Studying Media in the 21st Century: Learning with Digital Notebooks (IML Honors Thesis Project)

All kinds of media help to form the beliefs with which our culture is realized. I have come to appreciate the academic value of exposure to media in our lives and want to create a tool for students and teachers that would encourage analytical engagement with media that reaches beyond the formal class room setting and integrates the casual and informal media consumption into the learning process. The digital notebook is a culmination of technologies that allow users to gather media and create new media and establish relationships between them.

Through researching the ways in which thought processing and learning styles interplay, this tool (like pen and paper before it) will benefit students in visually thinking through the concepts different types of media create. Each piece of media that is added to the notebook is tagged by the user, an engagement process that allows for greater understanding. The string of tagged media forming a thread of bubbles is then calculated and formatted for a database. Based on this information a teacher can create efficient and relevant lesson plans integrating and referencing what the students have tagged. Tracking thought processes and media consumption, viewing and sharing media in visually informative ways, will help students create new ideas in our media saturated lives.

Student Name:

Kristine Spitznagel

Degree:

B.A., Cinematic Arts Critical Studies

Faculty Advisor:

Andreas Kratky, School of Cinematic Arts

Project Genre:

Interactive Website and iPad application

Media Genre(s):

Web, Interactivity, Video, Mobile Media, Animation