TTU English Media Lab

In 2025, almost every kind of creative work done by students and faculty in English Departments is born digital. Writing, editing, design, multimodal and interactive content, podcasts, as well as video for teaching, collaboration, or presentation of research — all of these require digital tools, which are consistently evolving.

But ask yourself — when did you last actually learn a new digital tool, thoroughly? One you'd never used before? We often figure out how to ‘muddle through’ a new site, app, or application. Usability scholars call this ‘satisficing’ (learning just enough for what we minially need). But most of us don't ever spend focused time learning to understand new tools, or learning to create new works that take advantage of all of the capabilities now available to us. As a result, many people in English aren't really expert with software or hardware.

Which can be an issue, when every kind of creative work is born digital.

The Media Lab is a space for students and scholars to learn to use to create/edit digital, collaborative, or media-enhanced projects better. The Lab aims to foster pedagogy and cultivate research infused with creative media technology, and to support the development of digital and new media literacies.

What can I do in the Media Lab?

Students, faculty, and staff are welcome to visit the lab to use our equipment and software. You can even borrow items from our equipment library, including digital mixers, mics, cameras, and more. We also servers and workstations which can produce more sophisticated work than most laptops can, and we also have laptop stations where you can connect your own laptop to large-screen 4K monitors and a wide range of multimedia equipment you don't have at home, or in your office. We also have a small but growing community of other members with skills that can help you complete your project.

Mission Statement

Computers are language machines.
—Paul N. Edwards 

The English Media Lab will become a space for small- to mid-sized collaboration. It will offer open-access scheduled meeting spaces with high-end workstations, laptop stations, greenscreen, video, and audio equipment, prosumer cameras, and web and database servers to facilitate online publishing. It will be available to both on-campus and online members of the department, as well as offer consultations and brown-bag lunches to invite students and faculty to raise the sophistication of multimedia we produce for our teaching and research.

 

Location:Humanities 362Director:Geoffrey Sauer