NMI - Portfolio

The New Media Institute is an interdisciplinary academic unit dedicated to exploring the critical, commercial and creative dimensions of emerging technologies. UGA's largest certificate program, The New Media Certificate aims to teach undergraduate and graduate students how to be "techknowledgeable." In other words, students who graduate with this certificate have a thorough understanding of emerging media.

I began my journey with the NMI during the second semester of my first year here at UGA. The classes I have taken have pushed me to find new interests that I never would have discovered otherwise all while making me more capable of navigating the ever-changing technology that surrounds us more and more each day. From diving into the vast world of coding with HTML, CSS, and Javascript to discovering my credit score to learning about the future of augmented and virtual reality, I have gained exposure to so many interesting topics.

The way that techology is interwoven through our lives, both subtley and obviously, is fascinating. Getting to explore the ins and outs of how it came to be where it is now and predicting where we will head in the future has been eye-opening. I have truly enjoyed learning about the crazy innovations that have become parts of our everyday lives. The NMI has taught me useful skills that I am sure to use as technology continues to grow and develop and become more ingrained into our society. Thanks to this certificate program, maybe I'll be able to figure it out along the way.

NEW MEDIA PRODUCTION

New Media Production provides a solid foundation of technical skills that students can build upon for the rest of their careers. In a workshop environment, students learn how to design and develop web products that function effectively with multiple platforms.

NEW MEDIA DESIGN

New Media Design focuses on the application of fundamental design principles to create user-friendly new media projects in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Students explore UI and UX design topics and gain experience with the latest design tools.

NEW MEDIA CAPSTONE

New Media Capstone students work together to build a new media solution that addresses a specific client problem. Students call upon all of the skills gained throughout their certificate journey to develop, design, and debut these projects at the end of the semester.

NEW MEDIA DIGITAL BROWN BAG

Digital Brown Bag is a weekly seminar that explores new media technologies, industry trends, and the secret to getting a J-O-B. Students are introduced to new media professionals who share their insights and experiences.

NEW MEDIA AND TED

New Media and TED uses the TED platform to examine big ideas and powerful presentations. Students gain practical event management experience and presentation curation expertise while preparing presenters for the TEDxUGA stage.

GRAPHICS

Students will develop enterprise news stories across platforms. Each will produce a long-form web story with links and references, a video story (television news package), a photo essay, a radio story, a “back story” (explaining issues with the reporting), and a webcast explaining some aspect of the story in depth.

MULTIPLATFORM STORY PRODUCTION

Introduces students to the basic concepts and practices of visual composition and graphic design for static and motion graphics. Students will work with current design software on assignments involving composition, typography, color, layout, and basic animation.

New Media Production

Free Code Camp

My Profile

My Classmates

HTML

Project 1

HTML

Trees

HTML and CSS

Web Fonts

HTML and CSS

Monkeys

HTML

Project 2 Part 1

Flexbox

NMIX 2020 Final Project

HTML and Bootstrap

Project 3 - Commerce

Wordpress

Project 3 - App

Wordpress

Animate

Javascript

Load Content

Javascript

Calculator

Javascript

Project 4

Javascript

Final Project

HTML and Bootstrap - Click here to read my critical reflection

I took this course in fall 2019 and it absolutely sparked a new interested (and an obsession to constantly update and maintain my portfolio since the day I started it). To be honest, going into this class I was extremely nervous. I had taken AP Computer Science in high school and quickly decided that coding was simply not in my wheelhouse. This class changed that thought quickly.

By learning how to design and develop web products in this class, I gained a new interest and set of skills that I'm really proud of. Thinking of how I walked into the classroom on the first day of drop/add week with little to no coding knowledge (sorry to my AP CompSci teacher - I promise I tried) vs. walking out on the last day with a working knowledge of and comfortability with HTML, Bootstrap, CSS, and so much more still impresses me.

Through the work shown above, you can see how I developed my skills over the months I was in the course. What I'm most proud of is the culmination of what I learned demonstrated in the final project, which was a website I designed for my friend using Bootstrap. Putting my newfound knowledge to use in a practical, hands-on way was really rewarding, and I even got to experiment with a new hosting system and refreshed myself on how to set up a new domain. Overall, this class revealed a new interest I had and bolstered my confidence in my "tech-knowledgability."

