When the College of Education & Integrative Studies needed a presence on the internet for their Masters in Educational Multimedia Program, they turned to I&IT Learning for a creative solution.
The Educational Multimedia program offers coursework that leads to a Master's degree in Education. It's focus is on the creative integration of graphics, animation, video, audio, text, and interactivity for educational and trainining settings based on the sound principles of instructional design.
This program is designed as a two-year graduate degree program for working professionals with flexibility for those who are interested in completing their degree quicker or over a longer period of time.
The program's website now serves as a marketing tool as well as an inspiration to it's existing and future students on the creative use of multimedia for delivering information.
"I found them to be very creative, highly experienced, extremely knowledgeable not just technically but in terms of project management, and kept a very professional but friendly relationship throughout the work until it was completed " said Dr.Shannaz Lotfipour, Professor of Educational Multimedia and Co-Chair of the Department of Education, after the project was completed.
"...the web site is so professional; the graphics, the design, the interactivity... it will definitely help to attract more students to the program."
If you have any questions about how you may be a part of this exciting program, please visit the site at:
http://www.csupomona.edu/~ceis/emm
You may also contact Dr. Shannaz Lotfipour (slotfipour@csupomona.edu) , or call 909-869-2358.
The Challenge
To create an online presence that would help increase the visibility of the Masters in Educational Multimedia program to the potential applicants. The website should ultimately lead directly to higher student enrollment.
In addition to it's marketing purpose the site was to double-up as an inspration or examplary piece in the use of creative integration of graphics, animation, video, audio, text, and interactivity for current and future students.
The site was to be delivered in a short time frame of at most three months.
The Solution
The Learning team used Adobe Flash 8.0 as the foundation to deliver a website that was completely interactive. The website featured success stories from graduate and presently enrolled students to deliver positive student opinions about the program. It also featured a welcome video from the program director in the home page. For the interface, photography from the university campus was used to create a new york street-style world of billboards and posters that the user would explore to find information about the program. The website is creative and functional and also features a text variation of the site for accessibility issues.
Behind the Scenes
A little over an eight week period, I&IT Learning took the project from concept to completion. The project was directed by I&IT Learning's Multimedia Developer, Erick Zelaya, who also worked on the design and development of the site. The project started out as a couple of pencil sketches which were presented to the client for review. When direction was set, a series of photocopies of real pictures were used to determine placement of posters and billboards, which where later rendered in photoshop. This step was also necessary for the final design of the interface and layout.
The next step was the photography and video production phase, which involved help from I&IT Learning's MediaVision crew (Terry Hogan, Rick Cass, and Richard Garippo) and photographer (April McKetrick) from I&IT Learning's Studio 6. Video included testimonials from graduate and currently enrolled students, as well as an intro video from the program head Dr. Shannaz Lotfipour. Photography included a 2003 photograph of The Bronco Student Center, a Library Exhitbit of Over 50 Years of Cal Poly Rose Floats, a series of photographs of the Agriscapes Interior, and a shot of the Downtown Center Gallery as a student walks exploring the different exhibited artworks.
To create the interactivity and fluid motion of the website Flash Actionscript 2.0 was used to code what compiled as a unique user experience. Complex math and functions were used to give the site motion including the spining of the Agriscapes interior and to display videos that would play at the user's request.
The video's were captured and clipped with the help of Studio 6 ITAs (Kevin Taber, Claudia Espiritu, and Brian Rigazzi). The videos were then edited and layered with motion graphics using After Effects 7.0.
The last step was to develop a static text version of the site for accessability which was handled by Studio 6 ITA Claudia Espiritu. Images and artwork were used to reflect the look of the Interactive version of the site.
The People Involved
Direction, Video Editing, Motion Design, and Flash Actionscripting: Erick Zelaya
Video Production Team: Terrence Hogan, Rick Cass, Richard Garippo
Custom Photography: April McKettrick
Static Website Design: Claudia Espiritu
Video Capturing and Editing: Kevin Taber, Claudia Espiritu, Brian Rigazzi
Other Photography borrowed from Campus Photographer: Tom Zasadzinski
