Creating with digital tools in the interactive media curriculum

By Michael Fraase

Brad Hokanson, associate professor of graphic design, makes broad and deep use of digital tools in all his classes, including creative problem solving, but most especially in his interactive media courses.

Students create animations using Flash, Adobe's interactive content production software. (See student work examples at https://wiki.umn.edu/view/DesignFlash/.) One of the more interesting Flash-based projects Hokanson's students work on is the creation of interactive mysteries. Small teams of students create storyboards and then produce complete mystery stories in the Flash environment. Examples of these interactive mysteries are available at http://hokanson.cdes.umn.edu/5341/mysteryExamples.html.

Hokanson uses the University-supported Wiki environment extensively. A Wiki is a Web-based collaborative writing environment. "I'm running most of my classes through a Wiki," said Hokanson. "Students can comment and can add their Flash work directly into the Wiki." Wiki can be edited from anywhere, is interactive, and--because it doesn't require a separate interface--is easy for students to learn quickly. He publishes his class notes on the Wiki, and the students add their notes and actual work to the collaborative environment.

Hokanson's students worked this semester in Second Life, an online virtual community, using borrowed real estate within the virtual environment--in order to host events in Second Life, or to display the artifacts you create, you've got be a land owner. And land in Second Life costs real-world dollars. So Hokanson is borrowing land in an initial test to see what can be done, educationally, within a virtual environment. He's also set up Facebook pages for his classes. Facebook is a wildly popular online social networking environment that (mostly young) people use to share information, photographs, and videos.

Hokanson learned just how popular Facebook is with students last May when he took a group of students to Argentina and tried to get them to use Skype, a computer-based voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) software program that uses the Internet to make telephone calls. "Half of the students refused!" Hokanson said. Instead, they preferred to use Facebook as a group-interactive experience. The students were using Facebook to make dinner arrangements instead of using Skype to call each other.