Digital Studio
Encyclopedia
A Digital Studio provides both a technology-equipped space and technological/rhetorical support to students (commonly at a university) working individually or in groups on a variety of digital projects, such as designing a web site, developing an electronic portfolio for a class, creating a blog
, selecting images for a visual essay, or writing a script for a podcast
.
), and places with different names but similar objectives (such as the New Media Writing Studio at Texas Christian University
), have arisen in response to the need for resources dedicated to improving students' interactions with digital technologies for rhetorical ends. Digital Studios have often been theoretically and administratively linked to writing center
s, which are sites where students can seek assistance with their text-based projects. The academic term that has been used for this kind of site (i.e. a writing center with a focus in digital and new media) is multiliteracy
center. Besides having a multimodal focus, Digital Studios also make a departure from the writing center model in allowing students the freedom to work in the Studio without one-on-one interaction with a writing tutor.
was being hailed in The New York Times
as the "new goal in schools." As computer technology became more ubiquitous, as the world wide web
became more popular and accessible, and as the teaching of computer skills became official US policy with the enactment of the "Technology Literacy Challenge" by the Clinton Administration in 1996, educators across the disciplines began to investigate with renewed vigor the role of computer technology in the curriculum as both a means and an end.
This account for new text forms, combined with a similar account for "increasingly globalized societies," the NLG called "multiliteracies
."
, Cynthia Selfe (who had founded the peer-reviewed journal Computers and Composition in 1983) addressed professionals in the field of Rhetoric and Composition
with an objective similar to that of the NLG, arguing that as a field, composition scholars had "paid technology issues precious little focused attention over the years," which lack of attention she called "dangerously shortsighted." What was needed, Selfe claimed, was for teachers to "pay attention" to "how technology is now inextricably linked with literacy and literacy education in this country." Selfe's call ceremoniously if not officially marked the beginning of a new scholarly interest in what Selfe called "critical technological literacy":
Scholars who took up this call included Barbara Blakely Duffelmeyer, who conducted studies involving the incorporation of "critical computer literacy" (an adaptation of Selfe's term) into First Year Composition
.
in 2004, Kathleen Blake Yancey cited these new venues in her argument for a "new curriculum for the 21st century," one that would bring "together the writing outside of school and that inside." Such a curriculum, she said:
A professor at Clemson at the time of her speech, Yancey also argued for the creation of an undergraduate major in composition and rhetoric. She soon moved to Florida State University, where she helped to establish a new major in line with the one she argued for at CCCC called Editing, Writing, and Media (EWM) and also helped to open the FSU Digital Studio.
As teachers and administrators across the country looked to incorporate more digital technology into their curriculum, the need for spaces for digital composition and for support with the innumerable digital composing platforms became apparent. A Digital Studio is one such space.
and multimedia
projects, professionals involved with work in writing center
s began to draw comparisons between their traditional work -- assisting students with alphabetic texts on the page -- and a new kind of work: assisting students with their multimedia projects on the screen. John Trimbur predicted in 2000:
Later, just months before Yancey delivered her CCCC Chair's Address
, Michael Pemberton, writing in the Writing Center Journal, asked:
Pemberton also surveyed (by his account) the forty-year history of how "writing centers [have] viewed new technologies," observing that "the relationship between writing centers and computer technology has been, overall, only a cordial one." Pemberton's article is evidence of the continuing discussion among writing center professionals about the need for support for students' digital creations, support which they saw as analogous to work in writing centers.
In 2010, a collection edited by David Sheridan and James Inman, Multiliteracy Centers: Writing Center Work, New Media, and Multimodal Rhetoric, was published. Many of the chapters therein cite the above Trimbur and Pemberton quotes as they work to explain the exigence for the collection, the instances in which mulitiliteracy centers have been established (the founding of the Clemson Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication is the subject of two chapters), and both theoretical and practical analyses of potential futures of such work.
s into multiliteracy
centers is helpful in some respects, e.g. that administratively the two may be managed in similar ways and staffed by the same people. In other respects, it has been said to be better to separate them into two distinct kinds of facilities. The very choice of naming a "writing center" or "digital studio" by either (or another) title, for instance, ought (according to some) to be informed by what kinds of student-activities are expected to take place there. Gresham and Yancey, in their recounting of the design and establishment of the Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication (AKA the Pearce Studio), explain:
Gresham and Yancey also recount their discussions with the architects who helped design and build the physical space for the studio:
For Gresham and Yancey, a writing center is a place for individual students to seek help from individual writing tutors with print-based texts. A studio model creates opportunities for collaboration among students with or without tutor-involvement for many different kinds of projects in many different modes.
