TAM Requirements
The TAM curriculum provides a broad multidisciplinary perspective that goes far beyond simply giving students technological skills. It includes multidisciplinary, multimedia projects courses, as well as courses that impart foundational knowledge and a critical perspective on the role of technology in society. Students earn the certificate by taking seven three-credit courses
Requirements Flow Chart
ATLS 2000, Meaning of Information Technology
MIT is the introductory course for the Technology, Arts and Media (TAM) undergraduate certificate program offered by the ATLAS Institute. This course provides an introduction to a range of topics in information technology and new media. A breadth of topics and issues are covered in areas that include: the Internet, innovation, artificial intelligence, privacy, security, open source, regulation, digital divides, digital music and art, digital gaming, virtual communities, globalization and other relevant topics. The course will not only investigate these technologies, but will also explore how these technologies have affected individuals, culture, society, industry, and government. By the end of the course, students will have acquired an awareness of the rapid expansion of new technology, and will have begun to think critically about the implications and impacts of new information technologies.
This course requires no prior technical knowledge.
ATLS 3010, Digital Media 1
The goal of this projects-based course is to facilitate the exploration of the student’s major and its intersection with technology, arts, and media. It will provide students from any discipline with the opportunity to design and develop conceptually motivated digital media projects. This will be accomplished by refining technical, conceptual, and critical skills as they relate to a students’ individual interests.
In this course, students will learn new technical skills, but more importantly, they will learn how to think critically and conceptually about the practice of digital media production. Skills include digital imagery, digital video, digital sound, web development, interactive design and motion design.
Previous technologies include: HTML, XHTML, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Javascript, CSS, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, SnapZ Pro, Audacity, Apple Garageband, Logic, and Final Cut Studio,
Pre-requisite: MIT / ATLS2000
ATLS 3020, Digital Media 2The field of digital media continues to be propelled forward by technological advances, making it essential for artists to expand their technical knowledge and skills in order to fully participate. This course merges the worlds of digital media creation and programming by introducing basic programming concepts and methodologies that will be applied to the creation and manipulation of information, images, animation, and sound. Students will gain the knowledge and experience needed to compete at the cutting edge of the digital media field.
Digital Media 2 enables students to incorporate leading edge technologies with their own academic pursuits and personal interests to develop interactive web applications. Students work with a range of technologies including scripting, interactive web design, multimedia computing, and database connectivity.
Previous technologies include: client/server networking, internet and Web architecture, file system structure, abstraction, algorithm development, HTML, frames, JavaScript, PHP, XML, MySQL, Ajax, Actionscript, object-oriented programming, database integration, interaction Web design, and technical design issues (testing, debugging, performance, security, usability).
Pre-requisites: ATLS2000 / MIT, ATLS3010 / Digital Media 1
Three Elective Courses
TAM students select from a list of courses offered campus-wide, provide students with a broad perspective on technology, arts and media. The Certificate Program encourages students to take courses in a variety of disciplines and to experience the environments and problem-solving techniques in complementary fields of specialization. Students may not take more than one elective course within a single academic department. The three elective areas are: History and Social Implications, Theories and Foundations, and Invention and Practice.
History and Social Implications courses introduce students to the history and social implications of one or more forms of media and information technologies. Media are defined broadly here to include literature, print and electronic journalism, radio, television, Internet, film, painting, dance, and computer-imaging. Critical Thinking about Art and Society, Social Impacts of New Media, Writing on Real and Virtual Society, Technology and History of Film, Women and/in Technology, and Media and Public Culture are a few of these available courses.
Theories and Foundations courses expose students to some of the theoretical approaches to technology, media, and the arts employed by different disciplines. They emphasize the teaching of foundational (inter)disciplinary concepts to stimulate critical thinking about symbolic form and content. Courses can range from those treating theories of vision and sound to literary and sociological or anthropological models for understanding media and the world around us. These courses include Color Theory, Media Theory and Knowledge, Film Theory, Art and Psychoanalysis, Science Images and the Internet.
Invention and Practice courses offer students the opportunity to experiment, design, and/or make things through the application of discipline-specific technological skills acquired during the semester. Examples of such skills include musical composition, web authoring, architectural modeling, choreography, Java programming, digital recording, digital imaging, and computer animation. Among the Invention and Practice courses currently offered are: Designing the Information Society, 3-D Digital Modeling and Narratives of Space, Digital Newsroom, Museums and Information Technology, Computer Mapping, Multimedia in Learning and Teaching, and Digital Photography/Editing.
ATLS 4010, Capstone Projects in Technology, Arts & Media
Capstone Projects is a thesis-driven, projects-based course. This advanced course focuses primarily on professional group-based projects, as well as personal portfolio development with an overlying emphasis on personal growth and achievement.
The class session will feature a combination of lectures, demonstrations, open lab sessions, meetings and critiques. In this course, students may do a series of smaller projects while developing a larger thesis project to be installed within the ATLAS Building at the end of the semester.
Depending on the instructor, students may have the opportunity to work in a team environment on a real-world project focused on solving a business need for a client in the community. Projects may range from web site development, CD-ROM or DVD creation, to application development. Students will explore software project management methodologies, and investigate related business case studies. Teamwork, analytical skill, and good communication are emphasized as students work with the client to understand their need, and work through project definition, creation, and delivery. As these projects are multidisciplinary in nature, they require the active participation of students with varied technological backgrounds.
This course also entails a significant reading and writing component. Selected research, tutorials, and related readings will be expected to contribute to class discussions, projects, and critiques.
It is strongly suggested that this is the last course you take for the TAM Certificate, and that you do not take another ATLAS course concurrently because of the time commitment.
Pre-requisites: ATLS 2000 / MIT, ATLS3010 / Digital Media 1, ATLS 3020 / Digital Media 2
To enroll in the Technology, Arts and Media Certificate Program,
contact Dave Kalahar at kalahar@colorado.edu.
General Requirements
» Student has 21 hours total for the Certificate.» Student has a 2.0 TAM GPA* with a C minimum for individual classes.
» Student has met with TAM advisor early in completion semester to fill out TAM Certificate Graduation Application.
Courses Completed
» ATLS2000 / 3 credits, The Meaning of Information Technology.
» ATLS3010 / 3 credits, Digital Media 1, (to be completed after or concurrent with The Meaning of IT).
» ATLS3020 / 3 credits, Digital Media 2, (to be completed after Digital Media 1).
» History and Social Implications Elective, 3 hours. (Only one elective course from a single department will count towards your TAM requirements.)
» Theories and Foundations Elective, 3 hours. (Only one elective course from a single department will count towards your TAM requirements.)
» Invention and Practice Elective, 3 hours. You will be most successful in this course after having completed The Meaning of IT, and Digital Media 1 classes. (Only one elective course from a single department will count towards your TAM requirements.)
» ATLS4010 / 3 credits, Capstone Projects. (Prerequisites: completion of The Meaning of IT, Digital Media 1, Digital Media 2, and Invention and Practice course.)
