Author Archives: Heather Stafford

Multimedia Jobs at Middlebury College – Get paid to learn digital media!

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Renovated in the summer of 2015.

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Renovated in the summer of 2015.

Are you looking for a way to add some multimedia skills to your resume? And most importantly, do you want to see and learn about how you can combine academic work and new media?

The Digital Media Tutor program is looking for students who want to learn more about these areas. Extreme technical expertise is not required, but a willingness to learn, a professional work ethic, great interpersonal and communication skills and an interest in working with others are all necessary to be successful in this position.

The program has current openings for:

Multimedia Lab Tutor Trainees

This is an introductory position where we teach you the nuts and bolts of digital media development. Learn how to create high quality images, starting with the scanning of slides and photographs, and moving into editing for print and web delivery.  Learn how to capture, edit and render video for DVD and web.

Previous experience is not required.  The tutor trainee position will begin with limited training hours during the spring semester, culminating in a transition to the tutor position (level B) prior to the start of summer. Students interested in applying for this opportunity must be willing to commit to 40 – 50 hours of training during the spring semester and 40 hours per week of work during the majority of the summer break. Priority will be given to applicants who can work for the full summer.

Apply online here: https://go.middlebury.edu/dmttrainee

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Heather Stafford, hstafford@middlebury.edu

Multimedia/Curricular Technologist 

Poster Printing in the Wilson Media Lab

At a certain point in the semester the digital media tutors and I begin to develop a love/hate relationship with our plotter. Everyone loves the ability to create and print large scale graphic representations of our work but we hate the error messages, ink stripes, and “Plotter is down” signs on the doorway to the lab.

Finals week spring term 2014. Not a pretty day for the plotter.

Finals week spring term 2014. Not a pretty day for the plotter.

Like any piece of mechanical equipment that is heavily used, the plotter will occasionally break. Although we usually have no warning when this is about to happen, there are a few things that everyone can do to help us tame the plotter.

Professors –

  • Send an email to library-at@middlebury.edu to notify us of the timeframe when your students will be working on and printing poster projects. (The earlier – the better! First week of class = PERFECT!) If you can send us a copy of the assignment – even better!
  • Be sure your students know how to use the best tools to create a poster. (A lot of students come to the lab with PowerPoint files that can be challenging to scale correctly. We recommend using Illustrator and provide docs for how to do this too!) Faculty can also request a poster tutorial session for their class by submitting a helpdesk ticket here.  
  • If you are requiring posters for your class and want your department to cover the cost of poster printing follow these instructions early in the semester.

Students –

  • Don’t underestimate the amount of time it takes to create a visual piece of work. It might seem like it will come together faster than a paper, but often there is just one component that you can’t get to look just right, or a feature in Illustrator that is not working the way you expected.
  • Make an appointment with a digital media tutor if you need help with more than a couple of questions. This will allow us to dedicate more time focused on you rather than reloading paper and ink in the plotter and helping everyone else in the lab. (We’ll schedule another tutor to do that.)
  • Fully proof your poster on the screen before sending the file to print on the plotter.

Everyone

Recycle your scraps and remember that advanced planning is often the key to success!

 

Multimedia Jobs at Middlebury College – Get paid to learn digital media!!

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Home to the Digital Media Tutor program.

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Home to the Digital Media Tutor program.

Do the terms instructional technology, digital liberal arts and digital humanities draw your interest? Are you looking for a way to add some multimedia skills to your resume? And most importantly, do you want to see and learn about how you can combine academic work and new media? (Check out the Chronicle’s article about the combination of liberal arts and digital media skills here.)

The Digital Media Tutor program is looking for students who want to learn more about these areas. Extreme technical expertise is not required but a willingness to learn, a professional work ethic, great interpersonal and communication skills and an interest in working with others are all necessary to be successful in this position.

The program has current openings for:

Multimedia Lab Tutor Trainees

This is an introductory position where we teach you the nuts and bolts of digital media development. Learn how to create high quality images, starting with the scanning of slides and photographs, and moving into editing for print and web delivery.  Learn how to capture, edit and render video for DVD and web.

Previous experience is not required.  The tutor trainee position will begin with limited training hours during the spring semester, culminating in a transition to the tutor position (level B) prior to the start of summer. Students interested in applying for this opportunity must be willing to commit to 40 – 50 hours of training during the spring semester and 40 hours per week of work during the majority of the summer break. Priority will be given to applicants who can work for the full summer.

Apply online here: https://go.middlebury.edu/dmttrainee

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Heather Stafford, hstafford@middlebury.edu

Multimedia/Curricular Technologist 

Multimedia Jobs at Middlebury College – Get paid to learn digital media!!

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Home to the Digital Media Tutor program.

Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library. Home to the Digital Media Tutor program. Photo by: Dominik Taterra, current digital media tutor

Do the terms instructional technology, digital liberal arts and digital humanities draw your interest? Are you looking for a way to add some multimedia skills to your resume? And most importantly, do you want to see and learn about how you can combine academic work and new media? (Check out the Chronicle’s article about the combination of liberal arts and digital media skills here.)

The Digital Media Tutor program is looking for students who want to learn more about these areas. Extreme technical expertise is not required but a willingness to learn, a professional work ethic, great interpersonal and communication skills and an interest in working with others are all necessary to be successful in this position.

The program has current openings for:

Multimedia Lab Tutor Trainees

This is an introductory position where we teach you the nuts and bolts of digital media development. Learn how to create high quality images, starting with the scanning of slides and photographs, and moving into editing for print and web delivery.  Learn how to capture, edit and render video for DVD and web.

Previous experience is not required.  This position is a pre-requisite for the Multimedia Lab Tutor position. Apply online here: https://middlebury.peopleadmin.com/postings/8354

Summer Opportunities:

Multimedia Lab Tutor

Spend your summer creating websites, animations, and digital video. Projects include media collections, course website development, 3d scientific imaging and virtual world development. Apply online here: https://middlebury.peopleadmin.com/postings/8355

For more information, please contact Heather Stafford (hstafford@middlebury.edu), Multimedia/Curricular Technologist in the Davis Family Library.

 

Are you interested in learning more about infographics?

Lynda.com offers a collection of resources about creating infographics that can be found at this link: http://www.lynda.com/Infographics-training-tutorials/1462-0.html (after you log in using your Middlebury credentials). Not sure what an infographic is? Check out this example on the history of audio equipment via fastcodesign.com where the creators offer a mini-window into the work it took to pull it all together.

The Wilson Media Lab in the Library offers many multimedia tools that can be used to build infographics. Digital Media Tutors are available Sunday – Thursday from 1 pm – 1 am and on Fridays from 1 pm – 7 pm to assist users interested in using these tools.