Clemson University Digital Media & Learning

August 2013: the doors to the new Digital Media+Learning Lab (DML Lab) opened for students and teachers at Clemson University. This room 213 in Tillman Hall was entirely remodeled and restructured for a different kind of learning. Dr. Matthew Boyer, assistant professor of Digital Media and Learning, describes the DML lab as a change in how we think about education. Boyer explained, “The philosophy behind the Digital Media+Learning Lab is to shift from a focus on technology used simply for instruction by teachers to more of a participatory, interdisciplinary, interest-driven space where students and teachers can all come in and use the spaces to pursue their own personal interests, use the different tools in an integrated fashion, and create digital media projects.”

The DML Lab Creative Inquiry, like the lab itself, is focused on empowering students and giving them the tools they need to create great things. Students in the Creative Inquiry guide other students to develop tutorials using the lab equipment. Through surveys and testing, the tutorials are refined and changed based on the feedback and put in the lab. For example, “Making your first song with FL Studio 11,” was tested and subsequently updated on the audio lab computers based on the feedback received from the testers.

Students are using the DML lab to create exciting projects. For example, Computer Science undergraduate, Peter Barnett, and a team of Clemson students have banded together to create a new company and their first product: the Coconut Pine. The Pine is a salt and pepper shaker that uses a slider to let the user control flow rates of each spice. Before they began using the DML lab, in order to test their prototypes they had to work with external companies that took weeks to ship their printed designs and made mistakes, which cost them more time and money. Barnett noted, “We were able to come to the 3D printing lab and take it from paper to an actual product that you can hold in your hand and it has been going great.” The team launched a Kickstarter campaign, however, they are currently looking at other options to make the Pine a reality.

While the DML is different from most labs, Boyer emphasized that the space supplants, rather than replaces, Clemson’s more traditional, lecture-style classes. Boyer revealed, “This has been a great start for us to see if we have an audio room or if we have a 3D printer, what are the things that people can do with them and how can we support that kind of learning … Being able to extend and not replace what is happening in the classroom is a key piece to what we’re doing here.”