Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3)

Donald Perkins
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Communications & Media Arts

November 19, 2018

CC0

Describe how you already use open materials in your class, sharing your content if possible.

One of the courses I have helped develop and teach is COMM127, Audio Production I. It is a course that replaces Radio Production, which I have been teaching for over 15 years. The course was changed in order to align better with the SUNY Seamless Transfer requirements, as well as a course that would fit better with our Digital Audio Production programs and learning track that is growing.

The Radio course was based on a traditional textbook for radio production, on-air skills, technical training, and audio theory and practice. We have had to “bend” that textbook to pick out the specific parts needed in the master course syllabus.

While I developed the modules used in the classroom and Blackboard hybrid course aspects, three of us share the course in three sections, so it has been imperative that we all share content.

Our ultimate goal is to obtain, develop, and revise enough OER materials to eliminate that textbook, and we’re doing it a module at a time. Unfortunately, time to develop is a major factor that’s held us back. The good thing is that among the three of us, one is an expert on Blackboard, I am a broadcast engineer by trade, and the third instructor is an excellent musician and recording engineer. This is the very mix of collaboration that will serve our OER goals and vision perfectly.

This course has opened my mind and vision for the possibilities for not only this one course, but for the rest of the Media program we have, and offered a framework to organize and formulate a plan of action to meet our goal.