english – Dickinson College Media Center

Description from Digital Humanities at Dickinson article:

Writing in and for Digital Environments (WRPG 211) is a new course designed to encourage students to think about how to convey a thought or point of view using more than just letters and words on a sheet of paper. Of course, there is no substitute for well thought-out and aptly articulated writing, and first and foremost the course uses the electronic environment to challenge and develop students’ writing skills. But it also teaches basic proficiency in WordPress and other common online platforms (Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.), and course assignments require regular reflection on the writing process, and on the tailoring information to specific audiences and media. Each student will design, build, and begin regularly posting to her or his own blog.

Here is a list of the student’s blogs for the semester. Click through to see what topics they chose to write about.

21 and Change

Archives Mouse: A student’s musings about archival science

Chicks, Lit & Film

City Mentality: Exploring sustainability and livability in cities across the globe

Cup of Who

discoveringdance

FF: Food & Fashion

Gastronomic Permaculture

Humans of Carlisle

Just Ordinary Stories

My Dad Wanted me to be a Lawyer but…

Outside the Bubble: Exploring Carlisle, off the beaten path

PaulJon143: Decide. Commit. Succeed.

Playlists for the People

Roll it Right

Something to Smile About

Description

Comic Life is a program you can create comics with but it can be used in so many different ways that you may not have considered . Classes at Dickinson have used it for storyboarding, lab manuals, presentations and of course comics as well. It is a program that is easy and fun to use and allows students to be creative by having so many options available to customize their final piece. It is located in the Bosler Microroom (020) and the Media Center. It can also be downloaded from plasq.com to use as a trial version although it will leave a watermark on anything printed from it.

Audience

Faculty & Students

Type

Instructor Led-Hands On

Time

30 Minutes – In Class Time

Outcomes

Learn to organize project into outline
Migrate outline into visual form
Understand fair use and where to locate Creative Commons images
Understand basics of good graphic design and layouts

Want to know more? Contact mediacenter at dickinson.edu to set up a consultation. You can also get a sneak peek of what we cover in our training by looking over our Training Outline.

Examples

Professor Dave Ball-Graphic Narratives

In this English course Professor Ball has his students read a series of graphic novels and create one page comics in response to the reading. This class has been taught 3 times with a blog associated with each one to display the comic responses.

Fall 2010

Fall 2009

Spring 2008

Professor Kristi Humphreys-Chemistry

Professor Humphreys had her students create one or two page comics describing common practices students must know to use equipment in the lab. The comics could then be combined to format a reference manual to use when doing experiments.

Professor Tom Arnold-Biology

Each student in his class on Metabolism was assigned a metabolic disorder that they had to research and present on. Half of the grade for the project was based on a 5-6 page manuscript with a detailed review of the chosen topic. Comic Life was used to create a graphic illustration to describe the disorder and used as the basis of the presentation. The presentation and graphic were each a quarter of the grade for the project.