Podcast: Technology Conversations

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Welcome to our podcast technology conversation, where we discuss technology related topics. From how to find resources for your technology needs, to how technology can impact our lives. My name is Anchalee Phataralaoha and I will be your host. Today, we have two experts in multimedia and video production, Josh Mills and Steve Zill, our multimedia specialists. So we are glad to have you here to share your expertise in multimedia production. To start off, could you please share with us your background and your expertise?

Josh Mills: Sure, so my name is Josh. I work in studio production here at UFIT. I've been at UF for about eight years. Before this, I worked in TV news. I started out here as a videographer and then eventually moved on to doing more studio and post-production.

Steve Zill: Yeah, so I have about six to seven years making videos in the higher ed space starting out at Santa Fe College, moving on to the College of Education at UF and now here at UFIT. And before that, I was making videos for a startup here in town that revolved around ecotourism. And yeah, I'm originally from Daytona Beach, Florida, just a couple hours from here and got my degree in advertising and visual arts here at the College of Journalism and Communications.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So could you share with us in a nutshell the video production or maybe audio production process?

Steve Zill: It really starts out with a consultation with an expert of somebody who has really lived in that world with that medium for a long enough time to know how to fit your message into the proper form. Because so many times it's like, you know what, it is good that it's in a text format. And that's actually the easiest way to digest the information. Or maybe, you know, this is a good format for an infographic or poster or something like that.

Josh Mills: It doesn’t need to be a video.

Steve Zill: Yeah, basically, sometimes it really doesn’t and especially information heavy things.

Josh Mills: Yeah, that's a big part of our process. One of the things that we really emphasize with our clients and all the people we work with, which are often faculty, is you don't have to have a whole video planned out in your head and know how to do all that. Like, we're gonna help you figure that out. Like, that's really our goal is the consultation thing. Like Steve said, we want you to come in and give us, what's your idea? What's your goal here? What do you want to do? And then we'll kind of take that and help you figure out how to put it together and how to actually make it into a compelling video. And like Steve was saying, sometimes that means maybe this doesn't all need to be a video. Maybe some of it could just be an article or a graphic or something else is breaking that up.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: With that, I suppose when they come in or maybe seek your help for any kind of production, do they need to prepare some way, somehow, or they can just come in as is?

Steve Zill: Yeah, there's no hard and fast rule. It's nice to have a vision for the project or even to know what type of video you want to make. Like, oh, it's a tutorial or just a welcome video. But, you know, that's not a prerequisite. Like you can come in and say, you know, I just have been kind of bored with my course and I'm finding engagements lacking. And I'm wondering how can I add some media that will get these students to engage more thoughtfully in discussions or something like that.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Any tools or particular software that you normally use? And if so, any favorites?

Josh Mills: Yeah, we mostly use the Adobe Suite, the Creative Cloud Suite. It's just a patchwork of different software and programs such as Adobe Premiere, which is our main editing software. Other people might use Final Cut or Avid or some of those other ones. I think it's mostly Premiere, Final Cut, and DaVinci Resolve for the big ones right now and iMovie. And then we also use Adobe After Effects, which is our motion graphics program. And so motion graphics is just moving graphics and that's actually a pretty big part of video production nowadays. It wasn't when I started. When I started, it was much more just camera and lighting focus, but now it's very multimedia. It's like, you know, graphics and text and pictures and all sorts of things kind of combine together. So we use the Adobe Suite. That also includes Adobe Illustrator, which is a graphic making program. And then there's also Adobe Photoshop, which we use for all manner of things. And we use all those in concert to kind of construct these very layered videos.

Steve Zill: And there are some fascinating tools within these creative cloud programs. For instance, in Adobe Premiere Pro, there is a tool that will lengthen your music soundtrack past its end. If you need a little bit more duration of the track, you can just grab the slider, slide it over and extend it. And AI software will generate these loops and melodies that fit the rest of the song and give you like that 10 seconds extra you need to round out the video.

Josh Mills: And the transcription too. That's huge.

Steve Zill: Right. Yeah. Transcription. I mean, you know, the click of a button, you're transcribing a five-minute video. And it's pretty accurate. You have to go back through and refine it. It's not perfect.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: What do you find is the most challenging or the most difficult project or task that you have come across?