The FSU Digital Studio has seven staff members in the Spring 2011 semester, all of whom have varying levels of expertise with a variety of software and applications, including Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Powerpoint, Prezi, Movie Maker, Vuvox, etc.
Hardware
Software
The new FSU Learning Studio commons area, scheduled to open in Fall 2011, will house a satellite Digital Studio location.
fan page and a Twitter
account.
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, selecting images for a visual essay, or writing a script for a podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
.
Overview
Digital Studios (such as the one at Florida State UniversityFlorida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
), and places with different names but similar objectives (such as the New Media Writing Studio at Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University is a private, coeducational university located in Fort Worth, Texas, United States and founded in 1873. TCU is affiliated with, but not governed by, the Disciples of Christ...
), have arisen in response to the need for resources dedicated to improving students' interactions with digital technologies for rhetorical ends. Digital Studios have often been theoretically and administratively linked to writing center
Writing Center
Many educational institutions maintain a writing center that provides students with free assistance on their papers, projects, reports, multimodal documents, web pages, et cetera from consultants. A key goal of any writing center is helping writers to learn...
s, which are sites where students can seek assistance with their text-based projects. The academic term that has been used for this kind of site (i.e. a writing center with a focus in digital and new media) is multiliteracy
Multiliteracy
Multiliteracies is a term coined by the New London Group. Because the way people communicate is changing due to new technologies, and shifts in the usage of the English language within different cultures, a new "literacy" must also be used and developed....
center. Besides having a multimodal focus, Digital Studios also make a departure from the writing center model in allowing students the freedom to work in the Studio without one-on-one interaction with a writing tutor.
Computer literacy in popular culture
As early as 1983, computer literacyComputer literacy
Computer literacy is defined as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology efficiently, with a range of skills covering levels from elementary use to programming and advanced problem solving. Computer literacy can also refer to the comfort level someone has with using...
was being hailed in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as the "new goal in schools." As computer technology became more ubiquitous, as the world wide web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
became more popular and accessible, and as the teaching of computer skills became official US policy with the enactment of the "Technology Literacy Challenge" by the Clinton Administration in 1996, educators across the disciplines began to investigate with renewed vigor the role of computer technology in the curriculum as both a means and an end.
Scholarly interest in "multiliteracies"
The same year that President Clinton initiated the "Challenge," the New London Group (NLG) issued a call for scholars of literacy pedagogy to- account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies. This includes understanding and competent control of representational forms that are becoming increasingly significant in the overall communications environment, such as visual images and their relationship to the written word -- for instance, visual design in desktop publishing or the interface of visual and linguistic meaning in multimedia.
This account for new text forms, combined with a similar account for "increasingly globalized societies," the NLG called "multiliteracies
Multiliteracy
Multiliteracies is a term coined by the New London Group. Because the way people communicate is changing due to new technologies, and shifts in the usage of the English language within different cultures, a new "literacy" must also be used and developed....
."
Technological literacy in rhetoric and composition
Two years later, during the 1998 CCCC Chair's AddressCCCC Chair's Address
The CCCC Chair’s Address is a speech delivered at the conference’s opening general session that speaks to perceived concerns in the field. The CCCC, formed in 1949, has always had a Chair, the first being John C...
, Cynthia Selfe (who had founded the peer-reviewed journal Computers and Composition in 1983) addressed professionals in the field of Rhetoric and Composition
Composition studies
Composition Studies is the professional field of writing research and instruction, focusing especially on writing at the college level in the United States...
with an objective similar to that of the NLG, arguing that as a field, composition scholars had "paid technology issues precious little focused attention over the years," which lack of attention she called "dangerously shortsighted." What was needed, Selfe claimed, was for teachers to "pay attention" to "how technology is now inextricably linked with literacy and literacy education in this country." Selfe's call ceremoniously if not officially marked the beginning of a new scholarly interest in what Selfe called "critical technological literacy":
- Composition teachers, language arts teachers, and other literacy specialists need to recognize that the relevance of technology in the Engish studies disciplines is not simply a matter of helping students work effectively with communication software and hardware, but, rather, also a matter of helping them to understand and to be able to assess -- to pay attention to -- the social, economic, and pedagogical implications of new communication technologies and technological initiatives that affect their lives.
Scholars who took up this call included Barbara Blakely Duffelmeyer, who conducted studies involving the incorporation of "critical computer literacy" (an adaptation of Selfe's term) into First Year Composition
First Year Composition
First Year Composition is an introductory core curriculum writing course in North American colleges. This course focuses on improving students' abilities to write in a university setting and introduces students to writing practices in the disciplines and professions. These courses are...
.
