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 six three-credit courses

ATLS 2000, Meaning of Information Technology. Entry-level students get an overview of the breadth and range of the information technology, arts, and media-related fields open to them. This course outlines the various skills that certificate students will want to acquire during their tenure at CU Boulder. Students meet and exchange ideas with CU faculty from a broad range of disciplines, and with outside guests from local and national industry, government and arts institutions. By the end of the course, students master some basic technical skills, such as E-mailing, web-browsing and basic web page creation; they become aware of the rapid expansion of new technology, arts and media fields open to them and of the skills necessary for success in each field; and they are equipped to think critically about the implications and impacts of new information technologies, media and artistic forms. This course requires no prior technical knowledge.

ATLS 3010, Introductory Projects in TAM and ATLS 4010, Capstone Proects. Both courses encourage collaboration, invention and problem-solving through the application by students of specific technical, artistic and analytical skills developed during the course of the semester. Students produce several multimedia works, both as individuals and in interdisciplinary groups, and demonstrate a critical appreciation of the social, communicative and technical implications of these products. By the end of the capstone course, students have portfolios which demonstrate their development and potential as well as their own written analyses of their work during the certificate program. Additionally, the capstone projects course involves some degree of production for real-world clients, largely outside of the university.

Three core courses, which 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 core course within a single academic department. The three core areas are: History and Social Implications, Theories and Foundations, 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, and Bioethics.

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.

To enroll in the Technology, Arts and Media Certificate Program,
contact Dave Kalahar at ATLScert@colorado.edu