Infusing Media Networks, part III

Recording Public Readings

One of the central elements of our Professional Writing curriculum is the development of public presentation skills, including the reading of creative work. Students give academic presentations at events like Scholars' Day, more business-oriented presentations for local organizations through service learning courses or internships, and read their creative work in a series of open mic events. As with the online course presentations, these podcasts allow our students to reach a wider audience and document their activities so that we may reflect more accurately on student progress.

Below is an excerpt from a video I made with students and colleagues about a writers' retreat and reading that we undertake each semester. As this excerpt suggests, by podcasting our public readings we not only create a record for our students to revisit but create a means to inform the campus and others about our activities

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Podcasted Magazines

Not surprisngly, in Professional Writing we seek to provide avenues for our students to gain experience with publication as writers, editors, and so on. One of the means by which we have done this is through the production of an online magazine (which I wrote about for Kairos in 2003). Our next step is to move beyond text-based publication to include audio and video components. The idea of an online magazine--text, audio, video, whatever--is to share the work of students beyond the boundaries of the classroom and to offer them and faculty a new way to understand the relationship between material in the curriculum.