Steve Zill: So one of the most difficult things we run into is jumping into the process without enough prep. That usually leads to a lot like heavy improvising and a lot of going back and fixing things later in a more tedious fashion than doing it ahead of time and having a plan. So that's why we really emphasize when you can have a script. But most of all, just come in and talk with us.

Josh Mills: Yeah, there's a lot of problems we can solve before we do anything that will make the whole process a lot more smooth and coherent if we go in with a good plan.

Steve Zill: Prep is important.

Josh Mills: A lot of it is just about getting everybody on the same page before we start something.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: With that, can you sum up three items? I would say the top three need-to-know items that you can pass to someone who would like to do an audio or video production.

Steve Zill: The top three things that people need to know before working with us is that the process will be consulting with us, prepping with us, and then communicating with us throughout the entire process. So it's not as much of a drop-off thing a lot of the times, at least with field productions. There's a lot of times where I need to check in along the way and share, review drafts, just to make sure that we're getting the details down properly.

Josh Mills: Yeah, and I think really the main point of all of these is the same, which is that we want to be involved in the process. We don't want to be viewed as just an end step for someone. Like, okay, I'm ready to make a video and then they just come and it's like a vending machine. You put a coin in and then we give you a video a week later. It's going to go a lot better if you work with us from the start and we help you kind of visualize everything and help you kind of figure out what's going to make this more compelling as a visual medium.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: With things keep evolving and changing, how do you stay current in your field?

Josh Mills: One thing I try to do to stay current is to look kind of outside of the sphere that we're in here. What are people on YouTube doing? What are streamers doing? What are content creators that are wildly outside of the academic sphere? What kind of things are they doing? And we've gotten a lot of good ideas from that. As we learn that stuff over time, we try to make sure that we pass that down to our newer folks because it's like, man, I wish when I was 22 and just starting out, somebody had taught me that because I knew the basics, but I didn't really know the more detailed things.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Where do you see this field heading to, let's say, 5 to 10 years from now?

Steve Zill: Well, just based on the current trends in video production, the form keeps changing. I think that's the main thing that's been, especially through the internet and social media platforms, which seem to just hijack attention spans. For me personally, the best thing that I can do as a videographer is try to master the forms that I'm seeing, like vertical videos with captions, making mini documentaries, having solid event coverage, and then in the higher ed space, you know, mastering the forms that are the most requested items like welcome videos or departmental promos or a tutorial video. Just mastering those initially and then trying to innovate and kind of break the patterns that people are used to seeing is really important to kind of add an element of novelty to these old forms.

Josh Mills: So what do I think video is going five to ten years from now? The thing that I think that's kind of fascinating about it is it hasn't changed that much in a hundred years. Only it's just gotten easier and more accessible and faster. We're still kind of doing the same thing that we were when cameras were invented. We just have better tools that make it a lot simpler and they're much more accessible to an average person. So that's why, you know, anyone now with a cell phone can basically produce a full video. And so, you know, for us, like for Steve and I, you know, we have to always think about, where do we fit in as these professional, you know, video production specialists that have been, you know, doing this for a long time and amassing all this, like, knowledge and technical skills and yet it's really easy for somebody to just grab a phone and film something. And I guess for me, where I see that growing in, you know, the next five to ten years is like, those tools are going to just get easier and, you know, the camera resolution is going to get higher and all, but that does have a diminishing return at a certain point. The only thing that matters is that it's compelling. We always talk about length of videos a lot and how, you know, oh, the videos need to be short and to the point. And that's true, but at the same time, like, what does that mean? And I think it's not so much the actual length of the video. It's that how long it is interesting for because you can make a short video that's not interesting. You can make a longer video that's really interesting because it has a lot of change of pace, it has a lot of compelling elements to it and so it needs to be as long as it needs to be and that's tough sometimes with the attention spans. But I think the mistake is just assuming that well the only thing we can do is we could just keep making them shorter. I don't think it's the length. I think it's just making it interesting.

