NMCC opens first One Button Studio in the state
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, an archive room in the E. Perrin Edmunds Library at NMCC has been transformed into the One Button Studio.
The new learning environment was showcased at a brief ceremony last Thursday, and individuals began using the room Monday.
According to Gail Roy, assistant dean of learning resources, the One Button Studio was designed and developed at Penn State University by its IT department.
“They were seeking an easy way to help students, faculty, and staff create videos without the worry of the logistics of setting up the equipment,” she said. “They had such success with it at Penn State that they made the instructions available to everyone else online. Because we received the grant, we were able to do it here.”
The new video recording setup is capable of creating professional-quality video projects without the support of camera operators or lighting technicians.
“Students simply insert a flash drive and press a button. The lights, microphone, and camera turn on and you are ready to record,” said Roy. “Once you are finished with your recording, you hit the button again and it saves your file. Then you can edit it or upload it to Facebook, YouTube or other places.
“What’s good about the studio is since you’re not spending time worrying about setting up the production and the equipment, you can devote time to the content,” she said. “You can work and perfect your speech, your presentation, you can come up with original ideas and work on your script; all your time is devoted to that. Today’s students are creators of content, so if you give them tools or you give them a situation in which they can discover, learn, create and share, it’s going to be a wonderful thing.”
In addition to the lights, microphone and camera, the One Button Studio also has a projector, laptop, whiteboard, podium, table and chairs.
Students will be able to use the equipment in a variety of ways including creating videos for class projects, creating tutorials, rehearsing speeches for class, creating individual or group presentations, practicing interview skills with mock interviews, and creating a video for a campus student organization.
Faculty and staff will also be able to use the studio to create videos and insert them in their learning management systems. Additionally, community members will be able to use the equipment, as well. Roy said she envisions people wanting to use it to record oral histories, interviews, make informational videos, or for middle and high school projects.
“Based on what I’ve heard from Penn State, I think students will be the biggest users of this because our students take speech class, communication class, and in some of their other courses they do have to give a presentation,” she said. “This will allow them to rehearse it and make it better, and if their faculty member allows, they could actually create a video and show it in class. I think the One Button Studio is going to be very popular.”
NMCC senior Hillary Albert, who also works in the library, was one of the students who worked on the project. She said the system is very user-friendly.
“It’s a lot of complex, techie stuff combined easily so I’d say even my grandmother, who doesn’t know how to run a smartphone, could plug it in and push the button,” she said. “It’s very straightforward and easy to use.”
Albert said she’ll be using the One Button Studio before graduating in May.
“I’m in speech class and we have a 15-minute speech we have to present by the end of the semester, so I see myself in there practicing my ‘ums’ and being able to get the timing down,” she said. “I’m one that worries about time, and a major component of our speech is that we have to go for at least 15 minutes; if we don’t, we get marked down. I’ll be able to record my speech and watch it back and work on the timing and things like that.”
Instructor Lynne Nelson Manion, who teaches speech and technical communication, business communication, English composition and world civilizations, said the One Button Studio will be a valuable tool for her students.
“It’s so exciting for me, being a speech instructor, to be able to offer this to my students as a learning experience. With my technical and business communication students, I do a lot with the interviewing process, and I’ll be able to not only have my students interview in front of their classmates in these mock job interviews, but they can do it in the studio, as well,” she said. “Nowadays some companies don’t bring the candidate in; they either do Skype or video interviewing, so this will be very exciting.
“I think the One Button Studio will help my students because they’ll be using cutting-edge technology. In my technical communication classes, especially when they have to do their final presentations, my students have created videos using cell phones, digital cameras, and video cameras, but there’s so many more steps involved and you have to be that much more knowledgeable about all those technical steps,” said Nelson Manion, “whereas this simplifies the whole process and really levels the playing field. In other instances where my students have created a final video product, they’ve really had to own a lot of equipment or know somebody who did. This will give their videos a professional look, and I’m really thrilled about it.”
The grant was received last August, and officials began ordering materials in late November.
“It’s now complete,” Roy said. “We’re fine-tuning it; as students use it we’re going to perfect the sound and do a few other things.
“Libraries across the country are evolving from places to check out reading materials to spaces where people gather to create, invent and learn,” she said. “It’s a concept called Makerspace and our new One Button Studio is the first major component of this initiative for NMCC.”
The Makerspace objective is to physically engage people who use the library by providing tools for a type of hands-on workshop where they can build or create any number of projects.
“We’re thrilled to be the first in the state to utilize this technology and we look forward to sharing its potential,” said Roy.
