Tech Tuesday: Putting Convergence into Practice in the Mass Comm Course

[heather_halter]

Media examples are crucial when teaching a mass communication course. Luckily, LaunchPad for Media Essentials has a wealth of samples available for your students to view so that you can practice convergence in addition to teaching it!

LaunchPad for Media Essentials has over 50 video clips with accompanying short answer questions to help students think critically about the topics discussed. We have several clips per chapter, organized by chapter, so it’s easy to assign based on what you’re teaching in class that week.

Our videos range from interviews with the chairman of the FCC to learn more about Media and Democracy and Net Neutrality, to clips from Pop Culture including Saturday Night Live, Transformers, or the music video for Uptown Funk. These videos give a behind the scenes look at media and issues that will help students understand how the media works.

In addition to our video library, you can also upload any video or audio clip saved on your Computer or embed a video from YouTube using our video assignment tool, which allows for time based commenting.

Additional suggested videos are available in the Instructor Resources Manual, which can be found under the resource button in LP.

LaunchPad for Media Essentials also includes our game-like quizzing tool LearningCurve to motivate students and adapt to their needs based on their performance. LearningCurve includes reporting tools and metrics help teachers get a handle on what their class knows and doesn’t know. There are also two pre-made traditional quizzes for each chapter, which can be used in conjunction with LearningCurve.

If you’re interested in seeing LaunchPad in action, please view the brief screencast below, and be sure to schedule a demonstration with Learning Solutions Specialist Heather Halter http://www.meetme.so/HeatherKimball.

Video Link : 1838

You can access LaunchPad for Media Essentials here: http://www.macmillanhighered.com/launchpad/mediaessentials3e/ To get access, enter your email address in the box that says “Request Instructor Access.”