- Discussion
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This innovation grant idea is focused on creating video material for orientation and helping students adjust to college life.
The idea began two years ago when I was in a Writing Across the Curriculum group with Donna Sewell, Chere Peguesse, and Gardner Rogers. We wanted to encourage some changes in orientation material for new students. Over the last couple of years orientation has changed quite a bit, and our idea was not taken up, but we think it has value as a set of video material for new students, prospective students, etc. We have met with Sheri Gravett, and she has encouraged us to pursue the idea.
The videos would be friendly, brief and to the point, and in some cases amusing.
Have you seen the videos Deb Robson in the College of the Arts did to help promote Core classes? English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkXTWgG6guU Sociology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=8tnP5ggqrMM
These videos are helpful because they illustrate faculty-student interaction in a way that is comfortable and welcoming. For example, Danielle Bacud from International Programs said she would really benefit from a video with an international student going to the Student Success Center and asking for help the right way (with the assignment in hand, with a rough draft in hand, etc.) She would be able to place the video into Blazeview and emails for her international student advisees.
We have been communicating with a multi-division group to organize, create, and approve professional quality videos like these, but also student produced videos, and videos with a sense of humor too (some like the XtraNormal video discussion about a grade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVvKnq5XT-g and potentially something like a Delta in flight safety video, when in class please stow your electronic devices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZm4gqagnVsEveryone listed below has been contacted and supports this Innovation Grant concept. It is a unique idea because we faculty members won’t be benefiting from the grant itself, we want to be sure that people who do great videos like Deb Robson and Keith Warburg are compensated and supported and able to communicate between the divisions of the university to make the best set of videos possible. (When we communicated with Keith Warburg, he let us know that Blake Pearce, Dean of the College of the Arts, is now planning a Delta in-flight style video for his college’s orientation. This will expand that idea, and both Keith and Blake are on board with this innovation grant idea now.)
Below are the notes from a recent meeting we had with Sheri Gravett with more ideas if you would like to see those notes. Please feel free to email me or call me, I would be happy to meet with you to discuss these ideas or other related projects on campus.
Best wishes,
ChristineChristine A. James, PhD
Professor
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
1500 N. Patterson St.
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698-0050
229-259-7609 Office Phone
chjames@valdosta.eduNotes from Meeting with Sheri Gravett 9/15/15 by Gardner Rogers
1) The biggest takeaway is that we agreed to think about this not just as an academic issue, but as a broader initiative bringing together a number of constituents. I listed the following names as we talked. In the intervening days, all have signed on to say yes they want to collaborate:
–Gardner Rogers, the Core Project
–Deb Robson, Communication Arts, videos promoting Core (GA Matthew Greenwell) dcrobson
–Tee Mitchell, Admissions rtmitchell
–Alicia Roberson, Centralized Advising arroberson
–Tom Hardy, Housing and Residence Life twhardy
–Chere Peguesse, Student Success Center cpeguess
–Keith Warburg, Media Services jwwarburg
–Blake Pearce, College of the Arts, working on a Delta-style video with Keith now apearce
–David Burdette, SGA President dlburdette
–Niki Turley, Assistant Dean of Students nwturley
–James Archibald, VP for Student Affairs jgarchibald
–Michael Savoie, Honors College
–Danielle Bacud, International Students
–Nicholaus “Nick” Clinite, Data Warehouse ndclinite
–Ben Li, HelpDesk, bkli
–Laura Byers and Kimberly Tanner, Access Office, captioning videos lbyers katanner
–the original faculty group discussing orientation to academic life materials: Donna Sewell, Christine James, Gardner Rogers WAC partners dsewell gjrogers chjames2) We agreed on the need to help students make the transition from high school to college, and recognized that this transition has many dimensions. Christine and I were most immediately thinking of academic transitions, of course, and that remains important, but help with making these transitions might be considered in the light of other transitions (sharing a room with a stranger, creating a social life, learning financial responsibility) that students are making at the same time.
–Student Success – video of student going to Student Success center with copy of assignment for a paper, bringing the right materials, asking good questions
–How to get along with a roommate, what to do if you and your roommate need to split
–What not to say to a professor when you miss class (“Did you do anything important”)
–What to do to come back into a class when you have been missing a lot of class meetings or assignments; getting back on track in a positive way3) It’s important to realize that the student audience isn’t just first-time full-time students; it includes transfer students, the parents of students, and online students.
