Pat Besong

 pzb4@psu.edu

814.865.2154

http://www.personal.psu.edu/pzb4

I am a multimedia manager in Education Technology Services at Penn State. Our projects mostly consist of digital video and Flash animation and interactivity. 

Although my degree from Penn State (class of ‘81) is in Art with emphasis in drawing, I became more interested in working with computers after using the Apple Lisa back in December of 1983. Since then it’s been all Macs for me with a brief stint in the Windows world when I worked as a web developer for SMGnet, creating online simulations for Fortune 500 companies. 

My work has been mainly in Flash in recent years. I have developed complete courses in Flash for Penn State, some of which were highly interactive, such as PSYCH 213. I have also developed a touch-screen kiosk for the Penn State All-Sports Museum, which used a FileMaker Pro database with a Flash interface. It displays all the media personnel that have covered Penn State sports over the years, and includes video and audio of some of the most memorable moments in Penn State sports history. I have also presented at the 8th Annual Meeting for Simulations in Healthcare in San Diego, where I explained how to quickly develop healthcare simulations using FileMaker Pro, XML, and Flash. I have also been involved with getting a QuickTime streaming service up and running at Penn State, and often field questions on its use. My other interests include captioning for video. I am writing an application that I hope can be installed in all the Mac labs on campus to make it easier for people to offer captioned videos to students. I am currently employing the app to caption videos for PHIL012.