Knowledge Bites webinar series
Since 2020 the New Media program has offered a series of free Zoom conferences that focus on specific digital skills, from how to code an HTML game to how to make a meme with Photoshop to how to create your first 2d animation. These are not PowerPoint lectures but guided, hands-on exercises that students can do at school or at home on their laptops.
Click on the Archived link of a past conference to view an interactive recording that lets you jump to the topics that interest you.
Jump to Frequently Asked Questions
Making Images with AI
Wednesday 26 April 2023
3:30-4:30pm EDT
Zoom webinar Archived
Generative AI has been expanding the creative possibilities of art and design well before text generators like ChatGPT caught the world’s attention. Given nothing more than a few well-chosen phrases, software like DALLE-2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney can quickly generate never-before seen images that are outlandish or realistic, in styles ranging from photographic to cartoonish. This workshop by New Media’s Aaron Boothroyd will demo a handful of these tools and entertain a discussion about how they might change art education as well as work prospects for creative professionals. This webinar is part of the Learning With AI initiative co-founded by New Media and the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
The Generative Workplace
How AI Is Already Disrupting Familiar Careers
Thursday 20 April 2023
10-11am EDT
Zoom webinar Archived
Generative AI is expected to transform any career that depends on writing, coding, or audiovisual media—in other words, just about all of them. Who better to forecast how workers will adapt to these disruptions than New Media alumni already incorporating AI into their own planning and practice? Co-organized with Learning With AI, this webinar offers reports from working professionals on ways that ChatGPT and Midjourney are having an impact today on business, software, and art.
AI in the Classroom
4 April 2023
3-4pm EDT
Zoom webinar Archived
Should ChatGPT be banned from English class? Should art students be allowed to make images with Midjourney? This webinar will show you how generative AI works and why it raises so many pedagogical and ethical questions. Presenters will also introduce UMaine’s Learning With AI initiative, including resources and a toolkit to help teachers and learners transition to this brave new world.
New Media Careers in 2022
Thursday 20 January
12:30pm-1:30pm EDT
Zoom webinar Archived
How have recent advances in technology and the pandemic changed the way graduates find and get jobs that make creative use of digital media and computing? Following the success of last year’s webinar on the topic, this webinar focuses on discovering new media careers in 2022.
The presenters will be a new set of graduates of the University of Maine’s New Media program. Some work in big cities for household names such as The New York Times; others have founded thriving startups in their home state of Maine.
These alumni will answer your questions, such as:
– Which hard and soft skills are most in demand in 2022?
– How are people interviewing and hiring under COVID?
– How can I turn an idea into a successful startup?
– Is it more useful to cold-email my CV or cultivate my LinkedIn profile?
– Do I have to move to an urban center to get a job, or has remote work changed that?
Code a responsive web page
Monday 6 December 2021 Archived
5-6pm EST
Now that 70% of web browsing is mobile, it’s critical that websites work on phone-sized screens as well as 4K monitors. This hands-on webinar walks participants through applying a powerful open standard called CSS grid that makes it easy to build responsive web pages.
The beauty of CSS grid is that it allows designers to code visually, arranging descriptive words to build complex layouts that scale gracefully between large and small screens.
Participants will use free, online tools to write a responsive web page that can be shared online or used as reference. This Zoom workshop requires nothing more than a browser; no special software or prior web coding experience is required.
NFTs: Myth and Reality
Tuesday 25 May
11am-noon EDT
Zoom webinar Archived
This workshop for high school/community college staff and students will help make sense of the craze over NFTs—crypto-tokens that have helped some digital artists sell their work for thousands and even millions of dollars.
Our conversation will focus on separating NFT myths from NFT reality, including:
* What is an NFT, technically and legally?
* Can selling NFTs help digital artists of any age profit from their work?
* How much does an NFT cost to create, both financially and environmentally?
* Do artists give up the copyright to their art when they sell an NFT?
* Can NFTs serve as a digital collectible to help fundraise for school programs or sports?
Conducting the workshop will be New Media professor Jon Ippolito, a former Guggenheim curator and expert panelist at the symposium convened by Sotheby’s for their first auction of NFT art.
View an interactive recording of the event.
Code a Simple Mobile App
Tuesday 8 December 2020 Completed
Thursday 10 December Archived
11am to noon EST
Zoom webinar
Now that most Internet traffic takes place on mobile devices, the skills needed to code an iPhone or Android app are in high demand. This workshop for high school and community college staff and students will walk participants through the creation of a cross-platform app in the form of a scavenger hunt. This app could be used to motivate students to find items of interest in a physical location (a nearby park) or online site (a museum website).