Steve Zill: Yeah, and with the increase of everyone having phones and cameras I think that’s made a lot more rallying points for people to connect over a very specific topic in the world. And I can see that in the next five to ten years amounting to a higher demand for connection through these kind of blended courses that might not even be attached to higher education.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Thank you for joining us. It has been a very fun and informative conversation. That's it. We will see you next time for topic of interest in technology.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Welcome to our podcast Technology Conversations where we discuss technology related topics from how to find resources for your technology needs to how technology can impact our lives. My name is Anchalee Phataralaoha and I will be your host. Today we have a pleasure to talk to Rodney Gammons, Assistant Director for Instructional Design with CITT or Center for Instructional Technology and Training. Hello, Rodney how are you?

Rodney Gammons: I am doing well today Anchalee, how are you?

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Very good. Now to get started, could you share with us about your background and essentially your journey to UF?

Rodney Gammons: Well, it’s a pretty long journey, I won’t go too far back but before coming to CITT I was an academic advisor for the instructional technology department at Santa Fe College and I was also an adjunct professor. During that time, I got my degree in instructional technology, to be specific curriculum instruction with a concentration on instructional technology, educational technology, and design. So after getting my degree and working for a few years as an adjunct faculty member and academic advisor, I applied for a job here and I finally got it, and I became an instructional designer and a few years later I am now the Assistant Director for the Instructional Design team.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: It sounds like you have a lot of background in teaching and learning.

Rodney Gammons: Yeah, I do, I definitely do and academic advising which played a key role into some of the things I did with the CITT.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So now you know with your current position, essentially what do you do?

Rodney Gammons: Well, yeah with my current position now as the Assistant Director I manage a team of instructional designers. Some of the biggest things I do is working on initiatives like outreach initiatives and just making sure people know about our services as well as you know managing the team doing the day to day things like approving time, making sure people are on schedule with their developments, introducing clients to our services, and pairing them with our ID. Things like that, so there are a few things that I do on campus where I work with other departments and make sure we collaborate. Like for the Center for Teaching Excellence, I do a lot of collaborations with them, UF online, and other instructional design units across campus and with people within our own department of Academic Technology in the CITT as I am sitting here with you, we are a part of the same team I would say, you’re with training and I’m with the ID team but we are collaborating right now.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Exactly. So how many instructional designers do you have on your team?

Rodney Gammons: Overall I would say 12 and then we add in the student workers we can bump it up to 21. There are 9 student workers so overall there are 12 people that work on the instructional design team.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So it sounds like you did shift from teaching to instructional design and with that what do you find is the most challenging in your position?

Rodney Gammons: Faculty members have a lot of strain being placed on them, they have a lot of deadlines they have to meet, a lot of them do research, here at UF my understanding the demands of grading, meeting with students, but couple that with the research, it’s just a lot so I have an understanding of what they go through. I think the most challenging thing is just finding time that works for the faculty members to meet their demands and making sure that they can do what they need to do and not feel like we are piling more on them. And what they do directly affects student engagement and student success and that’s what we are all here for to make sure students get where they need to get to in life and we are a part of doing that. We try to help faculty members to do their part the best way they can.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, it sounds like you provide a lot of support for the faculty. And with that what kind of service do you provide for them?

Rodney Gammons: The biggest thing that we provide is course development services. We help faculty members build their courses and perfect their courses whether that be online, in person, or hybrid whatever it may be. So they can come to us and we can provide them with a sixteen week or fifteen week course development, we can do partial development, we can just do consultations if they just want us to help improve the accessibility of a course. We also provide some workshops and trainings as well that are more corelated to teaching and learning and making sure the course is more pedagogically sound. If anyone is interested, they can just reach out to us and we will try to cater and make a, I would like to say a meal plan for them that will fit their diet and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, does it mean any faculty from any colleges can reach out to you?

Rodney Gammons: Pretty much anyone can reach out to us for the free service. We are centrally funded so all the services that we provide are free of charge for anyone that wants to come and sit down and talk with us and we just go from there once we figure out what needs to be done, we come up with a schedule with you, a schedule that’s flexible for you, one that will fit your needs.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Any particular time they should reach out to you?

