Robert McCaffrey, professor of digital media

Robert McCaffrey, professor of digital media, used his 2015-2016 Sue Luzadder Chair in Communications to purchase an interactive LCD screen system to use with the journalism media production class. The class it was intended to accompany didn’t make the cut in the spring semester, but the equipment will be used as part of a revised Valencia Voice (student newspaper) starting this fall (2016).

“The students will learn how to send content to the device and we will test it in different locations on East Campus to see if we can connect the stories of the student journalists with a student audience on campus.”

Although it was bought primarily for the student journalists, this device will likely have a secondary benefit as a platform for the interactive design courses in the department. It gives students a different input device for which they can imagine and design interactive products.

“You can think of the device as a giant iPad. We can program it to run certain content, but then users can touch the screen to interact with the content. That might mean stopping a currently running story and starting a different one, or thumbing through a photo gallery, or tapping on a Twitter feed from the college new group, or even rearranging all the content on the screen into a different configuration.”

The students are really excited about the potential of the screen. One of the most active ideas at the moment is to create a ‘Know Your Candidates’ interactive news project in time for the presidential election.