Our Services

Workshops

The Digital ACT Studio offers a variety of workshops for students, faculty, and staff to promote and enhance digital literacy and rhetorical effectiveness. The list of workshops on this page are all prepared by the Digital ACT Studio and can be scheduled with very little notice. Please provide as much advance notice as possible, as we custom tailor the workshop to meet the requirements of the assignment.

To request a workshop, please email the studio’s inbox at digitalactstudio@uncg.edu.

Orientations

Multiliteracy Centers Orientation: An introduction to the Multiliteracy Centers at UNCG: the Writing Center and the Speaking Center. These orientations generally take place in the Moore Humanities and Research Administration (MHRA) building, where the Speaking Center and Writing Center are located. Usually 30 minutes for introductions, but some instructors schedule a Speaking Center activity as well.

DMC Orientation: A guided tour of the Digital Media Commons, located on the Lower Level of Jackson Library. This tour introduces students to the spaces and services that are available to assist them with digital projects. Usually 30 minutes, but can be combined with other workshops to fill 60 or 75 minutes.

General Design

We offer a general design workshop that covers four design principles and four design elements. The principles are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity; the elements are color, images, typography, and layout. Both 30 minute and hour-long versions of this workshop are available.

Slide Presentations/PowerPoint

In this workshop, we cover the connotations of certain design choices for slide presentations like font choice and color. Using examples throughout, we discuss the ways to effectively select imagery and structure the visual aspects of a slide deck. We conduct this presentation using PowerPoint, but the design principles work across formats. However, we’re happy to select a specific platform (like Google Slides or Prezi) if students will be using that platform exclusively.

Websites and E-Portfolios

Effective E-Portfolios: In this example-heavy workshop, we discuss the ways that effective e-portfolios create a professional persona and ways that ineffective e-portfolios send the wrong arguments about you. Topics covered include structure, organization, layout, selecting images, and balancing text with other design elements.

Web Design: This workshop covers fundamental elements of web design, including building a design language, crafting a clear navigational structure, and creating cohesion across pages.

Posters

Top 5 Poster Problems: A short (15- to 30-minute) presentation that covers the most common problems with designing posters for academic and research conferences, with illustrative examples of each.

Poster Design: A longer (60-minute) workshop that discusses the basics of crafting an effective poster for an academic conference. Included topics are structure, layout, writing style, and visual style.

Video

Video Pre-Production: This workshop introduces students to the technical aspects of digital video, highlights potential production problems, and covers the concept of storyboarding. This workshop—usually 60 minutes, though it can be done in 30 minutes—provides students the basics needed to be successful when they begin to produce their videos.

Video Post-Production: An overview of the possibilities of editing and an exploration of the rhetorical impact of those choices. Concepts covered include transitions, cuts, background music, color, and layered composition. Often, this workshop works best as a 60-minute workshop, but the concepts can be covered briefly in 30 minutes.

Storyboarding for Video and Visual Projects: This hands-on workshop introduces students to the concept of storyboarding and then gets them making their own storyboards. This workshop is generally done in 60 minutes and utilizes pre-made storyboards on which the students draw. DACTS can also supply Legos and other 3D objects to do a 3D storyboarding workshop if desired.

Planning Research Projects

Storyboarding Research Projects: This interactive workshop utilizes a different type of storyboarding—breaking down multiple elements of a project onto individual cards—to help students scaffold large research assignments or to create order from the potential chaos of non-linear narratives or research. DACTS will supply notecards for this 60-minute workshop.

Infographics

Effective Infographics: In 30 minutes, DACTS covers the most common issues with student-created infographics and how to avoid them. Frequently, this is the first portion of a workshop done with the DMC on how to use an online infographic creation tool.