Like many digital pedagogy projects, Hard Work in Happy Valley is a collaborative one — bringing together the skill sets and experiences of people from throughout the Penn State University and State College communities.
No doubt the most important set of collaborators are the people who agreed to serve as the subjects of students projects. They made time in their schedules and opened their experiences to a wider public audience. For that and for much more, the creators of the project are grateful.
The project also would have been impossible without the collaboration and support of the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts and the Center for Digital Pedagogy and Scholarship. Casey Fenton, in particular, made an outstanding contribution to the success of Hard Work in Happy Valley. Volunteering to join the project as part of a Teaching Innovation Fellowship grant — awarded in recognition of classroom projects that make innovative use of technology — Casey coached class members on the kinds of resources that were available to them as Penn State students (including professional-grade video and audio equipment), on how to approach the difficult task of recording and constructing a documentary or podcast, and on how to use a variety of digital editing platforms available for their use. The project is far richer thanks to his participation.