4) It’s important to think about timing: What information do we promote during the admissions process, during student visitation, and in the days leading to the first day of classes? What can be introduced online (videos, sample assignments, and so on)? If introduced online, what incentive can we provide to make sure students actually pay attention to these materials?
5) Sheri suggested that we look to include student-produced videos. One thing that would be valuable: one or more student-produced videos introducing the “real” rules of college or A Day In The Life of a Successful College Student. Maybe this comes out of an FLC class, maybe it comes from Project CORE, maybe it comes from elsewhere . . . this is something to talk and think about.
6) Videos need to be short. We might think about filming classes led by “good” teachers (Kathe’s super-section, Tim Henkel’s Bio for non-majors, Christine in a seminar, and so on) and boiling down each class session to two-three minute highlight packages.
7) This project is “innovative” in that it brings a broad range of campus leaders together to imagine how to address the whole student’s needs.
8) We need to do some research on what other institutions are doing to orient students to college. Having a consistent set of online videos that can be used by faculty in Blazeview and during Orientation, and sent as links to prospective students, would bring us up to date with other universities!
9) We didn’t talk about money, but that’s premature. Until we can get everyone talking and (with luck) produce agreement about exactly what this project entails, we can’t even think about money.
Final impression: While I’m convinced by the need to think broadly about student experience of the transition to college, the baby I don’t want thrown out of the bathwater is the original desire we’ve had to “orient” students to a new set of expectations and rigor. College classes aren’t easy. They can be exciting, challenging, sometimes life-changing, but none of those experiences come without hard work and a willingness to confront and be changed by new ideas.
Video ideas, more to come as we meet:
Syllabi: What You Can Find In Them
Transitioning from 5-paragraph essay to research papers
Office hours vs Classrooms (Where is my Prof?)
Life in Residence HallsJust a follow up to note that Gardner, Donna, Chere and I have been meeting at the Idea Center regularly, and we have an upcoming meeting on Tuesday, October 20 at 2pm. We’ll be comparing notes from all of our meetings with the list of collaborators. Feel free to join us or contact us.
Best wishes,
ChristineUpdates from the week ending 10/23/2015:
Action Steps and Special Requests:
Deb Robson, Keith Warburg, Kimberly Tanner, Laura Byers:
Can you send us budget line estimates, in dollar amounts, for an example 2 minute video, to help us prepare our budget write-up for the grant? It would help if you could estimate a cost per video for hours of work in filming, processing, and captioning the video, for equipment needs.
Also, Pat Miller suggests web-animated videos, which would take less time and organization, but it would still be good for people with your experience to actually plan the videos even if they are quick animations. What would be the estimate budget amounts for animated videos?
Once I have budget estimates for both live and animated videos, I will do a draft of the grant application text for everyone to see.
Notes from meetings on 10/20/2015
I. Meeting of Chere Peguesse, Christine James, and Donna Sewell 2pm at Idea Center.
We decided on the order of work to be done:
1. Request specific budget line information from parties that will create actual videos (ie., Deb Robson, Keith Warburg, and Kimberly Tanner/Laura Byers for captioning.) Need this info for the application.
Students creating the video content should be included in the grant for potential small stipends. Students appearing in the videos will sign waivers and be encouraged to approach it as service learning-experiential learning.
We should explore the possibility of a student review or consultation board to double-check the older faculty members’ sense of humor. Will the students and their parents find it funny if we do, etc. (As per conversations at Café Innovation, parents will be a major audience for the videos as well as students)
2. Create list of “top ten video need issues” (see list appended below of the ideas we have already discussed), email to collaborate and cull list.
3. Doodle Poll for a large meeting to be held at the Idea Center in the second week of November (Homecoming Week). This group will review and edit the draft mentioned in 4.
4. Make a draft of what text will go in the boxes on the Innovation Grant application on the web, which will be open November 23, 2015: https://www.valdosta.edu/academics/institutional-effectiveness/innovate/sample-application.php
5. Have the Homecoming Week meeting for everyone to comment and edit the draft of our detailed application.
6. Complete and submit application before the winter break so we won’t need to worry about it in December-January.Besides the ideas we had for Xtranormal and Delta safety style-inspired videos, Donna also suggests Rob Lowe Direct TV style-inspired ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbB9ANVQ1Ws and Evolve style public service announcements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yeF-qNp8Ns
Chere Peguesse has narrated PowerPoints about the student success center which can be turned into video material with more energy and humor.II. Christine James met with Pat Miller by chance at the Campus Communications Board at the Student Union Heritage Room 5pm
1. Pat let us know about her work – will be another collaborator, she is doing a “native advertising” video (will look like the normal format/platform of the Spectator) two minutes with a Nursing student returning from a missionary trip.
