Apple Digital Tools Help Students’ Voices
Be Heard
Profiles in Success: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Apple Provides End-to-End Production Process
“Applications like the iLife suite position students to investigate the world outside their own; the products actually become a gateway into a place that students normally wouldn’t go.”
— Maria Lovett
Most students in the Writing with Video class use Apple notebooks and iMovie to compose and edit their video projects (those who do not have access to the notebooks work on iMac and Power Mac computers in UIUC’s Mac labs). For audio editing, they employ a combination of GarageBand and a third-party product. Final projects are published on iTunes U, creating an end-to-end process from creation to publication (iWeb is also being evaluated as a publishing option).
Lovett believes much of the success of the course has to do with the Apple products’ ability to support her students’ self-expression, and their seamless integration with each other. “The Apple products — especially the iLife applications — are so easy to use. Within the first week, students are pretty fluent in iMovie. Pages helps students who know nothing about design to organize their journals, and have them look great. Plus, it’s effortless for students to include movies in their documents. Keynote allows students to pull everything into great presentations for the peer critiques. And, iDVD makes it really easy for everyone to produce very professional-looking portfolios of their work.”
Digital Technologies Engage, Empower Students
Before joining the UIUC faculty Lovett taught filmmaking to many community groups, especially underserved students and those struggling in the classroom. She believes the potential of technology to engage all students — and to give them a no-limits method of self-expression — cannot be overestimated.
“I taught so many kids who were failing out of school, and just plain not going to school,” Lovett recalls. “When we gave them notebooks and the types of tools that Apple offers, these same kids would spend hours making the most sophisticated audio mixes, and amazing video projects. Applications like the iLife suite position students to investigate the world outside their own; the products actually become a gateway into a place that students normally wouldn’t go. The challenge is providing equal technology access. But those who have the notebooks and the Apple tools, it’s incredible how much time they’re willing to spend on their projects.”
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