Rodney Gammons: As soon as possible. Preferably a semester before you want to launch a course or whenever you need to but sometimes, we’ll take them right then and there if it’s something urgent if we can fit into our schedule, we will make sure to help the faculty member in some way. We may not be able to build a full course in a week, but if you come to us, we’ll talk you through some things and see where we can help and at the very least provide a consultation for you and set you up on the right way to get you started.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, how does it work? Would you assign a faculty member to a particular instructional designer?

Rodney Gammons: Yeah, we will assign them to a particular instructional designer. Depending on the schedule of that instructional designer we will assign to them and also if the faculty member or staff member wants a particular instructional designer to work with them if they worked with them in the past, we try to make that happen as well.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: With that how do people reach out to you?

Rodney Gammons: Oh, that’s pretty easy if you go to our website citt.ufl.edu, you can go to the About area and you will see all the information for the instructional design team. Also if you go to the Request Assistance button, if you click that button even if you don’t know what you need help with, just fill it out and someone will respond to you within 24-48 hours.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Alright sounds good, now any word of advice or recommendations for the faculty?

Rodney Gammons: Yeah, I would say to faculty members and staff, you have a wealth of free resources here at the University of Florida, CITT is one of them. We do have the instructional design team which I lead, you have the Training team, the Learning Analytics team, our studio team that we work hand in hand with, and our Educational Technology team. So, there are a lot of free services for you all at this top 5 university that they try to provide so I would just say use them at your disposal, we all try to pride ourselves on great customer support service so just come see us and we will help you on your way.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Thank you very much Rodney, for spending some time with us today.

Rodney Gammons: You’re welcome. You have a good one.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: You too. That’s it everyone and we will see you next time for topics of interest in IT.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Hello, my name is Anchalee Phataralaoha. I am a training specialist with UFIT training. Welcome to our podcast technology conversations where we discuss technology related topics from how to find resources for your technology needs, to how technology can impact our lives. We have today here with us James Kocher, e-Learning Support Manager. How are you today, James?

James Kocher: I’m doing well, how about you?

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Not bad…Not bad, so to get started could you please tell us your background and how did you end up here at UF?

James Kocher: Well, It’s a pretty long story. I got my started in education in the military, the navy. After moving to Gainesville after the service I started teaching at City College and went into pursue my degree in English to become a teacher, which I was a middle school teacher for a few years, and I also taught at Santa Fe College teaching prep reading and writing. Also during that time probably like the mid-2000s, I started working in the Department of Entomology creating online labs for the distance courses using Flash. In 2010, I got a full-time job here -- college of health professions working in online education and have been doing online education ever since.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So what is your thought about e-learning you know from when you first started and then up until now that would be like more than a decade?

James Kocher: Definitely over a decade. So when I was working in entomology, we used WebCT back then and a lot of our courses were actually delivered via DVDs or even CDs. So we would print off CDs and mail them to our distance learning students back then. So definitely with the increase in internet speeds and computer speeds, online education has exploded in the past you know two decades.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So With today’s technology, as you said, things have changed a lot, so with that how is your day to day? How does it look like?

James Kocher: Really our busiest time of the year is the beginning of class, people are getting their courses ready. Sometimes these courses might not be completely ready, something's unpublished or linked to the wrong place, so we'll get a lot of calls and tickets on things just not being completely ready to go. That's our busiest and also with during course creation time when we produce courses. And then of course the end of the semester is pretty busy with people getting ready to finalize their grades, finals are coming up, you know, we want to make sure everything is ready to go for the end of the term as well.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: With that what do you say is the most challenging that you have run into?

James Kocher: When I started this position, I realized that communication would be the biggest issue. We do have a curated listserv that we use to send out information. We try to not only use our listserv, but we'll post in Canvas on our e-Learning website, and if we can, we'll try to also reach out through our media source to get it pushed on Twitter, socialize it through the other social medias and get added to some newsletters as well. But yeah, letting people know when things are happening has probably been the biggest challenge.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: I'm sure there are people who might have missed your message. How would you deal with that?

