First Term

Writing Skills for New Media

Communications 165 is intended to foster writing and presentation skills for work in the new media industries. The course encourages students to explore techniques and career trends in technical and professional writing.

Interactive Information Design

Students are introduced to the key concepts and characteristics that enable effective communication through interactive media, beginning with a survey of interactive communications, including e-learning. The course progresses to an introduction to the key aspects of strategic planning as they relate to the design and implementation of interactive communications systems, focusing particularly on information design.

System Diagnostics and Support

A computer system is an excellent vehicle for developing analytical skills. This course uses the student workstation as the subject for learning about operating systems, their components and subsystems. Diagnostics and software utilities are used to illustrate and reinforce concepts. Students maintain their workstation and network resources; they form online expert groups to share their knowledge and provide user support to their peers.

HTML and CSS Authoring

This course explores the fundamental technologies underlying content creation for the World Wide Web. All Web documents are created with Hypertext Markup Language, which allows composition of page elements and imparts structure and meaning to the information. Cascading Style Sheets language is used to control the presentation of the content, allowing sophisticated page formatting and text styling. Particular attention is paid to proper use of these languages and current industry standards.

Interactive Graphics

Adobe Photoshop has many uses, from photo retouching to creating dramatic special effects graphics, to enhancing the look and feel of web pages. This course takes students through basic to intermediate aspects of the program, exploring its tools and features as students work through graphics projects. The use of Photoshop as a tool for Web designers is emphasized throughout.

Visual Design

This course provides students with an understanding of effective visual communication and the ability to apply that understanding to the creation of interactive media projects. Particular attention is given to the development of graphic layouts suitable for presentation media, such as interactive presentation and web delivery.

Contemporary Issues

This course examines the cultural, ethical, political, economic and aesthetic issues arising with the increasing use of computers. Students survey print and electronic media to research current comment on these issues; synthesize and analyze their findings; and present their work in both written and oral formats.

Introduction to Audio

This course provides students with an introduction to sound as an element in interactive design. It provides students with the ability to apply basic production techniques for digital audio. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to sample and edit audio, synchronize audio to images, and prepare optimized versions of audio files for interactive delivery.