Communications across media, inside and outside school
The years following Selfe's address saw more rapid advancements in mobile technologies, social media, and Web 2.0, creating even more new venues of composing for teachers to pay attention to. In her own CCCC Chair's AddressCCCC Chair's Address
The CCCC Chair’s Address is a speech delivered at the conference’s opening general session that speaks to perceived concerns in the field. The CCCC, formed in 1949, has always had a Chair, the first being John C...
in 2004, Kathleen Blake Yancey cited these new venues in her argument for a "new curriculum for the 21st century," one that would bring "together the writing outside of school and that inside." Such a curriculum, she said:
- is located in a new vocabulary, a new set of practices, and a new set of outcomes; it will focus our research in new and provocative ways; it has as its goal the creation of thoughtful, informed, technologically adept writing publics.
A professor at Clemson at the time of her speech, Yancey also argued for the creation of an undergraduate major in composition and rhetoric. She soon moved to Florida State University, where she helped to establish a new major in line with the one she argued for at CCCC called Editing, Writing, and Media (EWM) and also helped to open the FSU Digital Studio.
As teachers and administrators across the country looked to incorporate more digital technology into their curriculum, the need for spaces for digital composition and for support with the innumerable digital composing platforms became apparent. A Digital Studio is one such space.
Link with writing centers
With the need for support for students who would engage with digitalDigital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
and multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
projects, professionals involved with work in writing center
Writing Center
Many educational institutions maintain a writing center that provides students with free assistance on their papers, projects, reports, multimodal documents, web pages, et cetera from consultants. A key goal of any writing center is helping writers to learn...
s began to draw comparisons between their traditional work -- assisting students with alphabetic texts on the page -- and a new kind of work: assisting students with their multimedia projects on the screen. John Trimbur predicted in 2000:
- My guess is that writing centers will more and more define themselves as multiliteracyMultiliteracyMultiliteracies is a term coined by the New London Group. Because the way people communicate is changing due to new technologies, and shifts in the usage of the English language within different cultures, a new "literacy" must also be used and developed....
centers. Many are already doing so -- tutoring oral presentations, adding online tutorials, offering workshops in evaluating web sources, being more conscious of document design. To my mind, the new digital literacies will increasingly be incorporated into writing centers not just as sources of information or delivery systems for tutoring but as productive arts in their own right, and writing center work will, if anything, become more rhetorical in paying attention to the practices and effects of design in written and visual communication— more product oriented and perhaps less like the composing conferences of the process movement.
Later, just months before Yancey delivered her CCCC Chair's Address
CCCC Chair's Address
The CCCC Chair’s Address is a speech delivered at the conference’s opening general session that speaks to perceived concerns in the field. The CCCC, formed in 1949, has always had a Chair, the first being John C...
, Michael Pemberton, writing in the Writing Center Journal, asked:
- As we enter an era when electronic publishing and computer-mediated discourse are the norm, an era when new literary genres and new forms of communication emerge on, seemingly, a weekly basis, we must ask ourselves whether writing centers should continue to dwell exclusively in the linear, non-linked world of the printed page or whether they should plan to redefine themselves – and retrain themselves – to take residence in the emerging world of multimedia, hyperlinked, digital documents. To put it plainly, should we be preparing tutors to conference with students about hypertexts?
Pemberton also surveyed (by his account) the forty-year history of how "writing centers [have] viewed new technologies," observing that "the relationship between writing centers and computer technology has been, overall, only a cordial one." Pemberton's article is evidence of the continuing discussion among writing center professionals about the need for support for students' digital creations, support which they saw as analogous to work in writing centers.
In 2010, a collection edited by David Sheridan and James Inman, Multiliteracy Centers: Writing Center Work, New Media, and Multimodal Rhetoric, was published. Many of the chapters therein cite the above Trimbur and Pemberton quotes as they work to explain the exigence for the collection, the instances in which mulitiliteracy centers have been established (the founding of the Clemson Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication is the subject of two chapters), and both theoretical and practical analyses of potential futures of such work.
'Studio' vs. 'center:' a break from the model
The conflation of digital studios and writing centerWriting Center
Many educational institutions maintain a writing center that provides students with free assistance on their papers, projects, reports, multimodal documents, web pages, et cetera from consultants. A key goal of any writing center is helping writers to learn...
s into multiliteracy
Multiliteracy
Multiliteracies is a term coined by the New London Group. Because the way people communicate is changing due to new technologies, and shifts in the usage of the English language within different cultures, a new "literacy" must also be used and developed....
centers is helpful in some respects, e.g. that administratively the two may be managed in similar ways and staffed by the same people. In other respects, it has been said to be better to separate them into two distinct kinds of facilities. The very choice of naming a "writing center" or "digital studio" by either (or another) title, for instance, ought (according to some) to be informed by what kinds of student-activities are expected to take place there. Gresham and Yancey, in their recounting of the design and establishment of the Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication (AKA the Pearce Studio), explain:
- This center, now also called the Pearce Studio, is like the “studio” model of composition of instruction (Grego) and unlike it, and also like a Writing Center and unlike it. Like the studio model of composition, the Pearce Studio includes writing and fosters collaboration, but it’s not a site for courses. Like a writing center, it assists students to develop process and product, but those products include posters and speeches as often as print texts.
