> [!summary]+ Summary > This page explains a workshop designed to introduce university faculty to Adobe Rush combined with a design thinking process. Rather than be a technical workshop, the workshop focused on planning/design. I provide background on the design, highlight a central digital tool used, and provide some reflective notes. (See the bottom of this page for the results of this workshop.) # Communicating with Digital Media (CDM): Crafting a Message for Video **Delivery details:** <u>Date</u>: Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Fall 2022 <u>Target audience</u>: University faculty <u>Delivery format</u>: Remote/Zoom <u>Duration</u>: 90 minutes ## About the workshop In this workshop, I designed it keeping in mind that most subject-matter-experts with a little technical skill in something like video production will most often record some content/video, then think through what and how they will communicate with it. I wanted to flip this around to the right way where they are planning and designing the video first, then recording content and producing. Key to this was following a process of **design thinking** where faculty could learn to identify the idea, conceptually plan for it, record something (small), then work with Adobe Rush to make the message. The workshop had the following description and learning objectives. ### Description > Are you interested in creating video for your teaching or research? Do you find yourself wondering, where or how to begin? In this workshop you will tackle that step in-between identifying and producing an idea for video. Borrowing from a design thinking framework, you will collaborate with experts and peers on ideating a plan for producing a short video. In doing this, you will be introduced to some concepts for designing both learning and media and incorporate them into your pedagogical practice. Central to this session, will be an activity working with Adobe Rush to design and produce a message around a single topic given a collection of assets. ### Learning objectives 1. Express points of interest and reflection in relation to crafting communications with multi-modal digital media. 2. Practice applying steps of empathy, ideation and prototyping in the context of a design thinking framework. 3. Create a prototype educational video with Adobe Rush using various media assets and functionalities. ### Workshop goal **The goal was for participants to think about what it means to communicate digitally, consider alternative ways they could do this, and then to create a prototype.** It was ambitious and there was not enough time for all of this. But this was about getting started and I considered spending most of the time on collaborative planning and design a 'win'. ## Using a digital whiteboard: Miro I used the Liedtka framework — What is?, What if?, What wows? — to guide this workshop. The first stage asked participants to engage in discussion around 3 questions regarding digital communication, their teaching, and their students. After this, the participants were taken into a reflective space on teaching communications and specifically thought about framing communications with video. To support this, a digital whiteboard with [Miro](https://miro.com/) was used. (This is an infinite whiteboard that offers a [free account to education users](https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017730473-Education-plan).) ![[CDM-Adobe-Rush.png]] Participants were given 3 options to contextualize their thinking that included recording their own video, draft a plan with visuals for a video (e.g. storyboard), or use video assets provided. From left-to-right they filled-in virtual stickies on their individual board providing reflections, making an outline, and identifying media assets needed for their video. In the final activity of the workshop, participants took their notes and followed a series of provided steps to work with Adobe Rush. What was nice too, was that sometimes participants would think beyond Adobe Rush and consider how other Adobe apps would be used with Adobe Rush. This was great because this marked thinking with digital fluency. ## 🎯 Results This workshop was repeated multiple times as participants reported liking how it gave them one-on-one guidance and a time to think through video design with others. Additionally, participants enjoyed the guidance on locating royalty free digital assets. Participation was consistently around 10, which was well above the average for departmental workshops.