Studio in a Box Initiative (SIAB)

Through years of prototyping, we have extended innovation on our rapid, mobile production studio that uses mobile devices and a user-friendly workflow to mimic the different camera angles of the GHELI multimedia studio set-up, intended to lower the barriers for creating and using multimedia in teaching and learning. The pandemic catalyzed further SIAB innovation with the critical need to adapt to teaching in multimodal online environments. Watch this collection of interviews with GHELI Director Sue J. Goldie as part of Harvard’s Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL) on how to design and iterate for online teaching.

In recent years, teaching fellows have collaborated with GHELI to pilot SIAB, providing valuable feedback while also creating new prototypes. We have adapted our set-ups for both graduate and undergraduate use and integrated them into student laboratories, piloted multiple applications for use on mobile devices (e.g., mobile teleprompter) to provide support to novice media creators and streamline post-production time, and SIAB has become an integral part of all our workshops held onsite.

Left: Example of a mobile overhead “arm” for an iPhone or an iPad. Middle: Camilla Finlay explains how to use SIAB for creating a course assignment during a student workshop. Right: A student uses SIAB equipment to record two angles before editing footage together using a video editing app such as iMovie, Movavi, or Filmora.