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ORU Prepares Students for Future Media
"Future Media is a class for students in any major who desire to learn the cutting-edge trends in the areas of graphic design, media, and music technology. Students will explore various technology careers and trends projected into the future," said Wendy Shirk, dean of the School of Arts and Cultural Studies.
The worldwide Web and technological change require that every student compete head-to-head with anyone with an Internet connection. The new challenge is to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist that will require technologies not yet invented in order to solve problems that have not yet been recognized.
Future Media will address trends in technology and new careers. Faculty from the music technology, graphic design, and multimedia programs will team-teach a three-credit-hour course for students in all majors.
Some of the topics to be covered in this new class include:
- The skills, attitudes, technologies and strategies that young entrepreneurs need to achieve.
- How social networking sites and the unlimited knowledge available through blogging, Wikipedia, Second Life and other online environments can be used to an advantage.
- How students can prepare for the rising trend of being replaced by a computer or outsourcing to other countries.
- How the explosive popularity of video games may affect the future job market.
- What students can do to think in new, creative ways in any career.
- How online classes can be used effectively for continued learning.
- How expensive technologies can be implemented in a way that the return on investment is worth the initial cost.
Another exciting aspect of this class is an option to attend the largest annual international gathering of 20,000 professionals and students in Los Angeles during the August Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) convention.