James Kocher: That's a good question where like I said, we're trying to hit every channel that we possibly could. I’ve made sure that our messaging is short and concise and easy to follow because no one likes to read a wall of text and e-mail. I think when someone sees, you know, paragraphs of text come through an e-mail, they just instantly turned off. So definitely, trying to keep everything easy to read, short and concise, so to ensure that more people will read.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So with that, what is one thing or maybe two things that you would like people to know about e-learning?

James Kocher: Well, one is basically we have two kinds of tickets or two kinds of calls. One is “How do I do something in Canvas?” And the other one is “I probably should have called you first. I messed something up. How do I fix this?”

We would definitely prefer the former type of question of people calling us (asking) how I do something rather than trying to fix things because even though we can fix a lot of things, there are some things that can't be undone. So we would love for people to be proactive and contact us first before trying to do something. And I think that another issue is a lot of people may not know that we even exist. We really want to kind of get the word out, let people know that we're here, we're here to serve all of the university and we would rather that you call first before trying something on your own.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: How can people reach out to you for support?

James Kocher: So you can contact us in a few different ways. We are part of the Help Desk so you can call us at 352-392-HELP or 4357. To get one of our e-Learning support specialists right away, we are option 3. You can send in e-mail to learning-support@ufl.edu. It will come to our ticketing system and create a ticket for you, or you can also go to the UFIT service portal and send a ticket from there as well.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So do you provide a walk-up service?

James Kocher: We usually have someone downstairs. So if you come to the Help Desk, you'll be able to request help. We also have a service where you can request a zoom meeting. We've got an end of the semester wrap-up if you were interested in going over your grade book, make sure everything is ready to go to transfer to One.UF. You can set up an appointment if you're wanting help getting your course set up for the next semester you can get some help. Or if you just need a 30-minute general session with someone, you can go to go.ufl.edu/canvashelp and you can look at our appointment calendar, set up an appointment. You will have one of the support specialists reach out to you with a zoom link and we'll be able to connect with you on your time and able to, you know, through zoom, share your screen so we can walk you through or help you with what you need.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, what are the support hours if people would like to get live help?

James Kocher: Our main e-Learning support staff do work from 8:00 to 5:00, but we do have trained specialists on evenings and weekends who will be able to give some just-in-time support as well.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: OK, sounds good. Now any final thoughts?

James Kocher: Again reach out. UF doesn't require students or faculty to go through any kind of Canvas training. But if you have any questions at all or want to know how to do something or you know looking for something innovative to do in your class with technology using Canvas, just reach out to us and one of our specialists would be very happy to work with you on that.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Thank you very much James for spending time with us today and that's all everyone. So we will see you next time for topics of Interest in Technology and see you then.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Welcome to our podcast Technology Conversations where we discuss technology related topics from how to find resources for your technology needs to how technology can impact our lives. My name is Anchalee Phataralaoha and I am a training specialist with UFIT Training. I will be your host. Sitting here with us today is Dan Maxwell, AI Trainer and Consultant with Research Computing. Hello Dan, how are you today?

Dan Maxwell: Well, hello there, thank you for having me here.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So to start off can you share with us your background and also how did you end up here at UF?

Dan Maxwell: I graduated from college and my undergraduate degrees were in history and French and so I transitioned into information technology and got a master's degree from Indiana University, and then followed that up with a Ph. D and a master’s in organizational systems much later. About half of my career has been spent in business environment side. I worked as a software engineer; I was actually a technical lead for Fortune 500 companies such as Rockwell, Alcoa, Bowater.

In 2016 I saw a position announcement here at the University of Florida for an informatic & data science consultant. So I applied and I was accepted to that position. So I have been at UF since 2016.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: UF is very lucky to have you here. So with that what do you do?

Dan Maxwell: I took my current position in January of 2021. And my current role is to act as an AI trainer primarily in the Research Computing Department. That includes both machine learning and deep learning. Those are two different sub-fields of AI. Since I came on board in January 2021 we have spun up what we called Practicum AI training program and our program is designed for non-technical students. I do do some consulting, but that’s not my primary role in the department.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So in a nutshell how would you define AI?

