Teaching with the Recording Studios Remotely
The Northeastern University Library’s Recording Studios offers opportunities for learning best practices in media production from basic through advanced levels. Staff collaborate with faculty across the curriculum to help design, plan and implement media-based assignments throughout the semester.
Planning effective media assignments
We recommend that you plan one semester in advance, particularly if you want to incorporate your project into the Library’s Digital Repository Service. Because the Studios are currently closed, we will teach virtual class sessions which combine hands-on learning with media literacy theory to enhance students’ critical thinking skills. We can book appointments with you and students via Microsoft Teams or Zoom to assist during any step of the project. We will be recommending tools and resources you can use from home. The Digital Media Toolkit links to helpful information. The Studios will provide virtual workshops this fall. We are open to your suggestions.
Planning a Session
- Using this form, please request your instructional session at least one month in advance. Sessions can be tailored to focus on resources for the specific assignment students will be doing. Please include your syllabus and assignment with your request. A staff member will respond and set up a meeting to discuss instructional strategies
- We will offer virtual instruction on Teams or Zoom from 9am to 7:45pm Monday-Friday.
Studio Foundation Classes
Perhaps you would like to schedule an introductory session on media project creation. Q and A included!
A. Working with the Recording Studios Remotely
This session orients students to the scope of resources available for completing audio, video, and photography projects remotely. Students will learn about the Digital Media Toolkit, production software available to them, recommendations regarding equipment resources, how to book an appointment for staff assistance, and how to complete a project form. Use this form to request.
B. Planning Your Media Production Project from Pre-through Post-Production.
This session will introduce students to the essential steps in creating a media project, no matter what the format. From conceptualization through editing students will learn concrete skills for effectively planning, designing, and producing their work utilizing a range of available resources. Use this form to request.
C. Recording Audio at Home
This session provides an overview of the environmental, equipment, and software requirements that will improve your interview, podcast, or music recording. Use this form to request.
D. Tips on Using Your Phone for Photography & Video
This session provides best practices in using your phone for still images and motion video. It will also cover back-up solutions for conserving your memory. Use this form to request.
Media Assignment Types
You may wish to create modular or term-length audio, video, or photography assignments. These can be modified for remote learning. Below are assignment types which can be shaped to meet your course objectives. Included are examples of successful Northeastern assignments that have involved Studios support. For more examples of student project see the Recording Studios Showcase.
| 1. Digital Story: As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. They usually contain a mixture of images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips, and/or music. Topics may include personal tales, recounting of historical events, exploring life in one’s own community, a portrait of a person or organization, whatever fits your instructional goals.
Digital Media Toolkit Resources a. English: Writing & Community Engagement 2740 (Spring 2019) | Faculty: Sarah Finn Assignment: Syllabus/Assignment | Student Projects |
| 2. Documentary: A non-fiction video or film intended to document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record.
Digital Media Toolkit Resources a. Journalism 3305-3 (Fall 2019) | Faculty: Michael Beaudet (Fall 2019) Assignment: Mini-documentary—news packages that the students will be developing throughout the semester. Student Project: Caribbean American Foundation News Report Documentary project from JRNL 5314 section (Spring 2020) b. Dialogue of Civilization on Documentary Filmmaking, London, 2017. Assignment: Over the course of the 6 weeks, teams were tasked to find a topic they found interesting and to explore them using the documentary format. Student Project: In Plain Sight by Antonio Banrey. In Plain Sight documents the street art scene of London, and the importance of it as a facet of London’s artistic culture. |
| 3. Ethnomusicology: The study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it.
a. Musical Communities of Boston MUSC 2330 (Spring 2019) | Faculty: Francesca Inglese Assignment: Interview tips | Student Projects |
| 4. Music Creation: Record a song or instrument using an instrument through a digital audio workstation.
