News & Blog
Thursday, February 23, 2017

Another Resolution? Learning a Language in the New Year!

By Madhurya Manohar

Hello, blog readers! I am an international graduate student at the School of Communication. Through writing for the MMLC, I get to explore the different shades of digital humanities and language learning. Learning something new is always at the top of my list—and if you know me, you know my love for checklists, bucket lists, and resolutions. Learning a language, however, is the one that keeps getting away. So, with a renewed energy for 2017 comes a revamped resolution to get back on the horse.

We are moving swiftly into the New Year and if you continue to cling onto those resolutions, then kudos to you! If you are looking for a change in track, here is one you may have heard before: Learn a new language! Full post

Friday, January 27, 2017

Voice Over Recording Suites for Productivity and Creativity

By Audrey Valbuena

Academia often upholds its roots in paper and pen with more traditional forms of scholarship. Yet, to prepare students for the working world beyond college might mean to further embrace video and media, not only as something to be consumed, but as something to be produced.

In moments of reflection, I find myself pondering the possibility of doing more than writing an essay – maybe creating a video or podcast instead. Perhaps, instead of watching videos, I could be creating them. If other Northwestern students also feel this way, perhaps authoring a video essay or an informational podcast could be enough to end academic nonchalance in students and bring them into the exciting world of digital media. This sort creation through digital learning could have the capabilities to not only deepen understanding of content through creative synthesis, but serve to combine traditional education with technological learning, leaving students with additional skills needed to be successful in the increasingly technological future. Full post

Friday, November 18, 2016

MMLC’s New Student Employees

By Audrey Valbuena

The MMLC’s student employees currently occupy positions from lab aide to developer. Some have a knowledge of the equipment and how it runs, while others use their knowledge of coding to develop projects going on within the MMLC. Cecile-Anne Sison, who hires most of the MMLC student employees, explains how the center integrates this youth in the workplace. Full post

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

MMLC Welcomes Visitors to Open House

By Audrey Valbuena

With the start of a new year comes the advent of new technology, or in the case of the MMLC, new facilities. The MMLC recently held an open house, debuting its range of technology and new collaborative spaces. With nearly 100 people in attendance, the MMLC staff welcomed faculty from varying departments, some MMLC student alumni and the Dean of Weinberg himself, Adrian Randolph, to explore its new space in Kresge Hall. Full post

Monday, June 20, 2016

Excitement About our Move

By Matthew Taylor

As the Spring 2016 term closes, we celebrate another great year of creative and scholarly pursuits by our team, the faculty who call upon us, and, most of all, the students whose classes and projects often take shape in our labs and studios, including:

  • Developing a virtual walking tour of Ancient Rome in Chicago, including in-depth video explorations of various sites
  • Learning how to research and author online maps to chart Shakespeare’s Circuits around the globe
  • Honing skills to ‘write’ audio essays, including one on Tom Dooley which won the History Department’s annual Joseph Barton Essay Award
  • Adding 84 new entries to the WildWords dictionary
  • Taking one of the 1,965 online language placement tests processed this year
  • Being in a group of 597 fellow students who perfected and evaluated their language pronunciation using DiLL in our computer classrooms

Full post

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Putting IT To Use: One Button Studio

By Cecile-Anne Sison

Since the MMLC has been in the Library, we’ve really been taking advantage of our proximity to our peers. I thought I would start a blog series called “Putting IT To Use” about how a language professor or other Humanists could incorporate some of the new (or at least new to you!) technology Northwestern has.

IMG_2969First up is the One Button Studio (OBS), which is similar to the Lightboard studio in practice.  A lot of units will most likely talk about these two studios in terms of how you can shoot segments to use in MOOCs or flipping/blending/hybridizing your courses. And they’d be right! It’s easy to use – all you need is a thumbdrive (oh and BTDubs did you know the MMLC has thumbdrives available for check out?) to save your recordings onto.

Full post

Monday, December 28, 2015

Humanities and Computer Science — What?

By Matthew Taylor

It’s holiday time. Time for big dinners, friends, family, and cheer. At the dinner table there might be those half-interested questions of “What do you do?” or “How is your work going?” This month, after attending the 10th annual Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science (DHCS), followed by an exciting talk by Mark Guzdial on how to boost society’s computer literacy, my response will be energetic and as clear as Ralph Parker asking Santa for a Red Ryder BB rifle : “Work has never been better! Increased access to tools and digital literacy are critical to scholarship and instruction of the humanities, and I’m happy to be a part of it!”

But it’s never that easy.

Full post

Thursday, December 17, 2015

DemoCats I – Sylvie, Mochi, Kuma and Luna

By Cecile-Anne Sison

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In what will hopefully become a recurring feature for the MMLC blog, our pet cats (and our colleagues’ pet cats) test out the equipment that the MMLC has available for checkout. If you have a tech-leaning Northwestern-affiliated cat who would like to become part of our team, please feel free to shoot me a message in the comments.

 

Full post

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Students Produce Virtual Walking Tour of Ancient Rome in Chicago

By Matthew Taylor

Students of a recent course taught by Classics Professor Francesca Tataranni titled “Ancient Rome in Chicago” have completed an impressive virtual walking tour that explores how the city showcases its engagement with the classical past through its streets, buildings, and monuments.

A student-produced virtual walking tour highlights ways in which the classical world is memorialized in Chicago. The virtual tour uses StoryMapJS from the Northwestern University Knight Lab.

The 300-level research seminar course was designed to allow students to take ownership of their learning through knowledge creation, and to explore the nature of the humanities in the digital age. Full post