“The right stories can open our hearts and change who we are.”
Janet Murray
About Jo Beth
Jo Beth Bootz is the Media Communications and Broadcasting Program Instructor at the Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center in Evansville. She embarked on her media journey during high school with a focus on radio broadcasting during her senior year as part of the Career and Technical Education program through the EVSC. Building on this foundation, Jo Beth pursued her passion at Indiana University, earning a degree in Telecommunications and Communication and Culture.
Throughout her college years, Jo Beth demonstrated her dedication to media by collaborating with the IU Office of Communications and Marketing. She produced a syndicated program for high school radio stations in Indiana and gained valuable experience through a summer internship in video production with KSTN in Seattle, Washington. Jo Beth earned a prestigious summer fellowship from the International Radio and Television Society after graduation. This opportunity led her to New York, where she interned with the Sesame Workshop, contributing to home video production for Sesame Street.
In her professional career, Jo Beth worked in marketing communications with Windstream Communications, Youth Resources of Southwestern Indiana, Habitat for Humanity of Evansville, and Macaroni Kid National. In 2020, Jo Beth transitioned to education, channeling her passion for media to inspire the next generation. Despite her diverse experiences, she circled back to the program and radio station where she started as a high school student. In addition to her full-time role, Jo Beth engages in freelance projects focusing on marketing communications and provides voice-over services to clients regionally and nationally. Her work can be heard on iHeartRadio’s iRead2Know literacy station.
Jo Beth is in her second semester of the Emerging Media Design and Development program.
Thoughts on the EMMD Spring Workshop
As a low-res student, the journey to Indianapolis combines excitement, anticipation, and genuine education alongside fellow professionals. In online learning, our weeks are often consumed by work, family, friends, and extracurricular activities. However, Ball State’s four-day workshop for EMDD at the beginning of each semester, where professionals convene, serves as a welcoming gateway, fostering connections with the curriculum and peers in the cohort.
The workshop became an immediate hub for bonding, featuring Dr. Maloney’s engaging stoke activities, an escape room challenge set to the backdrop of 80’s music and cars, and Dr. Fisher’s commitment to teaching a new system for crafting interactive digital experiences. Discussions traversed diverse topics, from Star Wars to Westworld, exploring storytelling models from Freytag, Kishotenketsu, and Vonnegut, and embracing Janet Murray as our personal Godmother of IDN. The exchange of knowledge and ideas during these sessions was unparalleled.
The workshop concluded with a creative challenge amid discussions, lectures, and group activities. Teams drew on their love and understanding of impactful storytelling, combining it with the structure of digital narrative using Unity for the first time. And boy, was that a challenge! Drawing inspiration from our escape room experience, two teams “competed,” weaving narratives featuring a casino mob boss to a spooky treasure hunt complete with a haunted mansion—all constructed within a text-based experience, challenging our storytelling and programming skills. Undoubtedly, each of us embarked on a Hero’s journey from Wednesday through Saturday, initiating or continuing our education journey with the EMDD family.
Would you like to join Jo Beth on her journey? Follow EMDD on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Visit our Ball State University webpage for more information or to join our program.