Having never used or even heard of Adobe Creative Cloud before this semester, I wasn't sure what to expect. I myself was a total novice with digital media and didn't have much to go by in terms of how to structure the assignments, what to ask for, or how to evaluate them. At the start of the semester I told students that this would not be your average course, and they would need to be willing to try entirely new things. Could I do it? Could they do it? These twenty-three enterprising students, pictured below, agreed to step outside of the (takeout) box with me.
Students of Honors 353, "What is Chinese Food?" / Spring 2019. Front row (kneeling, L to R): Charlotte, Kirstie, Beibei, Sierra, Julia. Second row (bending, L to R): Sandy, Danielle, Sara, Pearl, Everette, Aditi. Third row (standing, L to R): Dr. King, Megan, Jeffery, Maggie, Michael, Jack (white shirt), Nic (blue shirt), Suhas, Holt, Shengjie, Abhishek, Peter, Nora
The overall quality of their final interview projects, as shown in the Chinese Restaurant Stories of North Carolina gallery, speaks for itself. I am amazed at how they connected with complete strangers, uncovered human stories of struggle and survival, and thoughtfully interpreted what they heard. They invested a great deal of time and effort at each stage of the interview process, from securing a subject, to brainstorming interview questions, to conducting site visits, often requiring distant, inconvenient travel.
After conducting their interviews, they were asked to turn in a traditional 2500 word draft essay-- a crucial step in the overall process, which gave multiple chances to develop and revise meaningful content. Only then did they attempt to turn their prose essays into compelling online visual narratives. Given that only a handful of students had had any prior experience with webpage design before this course, I have been bowled over by what they managed to accomplish in one semester.
Training session with Aaron Schmidt
Feedback session with Winifred Metz
Training session with Justin Dorazio
We had a lot of specialist resource help, which aided immensely in this whole process! Thank you!
Of course, they didn't learn how to do all of this on their own-- we had a lot of help! Students went to two training sessions at the UNC Media Resources Center with the awesome media gurus, Justin D'Orazio and Aaron Schmidt, who showed them how to use Creative Cloud platform apps (Spark, Premiere, Audition), and gave technical tips in the use of video/audio recording equipment. Winifred Metz, MRC head librarian, joined us for two crucial feedback sessions, offering suggestions on how to improve the visual presentation of student online narratives. Sara Wood of the Southern Oral History Program shared best practices for oral histories, based on her own extensive experience in documenting foodways of the American South.
The Creative Cloud platform gave most students in the course their first taste of webpage design. Its generally intuitive ease of use meant that, apart from a short initial learning curve, they were soon off and running. [NB: Students were not required to use this specific digital platform for their projects, and some chose to use alternatives such as Wix or Weebly instead.] Probably the strongest positive recommendation comes from my own example: though I am a self-professed technophobe who uses no social media, I managed to put together a course syllabus on Spark and this entire course website on Portfolio in only a few days. Amazing!
Aditi, Jack, Peter
Danielle, Holt, Michael
Sierra, Shengjie, Charlotte
Student Feedback
With each of their digital projects, students were asked to evaluate and reflect on what they had done through informal "production notes," 250-500 word mini-essays that described their project experience. What was their intellectual journey? Did transforming traditional narratives into digital media enhance or detract from their overall learning experience? Here's what some of them said:
“I think it’s a great exercise for us to make Spark pages because they make our articles much more presentable, but at the same time I think it’s important to understand that Spark page is only a means of presentation, not an end. We should use it to tell our stories better, and it is the story that is always the most important consideration of making the page.” --- Shengjie
"Of the three major assignments that we had this semester, this one seemed the most daunting to me. At the beginning of the semester, I thought that there would be no way that I could interview someone and write so much about it. I was not initially confident that I could do it. However, as the semester progressed I became much more involved and willing to take on this assignment knowing it would be a lot of work. In fact, I wanted this assignment to be proof this I could handle coursework that I was traditionally unfamiliar with." --- Nic
"I really appreciated how embedded professional development skills were in this project. I think it is extremely important to familiarize ourselves in college to all of the different avenues of creative expression - website design, written and spoken word, accounting on powerful narratives...I think that this project did challenge me intellectually - it exercised the skills of taking apart content and figuring out how to market it to specific audiences." --- Everette
“[F]or me personally, I enjoyed the Sparknotes pages more than the essay. With this visual presentation aide, I was really able to see the interview elements come to life. For example, no matter how hard I try to explain the process of Chef Amy making dumplings, it does not compare to the visual image showing Chef Amy literally making the dumplings right in front of me. Another interesting part of making these websites is that I am truly able to see the creative depth and style of my classmates. I am able to thoroughly enjoy the story and the journey behind each and every one of my classmate's interview process.” --- Sandy
To be sure, not every student was thrilled with using Spark as a digital platform, and there were many frustrations with its specific technical limitations, such as fixed layout design or the inability to include stand-alone audio clips. Still, even those who wouldn't necessarily want to use Spark as a platform again seemed to agree that creating digital media content as a final student project was a worthwhile challenge.
As an instructor, I observed that webpage design allowed different students to "do well," particularly those who might struggle more with the fixed organization of a traditional written essay. Conversely, I found it interesting that not every student who excelled at writing traditional essays was equally adept at transforming their material into dynamic and compelling digital content.
It was definitely worthwhile to have students work in both traditional and digital formats, as they can and should enhance each other. Writing a traditional analytical essay means that the author has nowhere to "hide" gaps of information, faulty logic, or lack of a central message-- leaning goals that can be papered over with pretty pictures and fancy graphics online. Yet at the same time, creating a compelling visual narratives means making hard editorial choices in a limited space, allowing for deeper emotional connections with audiences through multimedia, and ultimately the unparalleled capacity to share what students have created with much broader public audiences, including their original interview subjects, their fellow classmates, friends and family, and wider university, state, and global communities.
Overall I am extremely proud of what the students accomplished in this course!