So it’s August 14th, Students will be back on campus in a couple of days, and classes resume sometime next week. In short, its the beginning of another academic year. So welcome, or welcome back. I hope the Fall semester and the 2013-2014 academic year treat you well.
So what have I been doing all summer other than neglecting this blog?
For starters I got the ball rolling on an update to the McEniry 431 lab.
Taking it from this:
McEniry 431 used to only have 12 computers and was arranged like a giant “U”
To this:
McEniry 431 now has 20 computers, and is arranged in a configuration that is hopefully more conducive to teaching and learning.
In short, McEniry 431 is now a 20 seat Mac lab running both the Mac OS and Windows 7 (via Apple Boot Camp).
I’ve done a few other things related to the department of Geography and Earth sciences, most of which fall under the scope of “normal job duties” so I won’t bore you with them here.
I’ve had the chance to play around with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ (CLAS) new Nikon D7100 camera and the couple of lenses that were purchased for it. The camera is very capable of taking pretty pictures, such as:
Dr.’s Eastin and Magi installing a new weather station on the roof of McEniry
But it can also shoot video:
Click here to see what a typical Friday afternoon over the summer looks like in McEniry
And it has a built in intervalometer so you can create time lapse videos:
Click here to see a time lapse of the sunsetting over the Van Landingham Glen
Ok, so I’ve been a bit more excited about having a new camera to play with than with actual IT projects over the summer. Regardless, it has been a productive couple of months and hopefully folks will be able to start the academic year off without any IT issues.
In the upcoming weeks (months?) I am planning on making a couple more blog posts about how to create video and time lapse video using the D7100. Possibly even a couple on Garageband and iMovie. If you have ideas about future blog posts from me, especially those that involve photography or technology, please leave a comment or send me an email.
Have a great year.
Adrian
(My apologies to JK Rowling, for paraphrasing Dumbledore in my opening paragraph)