About

Welcome to Media & Technology Lightning Rounds. These short lessons are provided to give you a general overview of different media tools and technologies that you can use to develop and present your research.

Topics

Accessibility

Presentations - Learn about accessible practices for creating digital documents (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information from the National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE)

Activities - Practice using accessibility-testing tools and employing other best practices (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Grackle: An accessibility testing add-on for Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets
- WebAIM’s color contrast checker: Check if your color choices meet accessibility guidelines
- University of Kentucky community: Explore UK’s Universal Design for Learning (UDL) InitiativeLinks to an external site. and other local best practices for web accessibilityLinks to an external site.

Video Storage and Presenting Media in Courses

Presentations - Learn about options for sharing streaming video and other media content in the courses you teach (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information from the University of Kentucky's Teach Anywhere site

Activities - Practice using various video storage/presentation tools that you can use in your courses (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Canvas: Record and share video
- Yuja: Store more video and post elsewhere
- YouTube: Especially for Google environments
- University of Kentucky community: Explore local tutorials from various colleges on campus

Voice Recording and Sound Editing

Presentations - Learn about best practices for recording dialogue, and explore recording options (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information on recording studios at the University of Kentucky

Activities - Practice recording dialog to your computer, and explore sound content sites online (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Audio Proximity Test: Try recording dialog to your computer
- Explore sound media sites such as Freesound:inks to an external site. License-free sounds, and Mitch MartinezLinks to an external site.: Hi-def footage
- University of Kentucky community: Prepare to create more sophisticated audio with an overview of the Editing Bays in the Media Depot

Data Visualization

Presentations - Learn about ways to create useful and clear visualization to display numeric data (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information from LinkedIn Learning

Activities - Practice brainstorming visualizations and explore data visualization sites and tools (10 to 30+ minutes each)

- Brainstorm a Data Visualization: Discover different visualization types in the Financial Times Visual Vocabulary, an interactive reference of different charts and graphs and what they are best used for
- Extend Data Visualization Further: Explore books, video, websites, and blogs
- Explore software, including Tableau: Enterprise data visualization software, and RAWGraphs: Free online visualization software
- University of Kentucky community: Contact Research Data Services at UK Libraries

Text Mining

Presentations - Learn about how text mining can help with your research (5 to 10 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information from LinkedIn Learning

Activities - Practice analyzing some text with various text mining applications (5 to 30+ minutes each)

- Consider when text mining could help with your research using links to Andrew Piper's blog, The Fish and the Painting, and explore research databases that support the practice
- Try out Voyant Tools - A web-based reading and analysis environment for digital texts
- University of Kentucky community: Explore other text mining tools through Digital Scholarship and Data at UK Libraries

Mapping Demographic Data

Presentations - Learn about tools you can use to display demographic data with maps (10 to 30 minutes each)

- Google Slides from Unabridged
- Information from Esri

Activities - Practice navigating through GIS environments and explore mapping and demographic tools available to use in your research (5 to 10+ minutes each)

- Get comfortable with census data from nhgis.org through an Unabridged lesson with GIS, maps + data @ Harvard Libraries
- Explore CartoLinks to an external site. - Provides GIS, web mapping, and spatial data science tools; QGISLinks to an external site. - Open source GIS software for creation, analysis, and publication; and other tools used at the University of Kentucky Libraries' GIS Lab
- University of Kentucky community: Register with the University of Kentucky GIS hub to download Esri ArcGIS software

Credits: This content was developed with contributions from Jess Cohen-Tanugi, Amy Deschenes, Kevin Guiney, Jungeun (June) Lim, Belle Lipton, Erinlea McGowan-Moniz, and Clayton Scoble. The content added for this course at the University of Kentucky Libraries was developed by Karyn Hinkle.