2. Pat really encourages us to consider animation of the type used in the How to Become a Sophomore Blazeview area videos. http://goanimate.com/ To see the videos, one must have access to the course shell in Blazeview and use Explorer, not Chrome. Niki Turley is main contact person on this – list of all titles appended bottom of page 2. I have copied one video here to give a sense of what they are like: https://youtu.be/zVWp6ZvepI8
3. Pat encourages us to be very mindful of copyright, ensuring that each video created which might take inspiration from a commercial advertisement should be parody or fair use. I looked up a source explaining such parody and fair use for educational purposes. Must have no direct copying of images or dialogue, etc.; must parody or reinterpret for new purpose, etc. Please see: http://www.reelseo.com/parody-fair-use/List of video ideas as it currently stands:
–Student Success – video of student going to Student Success center with copy of assignment for a paper, bringing the right materials, asking good questions (Danielle Bacud requests)
–How to get along with a roommate, what to do if you and your roommate need to split
–What not to say to a professor when you miss class (“Did you do anything important”)
–What to do to come back into a class when you have been missing a lot of class meetings or assignments; getting back on track in a positive way
— Syllabi: What You Can Find In Them
–Transitioning from 5-paragraph essay to research papers
–Office hours vs Classrooms (Where is my Prof?)
–Life in Residence Halls
–Examples of classes of varying sizes with interaction: the Supersection, the Mid-Size-Lecture, the Seminar
–How to read complex texts
–How tutoring works (Chere Peguesse requests)
–How to peer review other students’ writing
–Undergraduate Research videos ex. Michigan State
–The 5 Kinds of Students You Will Meet in Class (and Which One to Emulate)
–The 5 Kinds of Professors You Will Meet in Class (and How to Work with Them)
–The GPA Calculator and how difficult it can be to come back from a bad semester
–Extra Credit: Professors Vary, don’t count on it to save your grade
–Time Management (needs a more interesting title, but calendaring skills, portioning time for study and fun)
–The Flow Chart (should I go to class; make the right decision, professors might vary in attendance policy, and some take attendance without you knowing because your photo is in Banner and the Data Warehouse, but it never hurts to go to class)
–Leave Your Helicopter Parent Behind
–Mark Smith from English showed a video from Emory University during the Open House Visitation Day on October 17. We need to do our own!!!! Donna Sewell contacted him for which video it was. The first link below is the Emory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e161mK-rLBQ&list=PLG24cblO42x2pPCIjCMc1gBvIhjJ4LNVX&index=4Uniting theme: the “Real” Rules of College, or “A Day In The Life of a Successful College Student”
List of extant How to Become a Sophomore animated videos:
01. Going to Class
02. Using the Syllabus
03. Cheating & Plagiarism
04. Absence Policies
05. Drop/Withdrawal Policies
06. Using Resources
07. Understanding Your GPA
08. College vs. High School
09. Building Your Résumé
10. Finding Your Balance
11. How to get a 4.0Notes from Gardner Rogers’ meeting on 10/23/2015 with Ryan Teter and Mark McNalley in Residence Life: Their emails are mpmcnalley@valdosta.edu and rdteter@valdosta.edu
–We met this morning. Residence Life definitely wants to be part of this. Christine’s 10/21 email listed several housing and student life topics. “Life in Residence Halls” is of course way too broad–a placeholder–and Mark suggests a video about communication (especially, but not exclusively, communication with a roommate) as a specific topic in its stead. About “Time Management”: Mark approached this topic with an insight I liked, framing it as identifying sleeplessness and stress as symptoms of problems with time management. Ryan and Mark both liked the topic of “Helicopter Parents”–they get a lot of that action in their positions.
–We agreed that Mark should have heavy input in the scripting and creation of these videos. We also agreed that Mark will suggest additional topics related to residence life.
–FWIW, I want to report that both of them were enormously impressive. Mark will be our primary contact because Ryan is leaving VSU in November.
