The Faculty Multimedia Center (FMC) provides several multimedia help services to faculty and staff. Multimedia has the potential to help bring students closer to course topics. The FMC can help expand teaching options through images, audio, and video.
FMC consultants are experienced with audio, video, and graphics tools and can demonstrate software and hardware uses for creating and editing course materials. Not only can consultants help with converting media like slides, photographs, and video recordings to digital format, but they can also help faculty and staff learn how to incorporate digital media into seamless computer-based presentations or Web pages for incorporation into classes. Additionally, faculty who are already familiar with multimedia tools can arrange to work independently on FMC workstations just by making an appointment.
Digitize and Edit Videos
Teachers and professors who would like to incorporate their travels and experiences outside of the classroom into their courses will find that the FMC can help them take their photos and videos to a level beyond slide show and projector formats. The FMC can help digitize and edit videos using Apple's iMovie, then compress the final clips and export them as QuickTime movies.
Faculty and staff can take advantage of Penn State's streaming media services (http://cac.psu.edu/streaming/) by uploading their new movies and linking to them from their course's Web site. These videos can also be added to course materials by incorporating them into a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or burning them onto a CD and playing them on the podium computer in the classroom. Use them along with personal narratives as an interactive lesson for students. Make subject matter come to life by revisiting vacation spots and outside projects without leaving the classroom.
Personalized Courses
Faculty and staff whose students rarely stay to talk after class or don't attend office hours may bring students closer by personalizing their course's Web site with the addition of a video biography. The FMC staff can help create and edit short videos and place them on the streaming media servers or personal Web sites. From there the video can be linked to existing course Web sites or Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL.
Building a Web site for your class can become an overwhelming undertaking. The choices of what to include and the technology to use are virtually endless. The FMC's expert staff can advise you on the basics of creating a Web site, including how to start and what tools to use.
The New Face of FMC
The FMC has recently redesigned its Web site (http://cac.psu.edu/fmc/) to include help topics accessible by all. This new site is not only a resource for instructors looking for multimedia help and solutions, but it is a compendium of valuable links and information for anyone interested in working with various forms of media. Take advantage of the available online multimedia tutorials, FAQs, and links to helpful resources. The new online resources teach how to scan photos and artwork, to synchronize QuickTime movies with PowerPoint presentations, and to burn creations to CD-ROM at home or in the office.
Contact Us
The FMC offers a wide range of services from answering multimedia questions to offering advice on course multimedia options. Visit the FMC Web site at http://cac.psu.edu/fmc/, and click on "Contact Us" to fill out the Web form. Also, appointments for consultation or to use FMC hardware and software resources can be scheduled by calling 814-863-7051.
The Faculty Multimedia Center is located at 226 Computer Building, which is on the corner of Curtin and Bigler Roads on the University Park Campus.
Our Services
"I really enjoy helping faculty learn how to use technology for their classes. It's great when you see the light bulb turn on and they get excited about how they can use video, scanned images, or Flash, among other things in their classroom situation. Using technology in the classroom doesn't have to be a big leap. Faculty can take smaller steps towards augmenting their instruction with new tools. An instructor who has a few hundred 35mm slides, for example, can scan them into the computer and use them in a Powerpoint presentation, or set up an annotated slide show on the Web for students to be able to study them outside of class. A short video clip can be digitized and burned onto a CD, eliminating the need for video cassettes. Or we can set it up to be delivered over the Web via our streaming video server.
Once faculty begin to see that it's not that hard to grasp the techniques and that there are many possiblities, they begin to embrace technology more and find new ways of teaching that really reach their students."