Gresham and Yancey also recount their discussions with the architects who helped design and build the physical space for the studio:
- We showed the architects some Writing Centers, online, and described them. We then explained to the architects how we thought the Studio was like a Writing Center—in its inclusion of writing, in its processes, and its attitude toward students—but and how it would be different—in its specific attention to speech, in its focus on collaboration, in its attention to digital texts.
For Gresham and Yancey, a writing center is a place for individual students to seek help from individual writing tutors with print-based texts. A studio model creates opportunities for collaboration among students with or without tutor-involvement for many different kinds of projects in many different modes.
FSU Digital Studio
The mission of the FSU Digital Studio:- The Digital Studio provides support to students working individually or in groups on a variety of digital projects, such as designing a web site, developing an electronic portfolio for a class, creating a blog, selecting images for a visual essay, or writing a script for a podcast. Tutors who staff the Digital Studio can help students brainstorm essay ideas, provide feedback on the content and design of a digital project, or facilitate collaboration for group projects and presentations. Students are not required to work with a tutor; the Digital Studio is open to those seeking to work on their own to complete class assignments or to simply improve overall capabilities in digital communication, with or without a tutor's assistance.
Student work in the Digital Studio
Students engage in many different types of projects in the FSU Digital Studio:- Electronic Portfolios (Marlene Baldeweg-Rau)
- Online Posters (Chelsea Crawford)
- Newsletters
- Book Covers/Posters (Sam Wyzan)
- Videos (Justine Martin's FYC Group)
- Audio Mash-Ups
- Presentations
History
The FSU Digital Studio opened in the fall semester of 2008. The Studio is open during the fall, spring, and summer semesters -- as long as class in session. The Studio is open on weekdays.Current iteration
The FSU Digital Studio is currently housed in the Williams Building, operated in conjunction with the Reading Writing Center, and aims to serve students and faculty from all disciplines (although the majority of visitors are students in the new EWM Major). The Studio is open five days a week and is staffed by Graduate TAs from the English Department.Staff
The FSU Digital Studio has seven staff members in the Spring 2011 semester, all of whom have varying levels of expertise with a variety of software and applications, including Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Powerpoint, Prezi, Movie Maker, Vuvox, etc.
Facilities
Hardware
- The FSU Digital Studio is equipped with four dual-screen PCs each running Windows 7 and another Windows 7 PC connected to a Smart Board. The Studio is also equipped with a color scanner.
Software
- The five computers in the FSU Digital Studio each have Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft OfficeMicrosoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
2007 and AdobeAdobe SystemsAdobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
Design Premium CS5 installed.
Learning studio
The new FSU Learning Studio commons area, scheduled to open in Fall 2011, will house a satellite Digital Studio location.
Digital symposium
Each semester, the FSU Digital Studio hosts a day-long Digital Symposium during which members of the University community are invited to visit the Studio and observe a showcase of student-designed digital and multimodal projects. Tutoring services and regular studio hours are suspended to leave workstations open for visitors who wish to browse the Digital Symposium website, a new version of which is created each semester with links to individual student work. Food and beverage are generally provided to visitors.Social media presence
The FSU Digital Studio has a FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
fan page and a Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
account.
TCU New Media Writing Studio
The mission of the TCU New Media Writing Studio (nmwc):- Located in Scharbauer 2003, the nmws is a space where teachers and writers from any department or discipline can gather to work on all kinds of digital writing: presentations, web design, video, and more. The Studio can be reserved for a single instructional session or for a multi-week unit while classes are working on computer-intensive projects.
EKU Noel Studio for Academic Creativity
The mission of the EKU Noel Studio for Academic Creativity:- The Noel Studio is designed as a dynamic, technologically sophisticated learning environment that will inspire individual and collaborative learning. In the Noel Studio, spaces and techniques recognize multiple learning styles. Open and fluid spaces provide the flexibility to let educators and students use the Noel Studio to maximize learning.
Clemson Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication
The mission of the Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication:- The Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication is the first communication studio in the country to include both teaching and research. Its goal is to bring together the study and practice of the communicative arts in new and exciting ways.