ITaP video production service helps the virtual classroom feel like the real thing
When the mid-semester switch to online learning hit Connie Doebele’s “Presidential Communication in an Election Year” course, the former TV producer felt like she knew a lot about delivering content remotely, but she also had a secret weapon: ITaP’s Video and Multimedia Production Services, managed by Ed Dunn.
Doebele, the managing director of the Center for C-SPAN Scholarship & Engagement, co-taught the course with C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb. Originally, Doebele met with students in ITaP’s video conferencing classroom in Stewart Center, while Lamb joined the course remotely from his office in Washington, D.C.
When classes were forced to shift to remote delivery due to COVID-19, Doebele worried that her students
would lose their ability to host lively discussions not only with Lamb but with the presidential historians and scholars who served as the course’s guest speakers.
“Without Ed and his team, I don’t know if we would have been able to pull it off,” said Doebele after the semester ended – citing how the ITaP team helped set up web conferencing for students and speakers, added rolling video footage into live feeds and coordinated presentations. “They made it possible for us to continue class in the vein we had originally wanted, and they made it easy to do so.”
ITaP Video and Multimedia Production Services has a long history of helping to connect classrooms by providing a range of video production services, including:
- Classroom recording by providing cameras and operators to the classroom space to provide a true “in class” video experience.
- Digital editing to add visual effects, animations, narration, music and sound effects.
- Two video conferencing rooms that can allow groups as large as 25 to gather, while still following social distancing recommendations.
- A full TV production studio equipped for both taped and live productions.
With online learning sure to be a component of many instructors plans this summer and fall, Dunn says his team is available across the university to develop content and strategies for maximizing video’s ability to match what happens in a face-to-face classroom, as well as help faculty setup virtual classrooms.
“We’re really the experts at making an online environment feel as much as you can make it feel like a traditional classroom,” said Dunn.
Doebele agrees and says working with the video production team went beyond making sure things were recorded properly.
“As a former television producer, I know that it can be hard to communicate your vision to another person, and for them to see it how you see it,” said Doebele. “But he really listens before he tells you how we can execute it, that’s really one of his greatest strengths.”
Doebele says her experience with the ITaP Video Production and Multimedia team was so good, that she’s currently in negotiations to have it handle the Center for C-SPAN Scholarship & Engagement fall research conference, which brings researchers from around the country to Purdue.
“We’ve decided to take the conference online partially because we trust that they can provide us with the technology and expertise to make this conference as close to in-person as possible,” Doebele said.
Click here to learn more about how ITaP Video and Multimedia Production Services can help your course, team or department. To request a consultation, send email to Ed Dunn at dunn@purdue.edu.