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Transforming Assignments: Digital Literacy Examples SEE BELOW FOR LINK TO NEW VERSION

NOTICE: An updated and expanded collection of examples is now available at http://adobe.ly/3ieuyfg

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So you have an assignment to complete, and can choose any genre or format you like to get your work done. Should you make a magazine, a film, a poster, a podcast, a website, or a mobile application? How can you pick the best genre, format, and media approach when it’s up to you to choose?

Adobe Creative Cloud helps you use the industry's best digital communications tools to create and share outstanding academic work in any class, in any discipline, anywhere across the curriculum. The best way to accomplish this, the best way to get your work done, is to focus first on questions such as:

  • What problem do I need to help solve?
  • What does my community, organization, classmates, or collaborators need?
  • What do I want to learn?
  • What knowedge do I want to produce and share?

Tips on where to begin

Don't re-invent assignments - provide alternative submission options
Up-level traditional assignments and projects in creative ways
Leverage student curiosity and excitement to bring new life to the classroom
Guide students to effective resources for demonstrating new digital literacy skills

Some Writing Assignment Examples

Literary/Media Analysis

This project draws upon media-specific analysis to look at agency and the cultural relevancy (particularly issues of representation) of the e-lit game Alter Ego. This project was created using Adobe Spark.

Software: Adobe Spark

Class: 200-level course (Digital Literacy Studies)

Video Project

In this project, students were asked to create a digital remix that offered a response, in some interesting capacity, to the guiding inquiry of the course: What is (y)our relationship with technology? This project does so by bringing together a video on suicide/depression and recasting it as being connected to the representations (and impressions) of self that are crafted in social media venues (and the related pressures of such). Project created using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Software: Premiere Pro CC

Class: 200-level course (Intro to Digital Rhetoric)

Check out Andrew's video below

Interactive Webtext

The assignment, which took shape from Gregory L. Ulmer’s work in Electronic Monuments, and asked students to create online, interactive monuments. These monuments were intended to draw critical attention to a civic and/or cultural issue the students found pressing. Project created with Adobe Photoshop.

Software: Adobe Photoshop, Wix.com

This digital monument project was created for Dr. Justin Hodgson’s RHE 330c: Digital Monumentality course.

OH, THE THINGS THEY MAKE!

This came from an in-class prompt where students were asked to create Photoshop images as a way of explaining or responding to or representing critical ideas from a selected course reading. Created with Adobe Photoshop

Software: Photoshop

Class: 200-level course (Intro to Digital Rhetoric)

Winter in My Country

Tianqi Cai, a student in my class last summer, produced an expository writing assignment through a community/history discourse, but did so as a video project. She produced the audio and video elements on separate devices. Did her storyboarding and writing on another. And then used Premiere Pro CC as just assemblage platform (minus a few edits). Comparing the video to the original essay provides a meaningful comparison between the two.

Software: Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere Pro

Class: 200-level course (Expository Writing)

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

STEAM Examples

Electrical Engineering
Winners - Focus on Creative Inquiry Digital Competition at Clemson

Software used: Lightroom, Illustrator, Spark, InDesign, Acrobat, Premiere

Research Poster

Students at Northwestern University were tasked to create a visually rich and scaleable poster that could be used both online and for poster printing; from a few inches in size to 3' by 4 '.

Software: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat

Class: Materials Science Engineering

Course Website

Students were tasked with creating and socializing a new course for improving communications skills for scientists and engineers. The students needed to build a full featured website quickly that could be scaled up as the site evolved.

Software: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver

Biological Sciences

Students from Dr. Richard Blob’s lab at Clemson . Students use video, 3D rendering and graphic illustrations to help find patterns in movement data.

Software: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, InDesign, Acrobat Pro

Interactive 3D Report

Adobe Acrobat Pro can import and integrate multiple media types including 3D objects. Once created, These 3D objects can be viewed and manipulated and marked up directly within the free Adobe Reader

Software: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Acrobat Pro

Visualizing Volumes of 3D images - Understanding Calculus

High School Students in Connecticut develop imagery to better visualize how complex volumes are described with Calculus. These students worked in a multi-disciplinary environment that blended Art, Mathematics, and Science to understand the relevance of each in the real world.

Software: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Acrobat Pro

Business and Marketing

Rapid Prototyping of Applications

Students at Washington State University participated in a Creative Jam where teams of students from multiple disciplines compete live for 2 hours to develop and build a prototype application based on an extemporaneous theme chosen by local industry and academic judges.

Software: Adobe XD, Adobe Creative Cloud

What is Adobe XD?

Student Portfolios

Students using Creative Cloud have access to Adobe Portfolio. Adobe Portfolio is optimized for showcasing your creative work. Choose from a selection of layouts created with a portfolio in mind, designed to fit any creative field, from art, illustration, photography, graphic design, fashion, architecture, motion graphics, to web design, business, and more. Portfolios can include the components for a multi-modal delivery that demonstrate digital fluency.

Valentina Arismendi - UNC's Hussman School of Journalism and Media

Software: Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Portfolio

Additional Learning Resources

Explore this new practical guide created by Dr. Todd Taylor, Professor of English at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Adobe Creative Cloud Across the Curriculum: A Guide for Students and Teachers is a rich online resource for students who want to tackle their academic work in innovative, digital ways and teachers in all disciplines who want to incorporate digital assignments into their coursework.

Click on the link below to learn more.

Explore Adobe Tutorials from Beginner to Advanced

Creative Cloud Projects for Students

Learn the basics, or refine your skills with tutorials designed to inspire.

Get Noticed = Get Hired

As part of Adobe's Creative Cloud, the Behance Student Show is an exclusive community for current students to share work and gain exposure. Search by discipline or major - Upload projects or works in progress today to gain real-time feedback, make connections, and even get hired.

Created By
Steve Adler
Appreciate

Credits:

Special thanks to Todd Taylor; Professor UNC Chapel Hill and Justin Hodgson; Professor Indiana University