Professor: Mr. Todd O’Neill
About Me
Associate Professor Todd O’Neill
I began my career as a video producer and director, then transitioned to multimedia production and then to online production. I now teach full-time as Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media degree program at Middle Tennessee State University.
Projects that I have written or produced have won industry awards, have appeared in your local record store (The Artist FKA Prince “Interactive”), at newsstands across France (Hachette-Fillapaci “Explor’us” eCommerce CD-ROM), in your nearby training room, or on some humongous screen near you.
With all that background what does that make me?
- Content Strategist
- Digital Media Creator
- Interaction Designer
- Information Architect
- Translator between Business and Technical people
I have started and owned small businesses (DoingMedia and C4 Workspace) for as long as I have worked for a company. The former means freedom to pursue my passions and regularly unscheduled chaos and the latter means stability and an often flattened forehead. Bring on the chaos.
When not working, blogging, or teaching, I enjoy time with my family, travel, riding my bike, singing and “playing” music (a guitar was my “mid-life crisis” purchase), woodworking, and general puttering around the house.
All About My Teaching
Teaching has always been a calling. It is something I am drawn to do. I was impressed by the teachers I have had throughout my life. I remember them and can place myself in their classrooms. My memories of them are my “ah-ha” moments when I realized that they were doing something important.
I teach because I feel it is my duty to teach. That’s why I taught for 23 years as an adjunct. That’s why I am teaching full-time now, later in life than most tenure track faculty. This is what I think all practitioners should do – share what they have learned with the people coming behind them. To paraphrase: “Those that can, do teach.”
So, I teach about video production and social media and history and web design, and writing. But I actually teach patience and confidence and sharing. I want to teach students how to learn. I would prefer a student come out of my class with the interest and confidence and desire to learn and not just a rote command of the subject.
My favorite method of teaching is what I call “throwing them in the deep end.” I lull my students into learning just enough so they can doggy paddle through the subject and then give them what appears to be a big, hairy, audacious goal (BHAG.) And they complain and negotiate about it. And are nearly always successful.
I may be the final arbiter in the classroom, I may have more experience in my discipline than my students do, I may or may not be the smartest or most talented person in the room, but at the end of the day I’m a person who happens to know a lot and loves to teach and I have bad days and good days just like they do. I am a person and an adult and I expect they are the same.