Digital Design and Emergent Media

A Part of LSU Pathways

The LSU Digital Design and Emergent Media STEM Certification Pathway began in 2016 with the goal of increasing the number of students taking high-quality LSU STEM courses from LSU-trained and supported teachers.

The three pillars of the DDEM pathway are:

  • Computational thinking
  • 21st century skills
  • Design knowledge for a variety of media


Digital Design Showcase is Friday April 12, 2024 at LSU. Submission deadline is March 22, 2024

Students in the Digital Design & Emergent Media pathway are invited to submit their works for LSU Pathway's inaugural Digital Design Showcase! The Showcase will take place on Friday, April 12, 2024 in LSU's Digital Media Center, a versatile exhibition space equipped to highlight a variety of categories of digital design, including but not limited to:
  • Graphic design
  • Motion graphics
  • Film and video
  • Sound design and music
  • Video games
  • Web design, coding, and programming
  • Digital art and sound installations


More About DDEM

The Digital Design and Emergent Media pathway teaches industry-based technical skills that prepare students for a career in creative technology. Click a dropdown to view some of the specific skills that are covered.

  • User Interface Design (UID)
  • User Experience Design (UX)
  • Arduino
  • Social network
  • Web applications
  • JavaScript
  • Interactive web pages
  • Physical computing

  • Music theory and composition
  • Software synthesizers
  • DAWs such as Studio One and Protools
  • Recording techniques
  • Mixing and mastering

  • 2D and 3D game design
  • 2D and 3D animation
  • Digital graphics
  • Photoshop
  • Illustrator
  • Rigging
  • Planar tracking
  • Rotoscoping
  • Motion tracking
  • Maya
  • Blender


DDEM classes are also designed to prepare students with marketable 21st century skills that are applicable in any field. 21st century skills can be broken down into three categories:

  • Critical thinking
  • Creativity
  • Collaboration
  • Communication

  • Information literacy
  • Media literacy
  • Technology literacy

  • Flexibility
  • Leadership
  • Initiative
  • Productivity
  • Social skills


Courses

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Digital Image and Motion Graphics

These courses will be based on hands on training in the use computer hardware and software to create digital graphics, starting with the basics of Photoshop and Illustrator and continuing to Maya and Blender.

Sound Design

Sound Design has students learning the fundamentals of music: what goes into writing, performing, recording, editing, and analyzing multiple styles of composition. After a crash course in the fundamentals of music theory: scales, chords, notation, etc.

Interactive Digital Media Capstone

The Interactive Digital Media Capstone course brings together the core courses in Media Design and Production with the concepts of User Interface Design (UID), User Experience Design (UX), and creative coding to develop team based projects.

Introduction to Computational Thinking

This course introduces students to the basic ideas of computational thinking and its applications to problem solving in STEM fields. Students will use an open source, Web-based programming environment to create code for simple drawings, animations and simulations, through which they learn how to use abstraction, decomposition, and pattern recognition to model problems and arrive to an algorithmic solution.

Coding for the Web

Coding for the Web teaches the language of JavaScript. The class starts at an introductory level, giving students a strong grasp of the basic JavaScript syntax. The foundational aspects of the course, such as variables, operators, conditional statements and more give the students a basis for understanding the more complex topics, such as loops and functions.

Esports

From this course, students will gain a holistic view of the esports industry. They will be able to understand various facets of what goes into making an esports event and be able to identify key decisions an organization has made when creating an event.

Introduction to Video Game Design

Introduction to Video Game Design exposes students to the fundamentals of creating video games using the Godot game engine and its native scripting language, GDScript. Students design, code, and build small and large projects aimed at developing coding, teamwork, and critical thinking skills.

Digital Storytelling

This is a project based learning (PBL) inspired course that utilizes a PBL assessment guide in addition to thoughtful integrated learning. Throughout the course, experimentation and the practice of storytelling through the lenses of multiple mediums allows students to develop narrative reasoning skills while simultaneously giving them a realm to be creative and challenged.

Programming Digital Media

Programming Digital Media is a course designed to familiarize students with the Javascript Coding language through real-time graphics generation, audio processing, and game design. Students will also explore physical computing with Arduino, ultimately creating controllers for their own custom 2d games.

Contact

Please email us at lsuddem@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to learn more.

  • LSU Gordon A. Cain Center 222 Prescott Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803