Dan Maxwell: Well that’s a really difficult question. I think a really simple answer here would be it is any algorithm that simulates human intelligence. What we see right now in the field in artificial intelligence is called artificial narrow intelligence. So the goal with AI right now is to move towards AGI, which is Artificial General Intelligence, which is more of a kind of intelligence that you and I have.  

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Interesting. So now with that what do people need to know or do if they want to take advantage of AI?

Dan Maxwell: Well, I think there is kind of a little bit of misconception that I have to be really technically talented, I need a background in computer science or mathematics or statistics or physics or whatever. And the good news here you don’t need that. You do need to have however a real sense of curiosity. So first you need to be a curious person. Second you need to have an idea, what do I want to do with AI, what kind of service do I want to offer or what is my research question. And if you’ve got those two or three elements and a desire to continue to learn, we are here for you.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So now with the university a lot of researchers I’m sure they would like to use AI so how can people take advantage of this?

Dan Maxwell: Well, the applications are so numerous. Keep in mind that this is actually artificial intelligence is actually a fairly well developed field. This is not something new. In fact the word artificial intelligence, the term was coined in 1956. It’s a broad field and so there are many, many different kinds of techniques. Machine learning kind of came into its own in the and it has only been since 2010 that we see deep learning coming into its own. You got to explore many, many different ways to apply AI to your research and I would really encourage folks to contact us because that’s what we are here for. We are here to help you figure it out and try to determine where we can use this. We’re going to have this conversation, what is your research method, and then we take that. We start with that conversation first and then we say okay where what kind of technologies do we have that would make you more efficient or effective as a researcher. A lot of folks if you already had expertise or a lot of exposure to AI, machine learning, and deep learning, you probably don’t need those kinds of conversations with us. Your conversation will be more like what kind of resources do I need, what kind of computational resources do I need.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So now beyond consultation with research computing what type of other resources available if people would like to integrate AI in their research or study?

Dan Maxwell: Again we have our practicumai.org. Research Computing offers or has Wikipedia like pages where you can get additional information there. Feel free to reach out to us, reach out to me, danielmaxwell@ufl.edu. I got a reading list for those who want to do some initial reading. We also have what we call bird-of-a-feather. Research Computing offers bird-of-a-feather where we get folks who are interested in a particular sub-field of AI and we come together and we have conversations and we talk about what you’re doing and how we can support you and what not.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So what about if people need to get help, where should they go?

Dan Maxwell: So if you want to reach out to us and contact us directly to schedule a conversation with our AI consultant in Research Computing, you can email us at it-rc-ai@ufl.edu. 

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Thank you very much Dan for sharing your insights and expertise on AI today. And I hope you have a great day.

Dan Maxwell: Thank you for having me on.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: That’s it folks. And we will see you next time on topic of interest in technology and thank you for joining us today.  

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Welcome to our podcast Technology Conversation where we discuss technology related topics from how to find resources for your technology needs to how technology can impact our lives. My name is Anchalee Phataralaoha. I am a training specialist with UFIT Training. I will be your host. Today I have a pleasure of someone sitting with me, our Production Manager, Greg D’Angio. Hi Greg and welcome!

Greg D’Angio: Hi Anchalee, thank you for having me.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Could you please tell us about your background?

Greg D’Angio: Sure, I’ll be happy to. I graduated from the University of Florida in the early 90s. I think it was 1993 that I graduated from the University of Florida and 2011 I decided to move back to Gainesville and applied for a job in UFIT to work as a production specialist for the CITT video studios. I think Gainesville is my hometown and I think it’s a wonderful place to live and I’m happy to be back here.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: We’re glad to have you here.

Greg D’Angio: Thank you.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So with that what do you do here?

Greg D’Angio: Well, I’m the production manager for UFIT Center for Instructional Technology and Training video studios. We run two full-service studios and one on-demand studio. We also have a field production team.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So you have full-service and on-demand studio. I suppose those are two different services. Can you tell me about the difference?

