We will demonstrate an example of the instructional materials we have created to teach our students the fundamentals of digital media and programming. These materials combine written text, comics, and graphs with re-purposed interactive and animated web content originally created with Flash. To accomplish this we used the new PDF format from Adobe that allows incorporation of interactive Flash content as well as video into a PDF document.
As professors in the Multimedia Program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College at the City University of New York, we are constantly searching for new ways to involve our diverse student body in the learning process. Our students come from many countries around the world and range in age from 17 to 50 and up. We have found that our students learn more and faster when we use a variety of media in our teaching. Visual media, both in print and online, combined with interactivity are very effective in clarifying the technical subject matter we teach.
This approach may be of interest to textbook publishers, creators of instructional materials, as well as to academics.
Jody Culkin is currently an Associate Professor at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College in the Music and Art Department where she teaches in the Multimedia Program. She is an artist who has shown her sculptures, photographs and new media pieces at museums and galleries throughout this country and internationally. She received her BA in Visual Studies from Harvard University and an MPS in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University’s ITP Program.
Christopher Stein received his BA in Psychology from Yale University and his MPS in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University’s ITP Program. His research areas of interest include teaching with technology, human computer interaction, interface design, and Web applications. Prior to coming to CUNY Chris enjoyed a variety of professions. They include running a small new media production company, and heading an enrichment program for students of color at a community college in Washington State.
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