COLUMN: Studio for New Media keeps students at communication frontier
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I spend a lot of my time explaining to people what exactly it is I study. Like everyone, I get asked what my degree will be in, and I usually resort to saying English. "I'm a frickin' English major." When in reality, no, I don't want to be a teacher - at least not yet - and I don't read a lot of literature, although I enjoy a fair bit. What I do with my major, which is technical communication, is communicate technical information. Yeah, it didn't make any sense to me, either.
So, with technical communication I can do lots of different things, and that's what I enjoy about it. I could spend the rest of my years writing instruction manuals that people won't understand anyway, or I could design Web pages, and work on what a few people call new media.
Here at Iowa State, we've joined a short list of universities with a Studio for New Media. What exactly is a Studio for New Media? From the Web site, it says "The Studio for New Media is an interdisciplinary research institute organized to support, further, and coordinate work with digital media currently done by individuals across multiple departments at ISU." Now, what does that really mean?
It means exactly what the future is in communication. Students will be able to take their rhetoric training and work with interesting things like photography, digital video and forms of new media. Flash content is a form of new media, just like those Yahoo! Games you always play.
New media also mean things like developing new media products like Web sites, interactive multimedia, instructional designs, and DVD and CD products that the user finds attractive, and easy to use.
New Media isn't just about communicating technical information; it's about using your creativity to do it. It's about writing a poem and then creating a beautiful Web site to present that poetry to the world. It's about writing a creative short story and developing a Flash Web site that helps readers see the vision of the author.
That's just what technical communication is to me. Using a combination of rhetorical theory and applying them to new, sexy forms of media. That hot new interface on your cell phone, those amazing Web sites that make noises and show movies, and also those new technologies that Google is developing, all New Media. Yeah, sexy, new media.
Our own Studio for New Media - at some schools they are called centers - is located in Ross Hall. There are high-tech computers, lots of video equipment and a comfortable atmosphere that allows students to work on a variety of projects. The latest equipment, combined with the latest software titles, allows students the power to let their creatively run wild.
That's what makes it so cool and so attractive for me and many other college students. A studio like this allows us to work on projects that our professors are giving us some freedom to work on. It allows a place where we can work on that new technology that might become the next Skype or the next Google empire. It gives us the resources and the location to publish our audio and video blogs and also to develop our professional portfolio online that's going to get us the rocking job we want after we finally graduate.
So when people ask me what my major is, I tell them English, and no, I don't want to be a teacher. I am within the English department. That's where most of my professors are and my advisor.
But my major is much more than that. It's a combination of rhetorical power and creative force that produces effective communication. No matter if that communication is how to set up your iPod, or use netreg to register your computer on campus.
So the next time you read a user manual, and it actually helps you, or when you pay your credit card bill online, or read poetry on a stunning Web site, think of technical communication. Chances are, when someone asks me what my major is, I'll probably save the conversation for later and just say, "English."
So, with technical communication I can do lots of different things, and that's what I enjoy about it. I could spend the rest of my years writing instruction manuals that people won't understand anyway, or I could design Web pages, and work on what a few people call new media.
Here at Iowa State, we've joined a short list of universities with a Studio for New Media. What exactly is a Studio for New Media? From the Web site, it says "The Studio for New Media is an interdisciplinary research institute organized to support, further, and coordinate work with digital media currently done by individuals across multiple departments at ISU." Now, what does that really mean?
It means exactly what the future is in communication. Students will be able to take their rhetoric training and work with interesting things like photography, digital video and forms of new media. Flash content is a form of new media, just like those Yahoo! Games you always play.
New media also mean things like developing new media products like Web sites, interactive multimedia, instructional designs, and DVD and CD products that the user finds attractive, and easy to use.
New Media isn't just about communicating technical information; it's about using your creativity to do it. It's about writing a poem and then creating a beautiful Web site to present that poetry to the world. It's about writing a creative short story and developing a Flash Web site that helps readers see the vision of the author.
That's just what technical communication is to me. Using a combination of rhetorical theory and applying them to new, sexy forms of media. That hot new interface on your cell phone, those amazing Web sites that make noises and show movies, and also those new technologies that Google is developing, all New Media. Yeah, sexy, new media.
Our own Studio for New Media - at some schools they are called centers - is located in Ross Hall. There are high-tech computers, lots of video equipment and a comfortable atmosphere that allows students to work on a variety of projects. The latest equipment, combined with the latest software titles, allows students the power to let their creatively run wild.
That's what makes it so cool and so attractive for me and many other college students. A studio like this allows us to work on projects that our professors are giving us some freedom to work on. It allows a place where we can work on that new technology that might become the next Skype or the next Google empire. It gives us the resources and the location to publish our audio and video blogs and also to develop our professional portfolio online that's going to get us the rocking job we want after we finally graduate.
So when people ask me what my major is, I tell them English, and no, I don't want to be a teacher. I am within the English department. That's where most of my professors are and my advisor.
But my major is much more than that. It's a combination of rhetorical power and creative force that produces effective communication. No matter if that communication is how to set up your iPod, or use netreg to register your computer on campus.
So the next time you read a user manual, and it actually helps you, or when you pay your credit card bill online, or read poetry on a stunning Web site, think of technical communication. Chances are, when someone asks me what my major is, I'll probably save the conversation for later and just say, "English."
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