The app will be based on the free, versatile React Native framework used by Facebook, Instagram, and other prominent companies. Participants will learn the basics of React Native’s HTML-like tags, customize them to fit their objective, and test-drive this new app on their own Android or iOS device.
The workshop leader will be New Media professor Jon Ippolito, who teaches the curriculum’s courses on web and mobile development.
A laptop and recent smartphone are all that is required. The webinar will show participants how to use Expo Snack, a code editor that works entirely online, and that allows users to view their app on the Web or on their phone via a QR code. We recommend that you install the free, lightweight Expo Client app for your iPhone or for your Android phone before the webinar, though you can follow the process without the app.
Some coding experience, preferably in HTML, CSS, and/or JavaScript, is recommended. Anyone who wants to learn more after the session can take advantage of 14 interactive React Native tutorials from the University of Maine’s Just-in-Time Learning platform.
Interested staff and students can register for free.
Discover New Media Careers
Thursday 28 January 2021 Archived
10-11am EST
Zoom webinar
Given that there are more jobs than candidates in new media, the problem is not landing a job so much as choosing from among the many fields that require those skills. This webinar shows participants how to find and get jobs that make creative use of digital media and computing.
The presenters will be recent graduates of the University of Maine’s New Media program who work in fields as diverse as user experience design, web development, and social media marketing. While their companies are based everywhere from Utah to Switzerland, many work remotely from their homes in the New England area.
Our alumni will answer questions such as:
• What skills are employers looking for these days?
• Is it more useful to cold-email my CV or cultivate my LinkedIn profile?
• How are people interviewing and hiring under COVID?
• Do I have to move to an urban center to get a job, or has remote work changed that?
Interested high school staff and students can register for free.
Organize your photos with Adobe Lightroom
Date to be announced
Zoom webinar
Are you overwhelmed with the photos crowding your smartphone and computer? This webinar demonstrates a clever workflow for managing the thousands of photos on all your devices.
Maybe you’ve digitized a trove of vintage sailing prints for your museum but don’t know how to add metadata and share them with others. Or maybe you just can’t find that snapshot you took of your drunk uncle at the New Year’s Eve party. Either way, keeping track of images across desktop and handheld devices is an essential digital curation skill, yet one for which there are a few inexpensive solutions that work at the scale of a large collection.
The technique demonstrated in this workshop combines Adobe Lightroom, which can be purchased inexpensively compared to Adobe’s full Creative Cloud suite, with several choice plug-ins that make it easy to find and access images on your devices or in the cloud.
Leading the webinar is professor Joline Blais of the New Media program at the University of Maine, who teaches courses in digital photography and storytelling. Admission is free; participants are encouraged to follow along if they purchase a copy of Lightroom beforehand.
Interested staff and students can register for free at a link to come. For more information, contact us.
Make Memes on Your Phone
Date to be announced
Zoom webinar
Apart from a means of entertainment and persuasion, memes can be an engaging way to teach techniques for editing digital images. Creating a meme also reveals how easy it is to manipulate appearances with readily available tools, which can prompt a conversation about the historical misuse of such techniques in the service of disinformation or censorship.
This workshop shows participants how to edit one photo into another seamlessly using just a few apps on your iPhone or Android phone. Although the desktop version of Photoshop is a costly application, this workshop will show participants how to use a number of specialized Photoshop apps for smartphones that Adobe makes available for free.
More information will be provided closer to the date. And anyone who wants to learn more graphic design after the session can take advantage of free Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials from the University of Maine’s Just-in-Time Learning platform.
Interested staff and students can register for free at a link to come. For more information, contact us.
FAQ
Who should attend these webinars?
Knowledge Bites webinars are targeted at high school and community college students and staff who are looking to improve their digital skills.
What’s the cost?
They’re free.
Who are the presenters?
Each webinar is led by a faculty member of the New Media program at the University of Maine. New Media majors apply digital techniques and design skills to make projects in animation, digital storytelling, gaming, music, physical computing, video, and web and app development. Learn more at https://umaine.edu/newmedia.
What background or preparation is required?
Each webinar focuses on a different skill and so has different prerequisites. Most ask that you pre-install the tool used for the webinar on your computer or phone so you can follow along with the demo. All webinars use the Zoom videoconferencing platform.
Do I have to participate?
No, you can observe if you prefer.
What if I have questions during the webinar?
Depending on the number of participants, the presenter may be able to answer questions orally (via video) or in text (via the Zoom chat panel).
How do I get the Zoom link?
Just click on the “register” link for the appropriate webinar above. Complete the brief form and you’ll receive an email with a customized URL for the webinar.
The webinar is already full.
Email us (link below) with the webinar topic and general times you are available. If we get enough interest, we may schedule another time for the overflow.
I have other questions.
Please contact us.