music credit | Ray LaMontagne – For the Summer

1. A building on the ASU Tempe Campus.
2. A plant that can be identified with the building.
3. Text headings using ASU’s branding guidelines.

Click play below to see the final result. Click here to go to the Flickr set for details on each photo.

I also plotted each photo on a Flickr map so anyone who is interested can locate the exact spot on campus. Click the image below for a closer look.

This was a very fun project, and the community support on the 30 Days of Creativity Blog, Flickr and Twitter were great and helped keep me motivated. Here are a few things I learned.

1. The ASU Tempe campus is bigger than many small towns.  The architecture, people, plants, and general atmosphere are beautiful. I’ve worked on this campus for nearly 4 years, and this project forced me to explore all the cool little spots that I may have otherwise never found. My favorite plant discoveries were the Banana Tree in the secret garden, and the Pumpkin Patch near Hayden Hall. My favorite buildings were Danforth Chapel and the hidden area of the Bateman Science Center. My top 3 favorite photos in order are Biodesign, ISTB and Health Services.
2. I now know the names of 30 new arizona plants. Finding and matching these plants was one of the toughest parts of the project.  Google only got me so far, I’m still trying to find the names of a few (Thanks Sandy).
3. I was able to practice using ASU’s branding guidelines.  Part of my job is applying design principles to online course projects and associated visuals.  This project forced me to better learn these guidelines and put them into practice.

To create these photos I used the following tools.

1. Canon EOS 40D digital SLR camera with either the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 wide angle lens, or the Canon f1.4 50mm lens.
2. Adobe Lightroom 2 for organizing and editing photos.
3. Adobe CS5 to add text and make additional edits.
4. Flickr to host, organize and map the photos.

Finally, I really enjoyed the project and recommend it to anyone who is looking for an excuse to be creative, learn a new tool or subject matter.  Please leave any questions in the comments area, and have fun creating!

• Camera with Tripod
• Softbox for lighting and a reflector
• Backdrop (optional)
• Wireless remote
• Laptop with Camera to USB
• Canon EOS utility CD (comes with your DSLR)
• Props from the dollar store

In the end we are really happy with the results.  We ended up with about 250 pictures of our family and friends we wouldn’t otherwise have. Furthermore, everyone really had fun with it (especially after the booze started flowing). I was surprised at some of the creativity. Here is the final result to a bit of music.

Photo Booth from sean hobson

Ikea Dresser Time Lapse from sean hobson on Vimeo.

South Mountain from sean hobson on Vimeo.

Blackboard is the learning management system (LMS) of choice the University’s I’ve worked for, and is central to online course delivery.  While the content is typically designed to be LMS agnostic, other key components including quizzes, student enrollment, assignments, grade center and discussion boards are typically housed in Blackboard.  Plone, Moodle, Sakai, Drupal and Google Sites are free alternatives.

Most instructors come to the plate with some sort of slide materials as a starting point.  This often serves as a content outline for lecture delivery.  The biggest challenges are 1) addressing overall look and feel 2) redesigning text and layout for online delivery and 3) making presentations more relevant and interesting to todays students who growing up in a digital nation. To do this we are defaulting to trying to incorporate other multimedia components like web videos, flash, stock images and custom animations.  PowerPoint is also the starting point for Articulate and Adobe Presenter listed below.  Free Alternatives.

Photoshop is a tool I use nearly every day.  Whether I need to create a course banner, video wrapper, background, a logo like the ones on the left or simply resize a photo Photoshop serves as my default .  I use Photoshop as part of the Adobe e-Learning suite.  Free Alternatives.

Filezilla is a FTP client.  Most of the content we create is published, hosted on a server and linked through a Learning Management system like Blackboard.  Filezilla is my tool of choice for transfering files between my CPU and our servers. Free Alternatives.

As an instructional designer I am often asked to play the role of various disciplines, including multimedia specialist.  When asked to do basic video production I default to Apple iMovie 09.  This tool is simple and powerful at the same time. It allows me to work in with HD codecs and integrate seamlessly with video sharing sites like Vimeo and Youtube.  I sometimes use Final Cut Studio if I need advaced graphics and editing capabilities.  Free Alternatives.

Respondus is my go to tool for creating and uploading quizzes, surveys and exams to Blackboard.  This is mostly a time saving tool as the built in Blackboard tool for quiz creation is a nightmare! Respondus takes most of the hard work out of it allowing you to easily go from .doc or .txt to Blackboard without wasting a year of your life.

Articulate is a relatively new tool I’ve been incorporating into some of our more custom development projects.  It serves as a PPT ribbon that packages slides, audio, interactions and quizzes into a more aesthetically pleasing flash package for delivery.  This product is expensive and sometimes buggy, but the output looks great.  Here are some examples from the Articulate website. They also offer a free 30 day trial which is nice.

Adobe Presenter is a PowerPoint is also a PPT plugin that allows users to record Audio and Video to their slide presentations.  This tool is pretty easy to use and setup so it’s often times a default for instructors who want to create audio narrated slide presentation on their own time.

Obviously these aren’t the only or best tools available, they are just what I use “today”. ASU Online also has some great Top Tools for Teaching Online if your still not satisfied. What tools are you using?  Add your favorites to the comments area.

Here is Flavors.me/seanhobson

Sean Hobson's Flavors.me site

Backyard Saturday from sean hobson on Vimeo.

Looking for projects to help me learn Final Cut Pro this video was filmed, edited and uploaded in one Saturday in November.