Best to all,
Gardner
Mark McNalley sent me a link to a series of student life videos from MacEwan University Residence Life–he and Ryan Teter have been looking at them as potential models. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGD7k0-Ol8o&index=1&list=PLphcqfaWCkt8cOa1fUDnWgEUs5qRPDRpd
Link to Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences video:
http://tinyurl.com/omp87xjDoodle Poll link for our next meeting between November 9-18, 2015:
http://doodle.com/poll/didb3d6t93nb243nIn this update for the Video Innovation Grant Idea:
I. Next meeting date and time based on Doodle Poll.
II. Cost estimates and opening discussion on how to write up the budget lines for the submission for the Innovation Grant.I.
The majority of the Doodle Poll respondents have designated Monday 11/16/15 from 3:00-4:00pm at the Idea Center as the best time for our next meeting. There were two respondents who were not able to meet at that time, Mark McNalley and Blake Pearce. For us to have a time to meet and discuss with them, I made an additional reservation at the Idea Center for a time when they both can meet, Monday 11/9/15 from 2:00pm-3:00pm. If you can come to both meetings, or email your thoughts and concerns for us to discuss at both meetings, that would be much appreciated.
So please mark down:
1. Video Innovation Grant Primary (Majority) Meeting: Monday 11/16/15 from 3:00pm-4:00pm at the Idea Center (on this date, I reserved the space until 5pm for extended discussion if needed and I will stay until 5pm).
2. Video Innovation Grant Secondary Meeting for Pearce and McNalley and anyone else who would like to meet before the majority meets: Monday 11/9/15 from 2:00-3:00pm at the Idea CenterII.
Estimates of cost received from Keith Warburg and Laura Byers are below. Note that Keith has pointed out that students cannot be paid through normal channels (I would like to ask the group if “stipends” are included in that stipulation or not; I know that the Honors Scholars receive some monies through other terminology, “scholarship, fellowship, stipend,” etc.?) and that we might arrange a foundation account (I know from my own grants that the process of making equipment purchases through ePro Requestor is a bit “intricate”. Is the idea of taking grant money and putting it into a foundation account possible, and easier or harder, than the normal ePro requester process? We need advice from people who are very familiar with the way grant monies can and cannot be used so that we phrase all of these the right way in our submission for the Innovation Grant. Perhaps Sheri Gravett can advise us on this?As always thank you very much, looking forward to seeing you (majority meeting on Monday 11/16/15 from 3:00-4:00pm at the Idea Center.)
Best wishes,
Christine———————————————————————————————————————————-
From: Keith Warburg
To: Christine A James; Cc: Deborah C Robson; Laura E Byers; Kimberly Ann Tanner; Mon 10/26/2015 2:57 PM
For our purposes, here’s a general outline of time:Planning and equipment gathering, contacting individuals, scheduling: 1 hour
Interview set up, conduct, break down: 2 hours per location
B-roll footage: 1 hour per location
Editing: 1 hour per minute of finished video
Captioning: 10-15 minutes per minute of finished video with out transcripts
with scripts, 12-20 minutes maximum for <10 min project
Uploading and finishing: 15-30 minutesTotal: 7 hours minimum @ $9/hour student workers = $63.
More realistically, budgeting for more than one location and talent, an estimate of $100 is more reasonable.
This would be a great fit for our students. However, we cannot pay them traditionally (they work the maximum of two allowable on campus jobs, us and athletics). We could arrange a contribution to the Video Services Foundation Account to help us with supplies, student uniforms for covering events, and the like.
Keith Warburg, M.Ed.
Valdosta State University Creative Services
Associate Director for Marketing and Digital Media
Chair, Council on Staff Affairs
229-333-7049
jwwarburg@valdosta.edu
If your reply requires immediate attention, please contact me at 229-412-0861.————————————————————————————————————————————-
Laura E Byers
To: Christine A James; Cc: Deborah C Robson; Keith Warburg; Kimberly Ann Tanner;
Mon 10/26/2015 3:53 PM
Hi, Christine.
Transcription and captioning is $2.85/minute through AMAC, the USG agency that we contract for post-production captioning (i.e. captions created after the video has been completed and edited).
If you need further information, just let me know.
–LauraArizona State’s fun video about going to your professor during office hours! Chere Peguesse who is one of our collaborators just sent it to me! Thank you Chere!
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