Spring 2012:
IAT 888: New Media and the Museum
Digital technologies have transformed the ways in which museums create access to their collections, how curators do their work, and the ability of publics participate in the collective writing of local, cultural, and national histories. This course explores histories and theory of museums, and the shifts enacted by the use of new media to organize and exhibit physical and digital collections. Lectures, presentations, and individual research projects will relate literature in museum studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and new media to developments associated with digital archives, virtual museums, social media and new media exhibition practices, including mobile applications, tangible interfaces, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Students will participate in the production and evaluation of a virtual exhibit and mobile application for the Museum of Vancouver’s online exhibition The Visible City: Illuminating Vancouver’s Neon.
IAT 103W : Design Communication and Collaboration
The goal of Design Communication & Collaboration is to teach students essential skills to enable them to negotiate their first year coursework successfully and provide a strong foundation for the rest of their academic careers. This course teaches the principles, practice and understanding of effective communication, research, critical thinking and teamwork that are needed within both face-to-face and virtual environments. The course’s assignments and activities present a variety of practical learning opportunities for students to practice and develop writing, communication and interpersonal skills, and make that expertise transferable from the classroom to the workplace.
Fall 2011:
IAT 100: Digital Image Design
Digital Image Design is a project-based course that introduces the theory and hands-on practice of art and design in digital media. As the introductory course in IAT, this course teaches the core fundamental principles in 2D visual design, sequential and animation design. Students learn the fundamentals of digital photography and vector image creation. The theory is contextualized in contemporary new media design practice and is broadly applicable across disciplines. Topics include modes of perception and reception, composition and color theory, narrative and constructing meaning over time, and interactivity and agency in the user experience. The course culminates with the development of an interactive time-based group project centered on multimedia composition, sequencing and pacing, user interactions and medium of delivery.
IAT 403 (Capstone Research Team Mentor): Museum of Vancouver “Neon Vancouver” Virtual Exhibit. Students are working with the Museum of Vancouver’s “Neon Vancouver” virtual exhibit team to conceptualize and realize interactive multimedia vignettes, in order to better understand how digital media can facilitate museum visitor experiences that are not feasible in physical space or analogue media.
Summer 2011:
Museums and Intangible Heritage Field School (Special concentration in Digital Documentary Practices). Organized by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Center and UNESCO Bangkok. Lamphun, Thailand. The Intangible Cultural Heritage and Museums Field School focuses on the role of the museum in safeguarding, documenting and revitalizing intangible cultural heritage in the ASEAN region. Led by experts in the fields of museology and anthropology, this course offers museum and heritage professionals the conceptual and practical tools for engaging with local communities to safeguard their intangible cultural heritage, such as oral history and narratives, craftsmanship, festivals, ritual, performance and other forms of traditional knowledge. The course combines frameworks from “new museology” and ecomuseums with anthropological approaches for understanding and working with source communities.
Spring 2011:
Tech 114: Technology in Everyday Contexts
Through contextual examination, students explore the nature and evolution of technology. They gain first-hand experience with a variety of communication technologies and engage in assessing the impact and consequences of technology on both the individual and societal levels. Themes examined in this course focus on the use of technologies in situated applications and everyday contexts, giving students experience in relating the affordances of technology with real human needs. We look at a variety of contemporary social media such as Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and wikis and their historical precedents. Activity-based exercises and assignments that require students to work individually, in social networks, and in the larger community provide the basis for evaluating key learning experiences in this course.
Tech101W: Communication, Collaboration, and Teamwork
This course allows students —individually and in teams—to apply, practice, and enhance their face-to-face, online, and oral and written communication skills in preparation for future academic or professional situations. We focus on the creation of a dialogue and communication awareness that will support teamwork and collaborative learning in other courses, as well as support and foster a sense of community within the first year cohort.
Summer 2010:
Museums and Intangible Heritage Field School. Organized by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Center and UNESCO Bangkok. Lamphun, Thailand.