The Digital Media Center is pleased to offer a range of short courses focused on creating and using digital media, including workshops on using online research tools, creating bibliographies using a free tool called Zotero, video editing, DVD authoring, and podcasting.

In addition, the DMC co-sponsors a series of brown-bag lunches on teaching with technology with IT. Topics include Powerpoint, Second Life, video conferencing and tips and tricks.

You can register online, or by emailing dmc-info@rice.edu

Courses Offered by the DMC for Spring 2008:

99 Using the Web to Conduct and Manage Research

Wednesday, Feb. 27

3-4:30 p.m.

Digital Media Center, 129 Herring Hall

There’s more to doing research on the web than typing a few keywords into Google. As the Web has evolved, it has become a more powerful platform for finding and organizing information, sharing knowledge, and presenting ideas in an interactive, dynamic way. By using free Web 2.0 tools and resources, researchers can conduct, manage and disseminate research more effectively. This workshop will provide an overview to some of the most compelling Web 2.0 applications particularly relevant for researchers, including:

· Constructing effective searches and knowing where to look

· Keeping up-to-date with research using RSS feeds

· Managing and sharing web citations using del.icio.us

· Creating bibliographies using Zotero

· Disseminating research using blogs and digital repositories

· Visualizing data using online tools such as ManyEyes

100 Research, not re-search: Using Zotero, the Next Generation Research Tool

Tuesday, March 11 3-4:30 p.m.

Fondren B39 (basement) classroom

Managing citations can be a real pain—you have to either type or copy and paste bibliographic information, keep up with the source of each quotation, and worry about formatting your bibliography properly. Enter Zotero (http://www.zotero.org), which bills itself as “a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.” With Zotero, a tool designed by scholars for scholars, you can automatically download citation information, store PDFs of articles, add keywords to make your sources easy to find, search your research collections, and automatically create bibliographies and footnotes as you write. Zotero's simplicity and power have earned it praise from Inside Higher Education and PC Magazine, as well as countless enthusiastic researchers. This hands-on workshop will introduce some of the key functions of Zotero. By investing a couple of hours to learn Zotero, you can save yourself from spending countless hours trying to remember where you put that article and doing data entry and formatting.

This workshop is limited to the first 8 registrants.

101 Video Editing using iMovie/DVD creation using iDVD

This course will be offered upon request.

DMC Classroom - Located in 129 of Herring Hall

Limit of 10 students

This course teaches basic video editing using the simple editing program iMovie 5 and iDVD 5 that are included in Macintosh OS X. It will cover editing clips working with audio, and adding titles, transitions, and effects. It will also cover exporting your finished master piece to iDVD and make your own video DVD including main menus and chapter menus.

102 Video Editing with FinalCut Pro - Intro

Tue, Feb. 12, 1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.

Wed, Mar. 12, 9:00 a.m.-12noon

DMC Classroom - Located in 129 of Herring Hall
Limit of 10 students

Ever wanted to make a movie? New digital video technologies have made this easier than ever! Come and attend a workshop on using Final Cut Pro at the Digital Media Center in Fondren. We will cover the basics of digitizing footage, managing bins, putting together a timeline, effects and transitions and exporting your project to tape, web or DVD. This class is oriented to beginning users to this software.

202 Video Editing with FinalCut Pro - Intermediate

Tue, Feb. 19, 1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.

Wed, Mar. 19, 9:00 a.m.-12noon

DMC Classroom - Located in 129 of Herring Hall
Limit of 10 students

Topics to be covered:

• • keyboard command
• • basic audio editing
• • basic compositing
• • creating motion effects and using keyframes
• • speed settings
  
  

103 DVD Authoring with DVD Studio Pro - Intro

Tue, Feb. 26, 1:00 p.m.- 3:00 p.m.

Wed, Mar. 26, 10:00 a.m.-12noon

DMC Classroom - Located in 129 of Herring Hall
Limit of 10 students

Want to create Hollywood-quality DVD's? Apple's DVD Studio Pro enables you to make slick DVDs with flashy graphics, animations, and more. This two-hour workshop hosted by the Digital Media Center will provide hands-on training in making a DVD with DVD Studio Pro. Topics to be covered include how to:

• • Import Assets including audio, video, and graphics files
• • Create menus
• • Add buttons to the menus
• • Create tracks and slideshows
• • Link the projects elements
• • Simulate the project
• • Build and burn the project
  
  

104 Intro to Podcasting

Thu, Feb. 28, 1:00 p.m.- 3:00 p.m.

DMC Classroom - Located in 129 of Herring Hall
Limit of 10 students

2006 and 2007 saw an explosion of podcasts covering everything from esoteric music to science literacy. Want to create your own podcast by making available audio files for automatic download via the Internet? Fondren Library's Digital Media Center is offering a two-hour course that will cover the basics of podcasting. Learn what a podcast is, how to record, edit and enhance the underlying audio, and how to make your podcast available online.

105 Choosing and using digital cameras

Thursday, February 7 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Digital Media Center (Herring 129)

Are you an amateur photographer who would like to take your skills to the next level? Mystified by all the special features that your digital camera offers? This free short course teaches photography basics, camera adjustments, and techniques on choosing different types of cameras. It will cover photographic terms such as aperture, shutter speed, iso, and exposure. It will also discuss camera scene mode selections, exposure compensation, priority shooting modes, etc., as well as look at the differences between DSLR and Point & Shoot cameras.

106 Crash course on video cameras

Tuesday, February 19 10-12 noon
Digital Media Center (Herring 129)

Video can be a great medium for capturing performances, lectures, interviews, and everyday life, but many videos are marred by shaky camera work, awkward zooms, and barely audible audio. By learning a few simple techniques, you can vastly improve the quality of your video footage. This short course covers the basics of videography, including lighting, sound, and using the different features of the camcorder such as white balance and focus control. We will illustrate key concepts using both a consumer-level camcorder and a more professional 3 chip camcorder.

107 Recording high quality audio using portable devices

Monday, February 11 1-3:00 p.m.
Digital Media Center (Herring 129)

If you need to record sound—such as interviews, musical performances, lectures, podcasts, or fieldwork--the Digital Media Center has some easy-to-use, high quality Edirol audio recorders available for anyone at Rice to check out. Come and learn how you can make full use of these fantastic audio recording devices. The course will also cover the basics of audio editing such as noise reduction, track splitting, and music CD burning.

108 Digital Storytelling Workshop

March 3-5, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. (the first three days of spring break)

Limited to 6 students

While the DMC’s courses on video and audio editing focus on how to use a particular piece of software, this workshop provides a holistic introduction to the art of creating a digital story. Typically 3 to 5 minutes long, digital stories use images, audio, and video to move, inspire, or enlighten audiences. In this intensive hands-on workshop, you will learn both how to craft a compelling story and how to use multimedia software and hardware. The course will cover:

* the elements of effective digital stories

* using words, images, and sound to tell a story

* scanning and editing images

* recording and editing narration

* editing video

* outputting video and uploading it to sites such as YouTube