a. Music in Everyday Life Music 1001 | Faculty: Deirdre Loughridge (Fall 2016) b. Music Lessons MUSC 1901 (Spring 2020) | Faculty: Tisha Stadnicki Student Project: Vocal Recording by Shaureaa Aagarwal Student Project by former Recording Studio co-op: “Almost Heaven” by Zac Kerwin |
| 5. Music Video: A short film that integrates a song with imagery, including archival/public domain footage, and is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. They are primarily made to market and promote the sale of music recordings.
a. Music Industry MUSI 3333 (Spring 2019) | Faculty: David Herlihy Student Projects: “Kaleidoscope” Music Video by The Noise Above | “Got to Feel It” by caliibri |
| 6. News Report: Information about current event that can be transmitted via different media or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events.
a. Journalism 3305-3 (Fall 2019) | Faculty: Michael Beaudet (Fall 2019) Assignment: Mini-documentary – news packages that the students will be developing throughout the semester. Student Projects: Caribbean American Foundation News Report Documentary project from JRNL 5314 section (Spring 2020) | Soccer’s Last Stand: COVID 19’s Effect on Sports (From Elly Jackson’s Advanced Writing in the Disciplines’ SpeakUP! Podcast) |
| 7. Oral History: A field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.
a. English 2740 Writing and Community Engagement (Spring 2016) | Faculty: Ellen Cushman |
| 8. Photo Essay: A set or series of photographs that are made to create series of emotions in the viewer. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small comments to full text essays illustrated with photographs.
Examples from FixthePhoto.com: Indigenous Transitions, by Hannah Reyes | Resistance by David Moore |
| 9. Podcast: An episodic series of spoken word digital audio files that a user can download to a personal device for easy listening. It usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event.
Digital Media Toolkit Information Northeastern Assignments: a. AFAM 1225 16350 Gender, Race & Medicine (Fall 2020) | Faculty: Moya Bailey Assignment | Student Projects b. Art & Architecture LARC 2230 | Cities, Landscape and Modern Culture (Fall 2018) | Faculty: Nick Brown Student Project: Episode from “Landscape Dialogues” Podcast c. Advanced Writing in the Disciplines ENG 3304/06/43 (Spring 2019 & 2020) | Faculty: Elly Jackson Student Project: Advanced Writing in the Discipline’s SpeakUP! Podcast Website |
| 10. Public Service Announcement: A message in the public interest disseminated without charge, with the objective of raising awareness of, and changing public attitudes and behavior towards, a social issue.
Examples: During his daily coronavirus briefing, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his daughter, Mariah, announced the finalists for a public service announcement contest on why to wear masks in public. |
| 11. Remediation: The re-presentation of material in one medium through another. In the context of the classroom, remediation assignments ask students to take a text in one form (either their own or by someone else) and transform it into another medium, preserving the essential features of the original while adapting it to the affordances and audience of the new form.
a. English 1111 (Spring 2014) | Faculty: Kathleen Kelly |
| 12. Sound Sculpture: an intermedia and time-based art form in which sculpture or any kind of art object produces sound, or the reverse (in the sense that sound is manipulated in such a way as to create a sculptural as opposed to temporal form or mass).
a. Video ARTD3480 (Fall 2019) | Faculty: David Tames |
| 13. Soundtrack: Recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game.
a. Film Music MUSC1113 (Spring 2020) | Faculty: Matt McDonald b. Music, Technology, and Audience Music MUSI 2549 (Spring 2014) | Faculty: Andrew Mall |
| 14. Visual Essay: A language for storytelling in any medium, and it is the writing form most closely representing the action filmed in a movie.
a. English 2780: Visual Writing: Writing Visuals (Fall 2018) | Faculty: Somy Kim |
| 15. Voice–over: A production technique where a voice, that is not part of the narrative, is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. The voice-over is read from a script and may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice talent.
a. Journalism 3305-3 (Fall 2018) | Faculty: Mike Beaudet Student Project: Caribbean American Foundation News Report Documentary project from JRNL 5314 section (Spring 2020) |