Digital Brown Bag

I took this course in spring 2019 as my very first class in the New Media Institute. While enrolling in it as a freshman was a little non-traditional, I think it really made me feel prepared to enter into a new stage of life as I was still getting settled in college. Megan Ward lovingly refers to it as "Life 101", which couldn't be more accurate. I learned about the importance of credit, how to navigate insurance policies and 401ks, interview effectively, and reflect on my specific personality and how to interact and communicate with others.

This course was a breeze, but it was clear throughtout the entire semester that I was learning about something new each and every day. I think the coolest thing about this class was that it really did teach life skills that I am certain I will need to know in the future. There was nothing abstract about it; I learned practical skills that I was (and still am) certain I will be putting to use in the near future.

New Media and TED

The fall 2019 TEDxUGA class

Our curation team

The Student Idea Showcase

Revolutionizing stroke therapeutics | Samantha Spellicy | TEDxUGA

This class is, in my opinion, one of the coolest classes that the NMI offers. Along with my other classmates, I got the chance to help curate a TED Talk while learning about the work that TED does and how to best present to an audience. I have always loved public speaking and it's actually what gave me the idea to pursue a career in television news broadcasting, so this class was right up my alley. I got to learn about what elements make up a great and effective presentation from how to write an engaging script to how to most effectively create a slide deck.

The beauty of this course is that it didn't even feel like going to class. I got to watch TED Talks for homework and I got to have conversations with my presenter and my curation team about a really interesting subject. While none of it really felt like work, I recognize that I was continually developing my skills and learning about what makes an effective speaker and an informative and engaging presentation.

JOUR3380 - Journalism Graphics

This class counted both for my journalism degree and as a new media elective. I was initially a little disappointed that I wasn't able to take the graphics class through the NMI, I quickly fell in love with this course. It was taught by the incredible Dr. Amanda Bright with Grady College, who is absolutely phenomenal, and I really learned so much. I got to experiment with so much new technology and I got to design for different platforms. From fine-tuning my Adobe Illustrator skills to using Audiogram and KnightLab's StoryMap for the first time, I got to explore the graphics world in a lot of different ways.

I got to do this while also learning about the fundamental aspects of designing with purpose, which was a key part of the course. Along with my classmates, I quickly learned to constantly consider 'PAM', which stands for purpose, audience, and message. For each of my designs, I was tasked with writing a rationale to explain my design choices and why I made certain graphic decisions. This not only ensured that I was constantly keeping PAM at the front of my mind, but it also helped bolster my confidence in myself and help me learn to advocate for my work and my decisions.

My favorite project in this course was the second one we did where I got to design a newspaper and magazine cover. For someone who worked at The Red & Black - a local student-run newspaper - for three years, I was shocked by how little I understood about newspaper designing. Dr. Bright quickly helped remedy that and I learned about design elemennts that are key in presenting information in a way that is easy to digest and visually appealing, all while practicing sound news judgement in story ranking. This class was a highlight of my fall 2020 semester, even though much of it was taught on Zoom!

JOUR4090 - Multiplatform Story Production

Athenians Recovering From Addiction Struggle with Isolation Amid Pandemic

Click here to read

Roadside Recovery: Athens Organization Fights to Overcome Addiction Despite Pandemic

JOUR4090 - Video Story

This class counted both toward my journalism degree and as an elective for the New Media Certificate. In this class, I got the chance to report in a way I hadn't before in a few different ways. Most notably, I got to spend the entire semester in spring 2021 diving in to two stories. While I have reported many times before both in and outside of class, I have always worked on a relatively quick turnaround. This class gave me the opportunity to really dig deep into a subject - the opioid epidemic - which was a great experience and really helped me learn a lot.

Additionally, I got to develop my technical skills. While I had lots of experience with Premiere Pro, I got to further refine my skills in my Roadside Recovery video news package. Although I was familiar with Premiere, I had never used Adobe Audition before and I got the chance to familiarize myself with it for the Isolation audio story. Outside of just using Audition, I had never made a story for a strictly listening audience, so I liked getting experience in that realm. All in all, I am super happy with the work that I produced and with all that I learned both as related to media production and reporting.