Greg D’Angio: Absolutely. That’s a great question Anchalee. Full-service studio we provide you with technical support during your recording. It is a studio offering many tools including a lightboard, iPad Pro integration, and other available tools plus we do all of your editing for you. The on-demand studio is somewhat like a one-button studio, but there are three buttons so we couldn’t call it a one-button studio. We decided to go with on-demand studio. It is available for you to come on your own. You bring a USB drive. You put it in the computer and it automatically records your video or audio track and you take it with you and you edit it on your own. It’s free of charge to faculty and staff.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So that’s on-demand studio.

Greg D’Angio: To us we call it on-demand studio. And we’re hoping that it catches.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So where is the studio? Is it on campus?

Greg D’Angio: Yes, the studios are Room 226 in the HUB, second floor of the HUB right in the center on campus above Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Can everyone use your service?

Greg D’Angio: Anybody can use our services. Our services are free for faculty providing content for official UF courses. Our services are available to anyone at a very, very affordable fee, hourly fee.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So does it mean the faculty has to pay to come use your services?

Greg D’Angio: No, not if they have official registrar UF courses.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So who has to pay then?

Greg D’Angio: Sometimes it’s people doing grant proposals, or lab practicals that are not being used in a course.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So like researchers?

Greg D’Angio: Researchers, yes. We do a lot, ever since Covid, we have done a lot of videos for people presenting outside the country who can’t leave or are at risk and would rather not fly. And we will make them a high-end professional video for them to present over Zoom or Teams.

Staff can use it, but again there is a nominal fee for that. There is a fee for that. We do have an on-demand studio that is free to faculty and staff. And I encourage folks to go to our website, which we will give you the address here in a moment to check out that on-demand studio. Book it at your leisure on the website and feel free to come in and try it out. It’s free of charge.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: How far in advance do people need to schedule?

Greg D’Angio: We prefer that it’s two weeks out at the minimum. During certain time of the year we get booked solid in both studios up to a month to six weeks in advance. So if you are on a short timeline, you need to contact us quickly and we will find time to squeeze you in. But if you’re looking to have a recurring appointment twice a week and you want to get on a schedule which we suggest so that it becomes part of your weekly routine, please reach out to us sooner.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Anything else you would like to add that people need to know, you know maybe before they come into your studio?

Greg D’Angio: Yes. I strongly encourage you to go to the website, citt.ufl.edu. We are under the UFIT umbrella and you will see many of the services we have available there. Click Video Productions and you can see tour of the studio, sizzle reels of the type of the videos we do, a 360-tour of the on-demand studio. You can also from that website access training, instructional design services, web services, and other technical support opportunities.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: That sounds great. Now final question. Any parting words you would like to leave to everyone?

Greg D’Angio: Well, I’m not much of a person that get quoted. But if I had to say something, I would probably say that content is important, but quality matters equally.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: That is pretty sharp Greg. So thank you for being here with us. And I hope you have a great day.

Greg D’Angio: Thank you Anchalee.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: That’s it for today everyone and we will see you next time for topics of interest in IT.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of our podcast program called Technology Conversations. My name is Anchalee Phataralaoha and I will be your host. I am a training specialist with UFIT Training. We bring you technological expertise to fill in any training needs you might have. We can also help you design IT training programs and provide consultation on a wide range of technical knowledge for your team. In this first episode I have a pleasure to talk to Kim Standifer, our Assistant Director for IT Training and Web Services.

Good afternoon Kim, how are you today?

Kimbley Standifer: Good afternoon Anchalee, it is such a pleasure to be here.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: I’m glad that you are here. So, to start off could you please share a little bit about yourself?

Kimbley Standifer: Sure. Well, again I am Kim Standifer and I am the Assistant Director in the Center for Instructional Technology & Training and I manage a team of trainers, web designers, and web developers. Really great people to work with.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, for this podcast what do you hope for people to get out of after listening to it?

Kimbley Standifer: You know I hope this podcast serves as a platform for us to share ideas, share resources, share knowledge from industry experts. And when I say industry experts I mean particularly those who are working in information technology or academic technology.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: So, any final thoughts that you would you like to share?

Kimbley Standifer: Yeah, I hope that people will become engaged, listen, and want to contribute to our discussions.

Anchalee Phataralaoha: Thank you very much Kim for joining us today and for spending some time with us this afternoon. That's it for today. We will see you all next month for a topic of interest in IT and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.