Remote Control

By Patrick Bohn ’05, October 10, 2020

Faculty in the Park School use collaboration to aid the transition to a remote semester.

Using technology, associate professor Chrissy Guest is able to observe her class remotely produce a live broadcast show.

(Photo submitted)

Election season is always a busy one for Anthony Adornato, associate professor of journalism.

That’s when the students in his mobile and social media journalism course are tasked with providing a day’s worth of coverage on election night, pitching and covering a story of their choosing.

And even with Ithaca College relying on remote instruction this fall semester due to the coronavirus outbreak, that assignment hasn’t changed. It’s simply taken on a new form, with the help of Chrissy Guest, associate professor of media arts, sciences and studies, and the students in her live event production courses.

“We’re thinking differently,” Adornato said. “This is a chance for professors and students to be innovative in the classroom.”

WSYR featured Adornato and Guest in a report on the Park School's remote semester.

“We’re thinking differently,” Adornato said. “This is a chance for professors and students to be innovative in the classroom.”

How does this innovation look? Using tools like an iPad mini, tripod, and DSLR cameras, Adornato’s students are producing their content wherever they are located. When they’re ready to stream that content, Guest’s students take over, using a live stream studio system and Open Broadcaster Software to build out the graphics and chroma keys that give the reports the visual accompaniments they need. They’ll also be in control of switching between the various reports Adornato’s students will stream through Zoom on Facebook and Instagram.

“We’re making students job-ready. I’m telling them, ‘You’re stepping up to the plate by pivoting and adapting during a pandemic, and that’s what’s happening in the real world.”

“With these programs, students have the ability to access a system interface that looks just like the ones they’d use if they were here,” Guest said. “The end result is having students all over the country working together to make these things happen. It’s been really exciting.”

Anthony Adornato uses Zoom to demonstrate a new mobile journalism setup.

It’s also, as Adornato points out, the same change professional newsrooms have been forced to make.

“We’re making students job-ready,” he said. “I’m telling them, ‘You’re stepping up to the plate by pivoting and adapting during a pandemic, and that’s what’s happening in the real world.”

Guest echoed that sentiment. “I wake up in the morning and try to figure out how to make what’s happening in our industry accessible for students,” she said. “I can’t wait to see how we will creatively break out of the Zoom box each day, and the students are excited too.”

This level of collaboration and expert guidance from faculty isn’t surprising to Jack Powers, interim dean of the Park School. “The secret sauce of Park is that we have faculty who stay up to date in their specific field,” he said. “The ones who can pivot their courses, and make their content work remotely, they benefit our students greatly.”