Category: LaGuardia

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Opening Sessions

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I always love the start of a new semester! I spent the morning at LaGuardia’s Opening Session for faculty and staff. The meeting is held every year and provides faculty and staff with an opportunity to hear about some of the key initiatives currently underway at LaGuardia.

However, despite my start of the semester anxiety, my article on digital scholarship was accepted by a respected journal. I have updated my class syllabi and revised my course materials. My powerpoint lecture slides are prepared for for the coming semester. And for the first time in too many months I am starting off a new semester with a smile.

THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!

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Midlife Changes

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It takes me at least a month to feel “right” again every year after I come back from visiting family and friends in Scandinavia. However this year I feel especially off center after returning. I am not sure whether I am in the midst of a full blown midlife crisis or is it just the fact that once you see how other people live outside of the US, and outside of NYC, your perspective changes on what constitutes “quality of life”. Plus, the whole final year before tenure review can’t be helping.

However, right now, I am leaning towards my midlife crisis theory.

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CUNY Pathways & The Council of Digital Media Programs


A few months back I organized and hosted a panel discussion at John Jay College’s 10th Annual City University of New York (CUNY) IT Conference. The presentation was on “Creating a CUNY-wide approach towards Digital Media Programs” and focused on what I believe are some of the major issues facing digital media programs within CUNY. I assembled the panel group from colleagues at four separate CUNY institutions and within five distinct New Media subdivisions. We discussed strategies that the university could implement to prepare our digital media programs for the future.

One of the major initiatives that I suggested during the conference presentation was the establishment of a digital media council to address the specific needs and concerns of the faculty and students within the digital disciplines. Well I am happy to say that the first steps toward the creating a CUNY-wide digital media council happened today thanks to my colleagues in the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) Media Arts and Technology Department. Today a luncheon was held at Continue reading “CUNY Pathways & The Council of Digital Media Programs”

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Visual Effects Course Development

On April 3, the New York City Investment Fund invited a group of educators and business people from the visual effects industry to a conference on changes within the entertainment sector. Over the past year the LaGuardia Media and Technology programs have been participating in discussions with the New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF) to develop a Visual Effects program. NYCIF has been working with local visual effects firms to help them to meet the current demand for VFX artists in New York City.  All of the firms have cited the shortage of skilled labor as a key restriction to growth and are interested in working with CUNY on developing training and internships opportunities for the next generation of NYC visual effects artists. It is my intention to research this opportunity to see if a viable VFX program at LaGuardia is possible. In order to make that determination there are key questions that will need to be answered  concerning funding, software/hardware, the structure of the program or option, and how to either attract or develop faculty to teach such highly specialized classes. We will see how this all plays out. But just in case I have been getting reacquainted with After Effects.

The audio recording from the meeting can be found below in mp3 format.

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Attention Filmmakers: HDSLR Video & Audio workshop

HDSLR Workshop

This past weekend I had the pleasure of taking a workshop on capturing video and audio with HDSLR cameras at Student Filmmakers. The workshop was a two day event led by Patrick Reis, an independent filmmaker and cinematographer. Patrick is a veteran freelance industry professional with a great deal of experience working with the new Canon DSLR cameras. I had been wanting to jump into the DLSR video waters for awhile so I figured that Continue reading “Attention Filmmakers: HDSLR Video & Audio workshop”

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LaGuardia Academic IT Committee

Back in January of this year, I was asked to join the new LaGuardia Academic IT Committee.  This new committee has been convened by LaGuardia’Vice-President Katopes and Dean Arcario. Members of the group are tasked with the goals of creating a vision for Academic IT over the next 5 years by creating better communication between IT and Academic Affairs and  increasing on-line/hybrid courses. In many ways the LaGuardia Academic IT Committee is a reflection of what CUNY is doing and a more university wide scale with Committee for Academic Technology (CAT) of which I am also a member. While the Humanities department already had a committee representative, given my areas of expertise in digital media and technology, my participation was requested.

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LaGuardia Online/Hybrid Teaching Seminar

The above video is from a brief overview that I gave to some of my colleagues at LaGuardia Community College. I was asked to talk about some of the work that I am doing in converting my lectures from a traditional classroom environment to an Online/hybrid setting. This Online/hybrid seminar is a year long group discussion sponsored by LaGuardia’s Center for Teaching and Learning to assist faculty into making the transition to online instruction.

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Mobile App Training with AS3 and Adobe AIR

One of the areas in new media that is experiencing phenomenal growth is mobile app development. Students see a large audience using smartphones and tablets, and as developers and entrepreneurs they want in on the market. I can’t blame them. I want in as well. Truth The money is good and the future for mobile devises is very strong. Due to the pressure of meeting my academic commitments I have been putting off training in mobile app development for the past year. Part of the issue was finding a quality school that teaches the material I needed at a reasonable price. This was Continue reading “Mobile App Training with AS3 and Adobe AIR”

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Presentation: Creating a CUNY-wide approach towards Digital Media Programs

The above video was from a presentation and panel discussion held at John Jay College’s 10th Annual City University of New York (CUNY) IT Conference. The emerging nature of Digital Media has challenged the ability of universities to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape. Due to the evolution of these new disciplines, and the speed in which cross-disciplinary technical innovations are implemented in programs with a digital media focus, very few universal standards are in place for instruction and assessment.

In order to set the stage for the panel discussion, my presentation focused on what I believe are some of the major issues facing digital media programs within CUNY. The panel group, assembled from my colleagues from various CUNY institutions, discussed specific strategies that the university could implement to prepare our digital media programs for the future.

Panel participants included:

Continue reading “Presentation: Creating a CUNY-wide approach towards Digital Media Programs”