UK Writing Center’s Future… what do YOU see?

photo by Flickr user Greeblie, creative commons licensed.

Do you ever feel like the school year ends TOO quickly? It’s definitely long enough, but what I mean is, there’s no wind-down. Everyone gets incredibly busy with projects and final exams. It seems like the last day of classes is a mile away and we’re huffing and puffing to get enough air to run that far and then suddenly: WHAM, we’re there, it’s over. To be honest, I’d like a little bit more time to cool off after all that work, to talk with folks about what their plans are for next year and how we can help one another have success.

Just like any student rocketing into the summer, the University of Kentucky Writing Center has a future to plan. This future involves everyone: not just our staff of marvelous consultants, but also our insanely intelligent and creative clientele who visit us everyday: YOU. What future do you see for the Writing Center do next year?

I’ll go first, to break the ice:

My project for the Writing Center this year has been to create resources of information for students who want to create multimedia projects: websites, posters, brochures, and videos. After months of research and creating tutorials, the Writing Center now has a Multimedia Workstation for these projects. (Look for this to look much bigger by the fall!)

For next year, we hope to have multimedia workshops that can be requested by faculty and staff and brought into classrooms. Activities such as analyzing the environment through photo scavenger hunts, editing interviews into dramatic film shorts using iMovie, creating persuasive documents like posters and brochures, and visualizing information with creative charts, graphs, and mapping tools could all be brought into any classroom on campus. A consultant could run the activities, or, if the instructor wishes, he or she can use slideshows and handouts from the Writing Center website. These workshops are meant to be flexible, and to augment already-successful classes and projects by providing students and teachers the opportunity to include more media and reach more audiences without having to teach themselves complicated new processes and technology.

So, there’s my wish. I’d also like to have some workshops in bookmaking, scatter some colorful markers everywhere, and have a polar bear come visit once in awhile.

What’s your wish?

IMovie Workshop

Now that the Writing Center has fabulous cameras available for any student to check out, we all have the ability to make awesome multimedia projects, such as interactive websites and videos…and one of the most common videos we see students make is the INTERVIEW.

Interviews are great ways to get information, to see an issue from someone else’s point of view, and to hear their thoughts in their own words rather than paraphrased by someone else. Unfortunately, the visual part of an interview video is rarely considered. The person is usually backed into a beige corner, lit with fluorescent lights, and all we really get to see is a poor fella in a polo shirt blinking and moving his mouth for half an hour.

Of course, what the subject is saying, and what the maker of the video wants you to hear, is much more exciting than that! We can use iMovie (and other simple video editing software) to cut away while the person is still talking, show images or clips of what they are talking about, add another camera to alternate points of view, edit in pieces of interviews recorded in different locations, and add in sound effects or additional narration. It’s actually quite easy, and once you get the hang of it, takes very little time!

So, if you have an ambitious idea for a video project that’s more than talking heads, check out our iMovie workshop this Monday, April 9, from 4-6 pm at the Writing Center!

Cats vs Jayhawks…

Congratulations to the ‘Cats for making it to the championship game of the NCAA basketball tournament!!!

Here at the Writing Center, we’re pretty keen on words and their meanings and origins. In the spirit of sportsmanship and getting to know an opponent, we looked into the true definition of the Kansas mascot.

Did you ever wonder what kind of bird a Jayhawk is? Is it a blue jay? Is it a hawk? It’s neither. It’s not even a bird. Here, from Wikipedia:

The term became part of the lexicon of the Missouri-Kansas border in about 1858, during the Kansas territorial period. The term was used to describe militant bands nominally associated with the free-state cause. One early Kansas history contained this succinct characterization of the jayhawkers:
“Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name — whatever its origin may be — of jayhawkers.”

In short, Jawhawks were mercenary fighters for the Union side during and before the Civil War, part of the story behind the term “bleeding Kansas”.

So, if you’re working on a poster or banner or some kind of game related smack talk, keep in mind it’s not really a bird that our Cats are up against…it’s a band of mercenaries who show up in the middle of the night to burn a house down.

Our best wishes to the Cats!!! And students, stay safe out there, let’s not burn any houses down here in Lexington.

Tags: Ukwc talk

On Tornadoes…more Friday?

Damage in Hodgenville, Ky. Patti Longmire, AP

So, where did y’all go when the tornado warning sounded yesterday? In the Writing Center, we head to the basement of the library. In fact, because of the large glass windows and the length of time it takes to get to the library basement from the 5th floor:

the Writing Center operates out of the HUB in the basement any time that Lexington is under a tornado watch.

Now, being from Oklahoma, I must admit this struck me as odd. But Okies have a weird paradoxical relationship to tornadoes… we want to tell everyone how incredibly dangerous they are, and at the same time we want to shrug them off. (If Okies have guests from out of state when tornadoes break out, we tell them dramatic-but-true tales of devastating damage before shuffling them into the shelter. Then we shut the door on them, saying “now I’m gonna go finish cooking those steaks and watch things from the porch.”)

However, relocating the Writing Center to the HUB during bad weather days makes a lot of sense.

Here’s why you’ll find us in the HUB on days when severe weather is likely:

1) The HUB is the designated shelter area for the WT Young Library. No running down stairs when the siren goes off!

2) The HUB has computer workstations, both PCs and Macs, for everyone to use during consultations.

3) The HUB has chili-cheese Fritos and a television.

All of this is good to keep in mind, especially since severe weather and a possible tornado outbreak are being predicted for Friday.

Click more for the exciting Tornado Precautions list:

New Digital Darkroom tutorials

We’ve just added 5 tutorials to our Photoshop tutorials menu. (Click here, scroll down…) These tutorials focus on using Photoshop as a digital darkroom. Like most of the more basic photo editing applications, you can adjust brightness, exposure, and contrast.  However, Photoshop also has some particularly useful tricks within it, like the ability to mask off one section, letting us brighten one section of a photo and darken another.

Photoshop is available on most of UK’s campus computers, and it’s definitely something to take advantage of. Check out the other Photoshop tutorials to learn how to use layers, cut and paste, stretch and squash images, and more. These tutorials are short and sweet, giving you the info you need to create great visuals for any multimedia writing project.

NO POSTERS! hehheh

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Folks have noticed our posters around campus advertising the upcoming workshop, “Posters: On and Offline.” Even as I post them, I can see students and staff look over, squinting in disgust. Or I hear an audible “No posters??? Why?!”

It’s a pleasant thing to hear. I’m new to UK, and when I asked around about promoting classes and special events, I kept hearing that the best thing to do is get them posted to facebook and other online feeds. But I love posters. I love making actual, tactile objects. I love running around outside and hanging them up. I pass along digital flyers as well, but for me, they don’t seem real without seeing their printed siblings on bulletin boards, stairwells, or bus stops.

When I see folks react to this sign, and the idea of a campus without posters, I realize other folks must feel the same way.

The workshop is Tuesday, February 21 from 4-6pm at the Writing Center in the WT Young Library. We’ll talk about poster history, (including the 1800′s American inspiration for this poster,) learn some easy Photoshop techniques for simulating classic poster styles, and use Acrobat Pro to make a clickable poster.