Digital Technology and Culture

A blog for students and friends of Washington State University Vancouver's Digital Technology and Culture Program

News Update

Things May Seem To Be Quiet in the Halls of VMMC, But That Was Merely a Ruse . . .

1. Mac News

Leslie Wykoff of VIT has announced that she will convert VMMC 111 into a Mac Lab. The Macs will be the iMac Duos that run on both the Mac and PC platforms. That way the DTC can use the lab for multimedia design and other departments can use it for their purposes.

This is terrific news for us, as you can imagine.

This brings me to the Mac Required Buy Program. Although your support for the program was high, I was concerned (as were some of you) about how to make the program work for students who 1) did not have financial aid, 2) already owned laptops, 3) were not in the Media Authoring concentration, and 4) did not want to participate in the program. I was struggling to resolve these issues when I finally called Leslie and spoke with her. That was when she said that because the new Macs can and do run Windows and other PC software seamlessly with the help of Parallel and BootCamp software programs, she was amenable to converting a lab that we can use.

So, the upshot? We will have a Mac Lab in place for the fall 2007. We will not follow through on the Mac Required Buy for the fall 2007. If after the program develops there is a groundswell of support, then we may pursue it then--because I am concerned about access issues. But in the meantime, I am excited about having the lab in place for you all in the Media Authoring Concentration.


2. Clark College Summit Meeting

Last Friday, Harrison, John and I met with the technology folks at Clark College to discuss potential future partnerships. Three came out of the meeting and are currently under study. But one in particular may be of immediate interest to folks in the Informatics Concentration. The DTC is talking to Clark about a process for getting Sysco and Microsoft certification for Informatics students. I hope to have more specific news in the next couple of weeks about how this will happen for you. But it is good news indeed for those of you interested in this kind of professional training.


3. DTC 338 Special Topics in Digital Technology and Culture

This course passed the university curriculum committees and all of the other committees and subcommittees that courses have to pass through in order to become legitimate. The good news is that you can take the course twice for credit. I am working to make it 3 times, but in the meantime this means that beginning fall 2007, we can officially offer DTC 338, a course you can take two times. John's Visual Culture course will be the first one offered under this number. And in the spring I am offering Electronic Lit/Net Art, which will coincide with the conference of net artists I am bringing to WSUV and Vancouver.


4. Video Production

Remember that Video Production is being offered this summer in Summer 1. It is suppressed in the schedule, so this means you have to ask directly for it and get permission to register for it. As of today I have 5 students who are on the list to take it. There are spots for 24. So, please let your advisors know if you want to take the class.

I have Dr. Andy Opel, who is a faculty member at Florida State specializing in video, in town to teach the course. Students who take this course and do well in it are eligible to intern with the Portland Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) in the fall 2007. The DTC has been negotating with them to take interns for their fall Time Based Media Festival as members of the Press Corps. This position will allow students to attend all events associated with the festival and videotape it for PICA.


5. Spring and Summer Advising

Advising for spring and summer starts March 26. Please make sure you see your advisor. And when you do, arrive organized. Don't make us choose your courses for you. Come with a plan. Tell us what you want. Ask advice, yes, but come with an idea about your future.

The other thing I want to say about advising is that it should be more than you guys showing up once a semester to get a schedule for a particular semester. What I would rather see is that advising becomes a mechanism for mentoring, which you all need in order to move forward with your careers. This means that if you come to advising prepared with a proposed schedule that merely needs fine tuning with your advisor's help, then there is time to talk about your future, your career needs, and your dreams. Keep in mind that when you graduate, you will need letters of recommendation for jobs or grad school. Your advisor should be the main person you can rely on to do this for you. It is also the person who may be able to suggest potential employers or help you with your entrance essay for grad school. So, what I am trying to say is that I have a goal to change advising to make it meatier and more meaningful for you and us.


6. Graduation Reception--Save the Dates

Teresa has identified potentially 11 students who may graduate this spring. As promised, beginning this semester (now that I have gotten settled in the position and have a better sense of what the DTC needs) the DTC is going to honor our graduates each semester with a gathering. So, we are looking at April 26 or 27 as the date of this event. I would love to have student volunteers (no graduates since they are the ones being honored and so should not have to work on their own party) to help John and me to put on the event. Let me know if you are interested.



See, we *have* been busy:)

posted by: grigar at 16:48 | link | comments (3) |

Comments:

#1  15 March 2007 - 15:37

 

Hi Dene,

It really does sound as if you have been very busy developing the program and building a great foundation in the community. I have been quite busy as well. I have nearly completed a flawless and totally standards compliant website with which to showcase some of the work I have done over the last few years. Granted it isn't a lot but it is fairly good. I have started working target="_blank">Emprise Corporation all of those skills are used to create highly robust and interactive web applications way beyond the Web 2.0 sphere. I hope that you are considering giving these technologies some consideration for the sake of the students and the program as well. BTW I have a second interview with them on Monday and I am very excited about the possibility of working as a part of their team of Designers and Developers. I hope to hear from you back on this matter.

funktifyknow

#2  15 March 2007 - 15:49

 

Ok for some reason my last comment was jumbled so i will try to correct it here.

I have been working on a great deal of things that involve web programming that wasn't taught in any of the classes that were available while I was at WSUV. I was wondering if you are giving any consideration to embracing technologies that go beyond the simple Web Design paradigm and move into the sphere of Web Application Development, which is a much sought after trait. I have applied to, and have a second interview at a company called Emprise Corporation that develops highly robust webapps that use many technologies that simply do not get enough air time at WSU. Things like AJAX, DOM, advanced PHP, Ruby/Rails, struts and other development frameworks like mootools, prototype/rico/script.aculo.us simply were not covered while I was there. I feel this puts students coming out of thte program at a great disadvantage, as I have had to teach myself alot of these technologies just so that i can feel confident enough to market myself as a web developer/designer. I understand that some of these topics may be covered in the advanced multimedia authoring class but they definately need more than a few weeks coverage. I wanted to share this with you because I truly care about what happens with the DTC program and want to send my regards.

Take care Everyone and good luck.

funktifyknow

#3  15 March 2007 - 17:48

 

Thank you for bringing to light some issues that many of us current students are worrying about...

Hoping this program will gel before I graduate.

http://digitaltechnologyculture.motime.com/post/647264#comment

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