Class Day at Diné College

The 2015 Navajo Oral History Project had a class day at Diné College Tuesday, May 26. The students participated in several software tutorials learning computer programs that will be helpful to them in collecting journalism materials and editing them into finished documentary films.

Students from both Winona State University (Winona, Minnesota) and Diné College (Tsaile, Arizona, Navajo Nation) will work in teams over the next two weeks to create documentaries about the lives of Navajo elders. The students met their teammates in-person in class for the first time. They saw each other via interactive television between the two campuses last week.




Above photo by Chops Hancock.








Professor Grier gave short tutorials on Adobe Photoshop photo editing software, and on Audacity, an easy-to-use audio editing program. Tobias Mann gave a tutorial on Adobe Lightroom software for image management and editing.



Above photo by Chops Hancock.

Nate Nelson led a tutorial on Adobe Premier video editing software.



 Above photo by Chops Hancock

Following the morning class, the WSU students checked out the Diné College bookstore, and ate lunch at the campus Snack Bar.

The class got their laptops connected to the Diné College network and enjoyed a walking tour of the Diné College campus led by Professor Miranda Haskie including joining an archery class for a demonstration.

Dinner in the Diné College Cafeteria was excellent: salad, cornbread muffins, baked chicken and rice, shrimp and pasta shells in alfredo sauce, roasted corn, hot apple crisp, cookies and chocolate cheesecake were just some of the options.

After dinner, several of the WSU group played a round of freestyle disc golf on campus. It was Chops Hancock's first time playing the game. In less than one hour he improved tremendously. He said he looks forward to playing more often.

Casie Rafferty used some of her time to capture artistic images of the nature and beauty of the Diné College campus. These next four photos are by her:

The day ended with a crackling fire in the residence hall fireplace and 'smores while students edited photos and worked on preparing for their first interviews in the field with Navajo elders.

Above two photos by Jacob Hilsabeck.

 Above six photos by Chops Hancock.

Editor's note from Tom Grier: We hope you enjoy the blog and reading and seeing the activities of the NOHP 2015 group. I spent more than four hours on images this evening and am posting the blog after midnight. Each blog entry may be updated from time to time to add more student's images as they are given to me. So, blog viewers should look back at previous entries to see new added images. Feel free to leave comments at the end of any blog entry. And, share the blog with friends, relatives and any others that might be interested in this student-driven documentary journalism project.