Abstract: Often, students are more savvy and skillful with technology and social media platforms than their instructors. Through authentic and impactful fieldwork assignments, we can honor and further develop their existing social-media skill sets by having them integrate text, photography and videography to showcase their field-work accomplishments. This approach also helps them tap into their innate desire for creative self-expression, which can be tightly integrated into their academic assignments.

Objectives

Participants will generate - individually and in small groups - practical ideas for fieldwork assignments that require their students to integrate text (academic or journalistic) with photographs and/or video components. Participants will understand the budget software and hardware tools required for their students to integrate visual components into their fieldwork and what is required for the students to professionally showcase it on the websites that they own and create. Participants will have opportunities to ask questions during and after the workshop.

Topical Outline

This workshop will discuss the benefits of utilizing fieldwork assignments with visual components that require students to investigate issues in their neighborhoods of critical importance that impact them personally. For example, students can investigate the challenges that small business owners face during COVID, lack of affordable housing, environmental concerns, and the scarcity of healthy food choices, to name just a few. The presenter will share several sample fieldwork projects, where his students have integrated various mediums using text, iphone photos and videos that have identified, through academic and creative expression, consequential issues in their own neighborhoods. We will discuss suggested methods of how the students can take leadership roles by supporting their peers with the technical aspects - video, photography, simple web design - that these type of fieldwork assignments require. This collaborative approach typically fosters community within the classroom. Also, we will discuss how these types of assignments help to develop the students’ soft skills, including problem solving, innovation, business communication, teamwork, leadership and conflict resolution skill sets. Finally, we will divide the participants into small groups to encourage them to generate fieldwork-assignment ideas appropriate to their own classrooms and to apply some of the video and photography techniques that have been demonstrated.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this workshop. Participants are encouraged to think about the benefits of requiring their students to integrate visual elements into fieldwork assignments that align with fulfilling curricular objectives.

Experience Level

Beginner

Qualifications

Al has been teaching freshman composition, critical thinking and documentary film classes part time at CUNY (City University of New York) for the past 14 years. He is a former TV-news cameraman/editor/producer. In addition to teaching, he is a short filmmaker and photographer. His most recent short film, "Sea of Salvation," was selected in film festivals. He designed and ran a small internship program at Brooklyn College, where he taught the interns iPhone videography and photography for professional purposes to help the interns support local nonprofits with their social media needs. Al is an avid open-water swimmer, who can be found regularly, straight through the four seasons, at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which is affectionally known as "The medicinal waters off the coast of Southern Brooklyn." His film and photography portfolio - SeaofSalvation.com - pays tribute to that vibrant and ethnically diverse urban beach community and contains many examples of his iphone filmmaking and photography, as well as some of his work with professional cameras.