HigherEd 2.0

You have all been eagerly awaiting the project information for the course…so here it is: the podcast contest! I know, it’s the middle of the semester and you feel like you are on a treadmill–get up, go to class, go home, do homework, go to bed, get up…(yeah, I’ve used that joke before). Anyway, hopefully this will be a fun project that gets you excited about engineering.

The details look like this:

1. Randomly-assigned teams of four students will create original 6-minute podcasts on a current or historical engineering project of mutual interest.
2. Each team should split the workload among the following categories: research, script-writing, soundtrack, sourcing, final production.
3. Important groundrule: no video! Video editing takes too much time; instead, use a collection of still images.
4. Your team will submit your topic 1 week from today (that’s 10/31).
5. Your team will submit your storyboard (see this example) 2 weeks from today (that’s 11/7).
6. Your team will submit your final podcast 4 weeks from today (that’s 11/21).
7. Most of your grade on this assignment will be based upon peer review, and we will give out bonus points on the final grade to the winning podcasts (Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay).
8. You can create your podcast using any software you like, but the final format must be either .M4A (enhanced podcast) or .MOV (Quicktime movie).
9. Some potential tools you can use to create your podcast: record a voice narration in Powerpoint (then we can export it to the right format), use GarageBand, iMovie, or Quicktime Pro on your Mac or at the Digital Media Lab, if you are a Mac person you can use Keynote (just like Powerpoint, only better) directly to create the podcast, or we can get you a demo version of Profcast, which is the software I use in class to record the lectures (Profcast works great with either Powerpoint or Keynote files). The point is: you have lots of options.

This project is worth 10% of your grade, so start thinking now about what you might like to do. I will send out email later today with the randomly-assigned teams and contact information. Then let the fun begin!

PS: If you want to see examples from last year, scroll backwards in the “Podcast Project” category to see all the entries from last year.

PPS: Last year’s entries were all great, but I know you can do better.

PPPS: Posted below is an example I put together last year to give you the idea of what I am looking for…

 

 Example: The Palm (Sept. 2006): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download