Teaching Immersive Video Storytelling: Tips for Getting Started
Submission Type
20-minute Presentation
Abstract
This session will discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching 360-degree video storytelling, as well as the layers of collaboration and institutional support that made this new initiative possible at Temple University. The presenters represent faculty and library staff members involved in the first year of the Innovative Teaching with Makerspace Grant (co-sponsored by the Digital Scholarship Center and Center for the Advancement of Teaching) and will focus on the practical considerations of integrating this new technology in the classroom, as well as the logistical and financial assistance necessary for its implementation across campus.
Start Date
5-24-2018 1:55 PM
Description
This session will discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching 360-degree video storytelling, as well as the layers of collaboration and institutional support that made this new initiative possible at Temple University. We will focus on the practical considerations of integrating this new technology in the classroom, as well as the logistical and financial assistance necessary for its implementation. Co-sponsored by Temple University’s Digital Scholarship Center and the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the Innovative Teaching with Makerspace Technology Grant utilizes the pedagogical and technological experience of existing departments to foster the critical application of creative technologies in all disciplines. By providing centralized support, the grant generates the development of resources and methods that can be shared beyond the course and department of the grant recipient. The reuse of equipment and pedagogical methods not only reduces cost, but also increases access to these tools.
One of the 2017 grant awards led to a new initiative in 360-degree video storytelling. Graduate and undergraduate student media creators were invited to explore narrative, documentary, and experimental media-making strategies with this emerging “spherical video” format. The student media-makers developed new approaches to visual storytelling as they grappled with the lack of cinematic frame, the disembodied experience of virtual reality, the challenges of learning both new cinematic tools and new conceptual frameworks, and the further question of not just making creative work but also teaching audiences how to access it. The semester ended with a final collaborative screening event that highlighted six unique student-produced immersive media projects along with a collaborative research presentation, hands-on “media festival,” and a spirited discussion about both the final immersive media works and the process of making them. This presentation is publicly available as a resource for future media makers, along with several blog entries about the final work and the process of making it.
The equipment, tips and insights developed through this Media Studies and Production initiative are now available for faculty and staff within the fields of education, engineering, architecture and more; faculty and students from all schools and colleges at Temple University have access to the grant-inspired resources that live in the Digital Scholarship Center. In fact, a Temple surgeon will be using the 360-degree camera later this month to introduce the operating room to his students!
Teaching Immersive Video Storytelling: Tips for Getting Started
This session will discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching 360-degree video storytelling, as well as the layers of collaboration and institutional support that made this new initiative possible at Temple University. The presenters represent faculty and library staff members involved in the first year of the Innovative Teaching with Makerspace Grant (co-sponsored by the Digital Scholarship Center and Center for the Advancement of Teaching) and will focus on the practical considerations of integrating this new technology in the classroom, as well as the logistical and financial assistance necessary for its implementation across campus.