices in new ways, for a new effect? Does it address an important topic, or hard to teach concept that is relevant to the topic of the studio? In other words, how important is the learning goal for the project?

Students will lose points in originality for verbatim translating of existing learning solutions to the new problem space.

Design

The design of the project encompasses the information, interaction, and visual design. Points to consider when evaluating the design:

Technique

The project’s technique reflects the proficiency of the producer with the tools of the digital studio. All aspects of the project should be well tested for smooth operation. Users should not easily “break” the system. The specifics of development depend on the media. So, each of the various skills required for the course will be evaluated based on the practice of expert practitioners.

Learning science

At the end, this studio challenge is about learning. Points in this category are awarded for exhibiting a thorough understanding of how people learn with digital artifacts. Successful projects will account for the cognitive, social, pragmatic, ethical, and aesthetic implications of their design, as it impacts learning.


Previous Studios