---
tags: essentialsLab, jk
---

# essentialsLab syllabus

## description
How do we orient ourselves to the overwhelming awesomeness that surrounds us in the Learning Lab? In essentialsLab, we will develop our skills, our knowledge base, and our capacities in the wide array of tools that abound at the LL. Each week, we will pull together relevant research, evaluate new technologies, and locate best practices and models. Thinking together about what’s already out there, both within the classroom but also beyond, leads to innovative yet grounded prototypes for testing.

It doesn't matter if you've spent 10 seconds or 10 thousand hours working in one of these essential tools--the time we spend in essentialsLab will serve to hone our abilities to learn, and teach in each of these tools.

For LLUFs who are newer to our LL team, this is a great opportunity to get a taste of some tools you may have never heard of before--and a chance to find something that you are super excited to dig deeper into!

For LLUFs who are more familiar with these tools, this is certainly a time to sharpen those skills and delve into the role of peer tutor before "going live" with students in a course we are supporting.

## format
**Attend your biweekly essentialsLab section**. If you can't make your section that week, try to make another section. All sections will be doing the same thing every week.

**Complete biweekly asynchronous essentialsLab mission.**

## sections
* **Tuesdays 10-11**
* Ammara, Anya, Emmy, Marc
* **Wednesdays 2-3**
* Charlie, Henry, Marcus, Matilda, Sophie, Sienna, Joshua
* **Fridays 3-4**
* Hannah, Amelie, David, Micheal, Abby, Joey, Daniela (Emmy, Ammara)

## tools
The LL studio itself is really the most essential tool we have for our work. This workshop space is designed to creatively capture every happening of learning and making within it. Fully stocked with physical art supplies, techie dream gadgets, inspiring informational texts, and most importantly a community of folks who have worked together to hone the skills required to make this magical space...well, magical.

At any given time, you will find someone who is totally willing to nerd out with you and help you build your own unique toolkit for working in the LL. And let's be real here: pretty much anything you learn for doing LL work can be leveraged as a skill for whatever your dreams are beyond your time with us--and that's truly a not-so-secret part of our mission. We want to invest in you. We want to help you find the set of skills and tools that will help you achieve your goals, both as a student making the coolest possible projects, but then also for whatever dream gig you hope to land in the future.

Now, you may be wondering how to decide on what tools you'd like to learn. Well, that brings us to the essentials toolset. We hope that you will be willing to try out a bunch of tools to get a sense of ones that you may have never heard of before, or maybe haven't worked with in a while. By working your way through this list, we will learn what tools you have excitement about and ways in which we can support the larger student body in learning the tools that most folks gravitate towards.

### Are you keen to get started learning more about a specific tool? Or curious about the list of tools we are excited about exploring this Spring?
In our weekly essentialsLab sections, we will work towards getting through this list, but don't feel like you need to wait if there's one you are stoked to dive into independently. Just let us know so we can support your journey!

categories of tools: the ones that are easy and fun to use (smartphones, canva, garageband); the ones that are industry standard and marketable if you get good enough at them (cameras, adobe suite, fcpx); ones that are free and you can do a ton with (blender, davinci resolve). maybe this is a 2x2 of easy to learn---hard to learn + easy to get---hard to get. So blender would be hard to learn but easy to get!

So without further ado, here's a list of essentials tools and some additional structure around how to approach learning them: [**skill-building-missions**](https://hackmd.io/WFSQLjIbSa2p5yHjIHQM3Q)

## a tentative timeline of topics:

| Week | Topic | Learning Objectives | Tech Reqs | the Thing Made |
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| 1 | eventLab [Studio as instrument](/LG7Y0yhkRVqHF_HPQjtEVQ) | | | |
| 2 |graphicsLab [Layout as Blueprint](https://hackmd.io/yS3Yq_t_RnWhKnBJ-LLxpw)|learn tool: Id; learn & practice basic graphic design principles, develop taste, understand how layout functions as a strucutre for organizing your ideas |adobe indesign on at least 5 machines and sign in process to adobe figured out | a 4-5 page magazine spread as a projet proposal for your transmedia capstone | |
| 3 |realityLab |learn tool: Blender; develop ideas for how 3D modeling (and ultimeatly even augmented or virtual reality) could serve as a medium for assignments |Blender up on at least 5 machines |an annotated object |
| 4 |audioLab: Live Sound Design |learn tool: PA system, mics, logic; how to present ideas live | | an electronic music elevator pitch|
| 5 |cineLab: Sequence as Disclosure|learn tool: Pr, FCPX; how montage functions | |a 1-2 minute montage |
| 6 |codeLab |learn tool: airtable, css; understand object properties and how to use them to produce amazing results in the web gallery zone, learn a bit of css styling to make our galleries have a voice and pov that supports the content | |a populated and styled web gallery |

Our goals:
* Train the LLUFs in media they might need expertise in to help Harvard courses.
* Produce prototypes that we can show to professors that might make our work more concrete.
* Developing internal capacities (human, tech, etc.) to make and teach.