Bob King, a faculty member in UNCSA's Undergraduate Academic Program, writes . . . . . . I've already directly applied some of what I gained from the ARTStem conversations and materials in the required "Digital Media for the Artist" class this year (**"Digital Media for the Artist" is a course required of all UNCSA undergraduates during their first year). . . . I decided to incorporate a short film we'd watched during the summer ARTStem session, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives (for more on this, see ARTStem participant Matt Bulluck's reflection). After they saw the film, I was surprised and delighted to see the significant traction that developed around it in terms of students wanting to talk more about, and learn more about, this concept. Ostensibly, this material had nothing to do with preparing them to be art professionals, etc., yet they were just plain interested. Of course I'm sure it helped that the protagonist is a musician, the film was well edited, etc. But even these factors sort of underscore the point that good current content in the sciences, well-presented and appropriately used in our courses, could be a huge plus for students. Anyway, I mention the movie in two course documents. One in the introduction to a digital-story I tell students in order to talk with them about the Liberal Arts, and also to provide an example of the type of digital-story they will be involved in telling later in the class. This mention is at: http://sites.google.com/site/mediastudiesnow/storylines-and-heartstrings. I also reference ARTStem in my DMA Instructor's Blog -- the post is called Electric Soup: http://digital-bob-class.blogspot.com/2009/09/so-were-having-conversation.html
