EdTech Center Co-op Students Develop Digital Stories

April 2007

John Lewis

Herculano Fernandes

In addition to assisting staff with building and designing websites and consulting with faculty on Blackboard and other Web-based tools, EdTech Center co-op students write and produce a digital story about their "Northeastern Experience" during their six-month tenure. This semester’s co-op students, John Lewis, Jr. and Herculano Fernandes, are in the production phase of developing their two- to three-minute stories that blend voice, music and still images.

John, a junior from Bridgeport, Connecticut, is working towards his Bachelor of Science degree in Visual Arts with a concentration in Animation. His digital story describes how his coursework at Northeastern has aided him in creating his own online business. John uses his visual arts training to create marketing pieces for his business, noting, “You would be amazed at how a sense of color scheme and typography can aid you in creating an attractive advertisement." He believes that critical to the success of his online web hosting company was “taking what I had learned in all of my visual arts classes and combining it with my knowledge of how the web works to create a viable business."

Herculano, from Brockton, Massachusetts, is a third-year dual major in Multimedia Studies and Animation and hopes to add a minor in graphic design to expand his skill set and broaden his visual style. Herc’s digital story captures the camaraderie that exists among animation majors preparing for their critique at the end of the semester. He describes the team-oriented approach in which the students “help each other mold and refine the ideas, as well as the animations themselves." He describes the cheers he hears as each student comes up for critique. Upon graduation, Herc hopes to live in Los Angeles and work in all parts of the visual arts industry, particularly animation and motion graphics.

John’s and Herc’s digital stories will be posted on the EdTech website in June.