Abstract:

It is a challenge to keep up with the ever changing environment of digital visual effects, motion graphics and animation. Software and hardware change and update rapidly. With new updates, come new tools that drive new techniques, which help develop new ideas. From the time freshmen enter our digital media curriculum to the day they graduate, a tremendous amount of change will be experienced with software, hardware and trends within their field of study. Keeping up with digital design is a task. Online resources that cater to the digital designer have become abundant within the internet community. YouTube, Vimeo and a host of sites geared to specific learning help students and instructors to navigate vast possibilities for the digital creator. Visual aids and professional examples that are readily available and accessed on demand through the internet can assist in developing a more informed and interactive classroom environment. This paper supports the use of online resources being the new instruction manual for much of today’s ever changing design software, and how these resources can be incorporated in the digital media classroom as a means to help students become lifelong learners.

Keywords:

Digital Media, Visual Effects, Online Resources, Design, Instruction.