Assignments

  1. Personal website: 20%
  2. Weekly discussion forum postings: 15%
  3. Personal blog posts: 15%
  4. Issue/cause website: 25%
  5. Book chapter remix: 25%

Grade descriptions

These descriptions will give you an indication of the the expectations that will guide my evaluation of your individual projects:

  • A: Outstanding represents superlative participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed, with very high quality in all course work.
  • B: Excellent represents above-average participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed, with consistently high quality in course work.
  • C: Average represents good participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed, with generally good quality overall in course work.
  • D: Below average represents uneven participation in course activities; some gaps in assigned work completed, with inconsistent quality in course work.
  • F: Inadequate represents minimal participation in course activities; serious gaps in assigned work completed, or very low quality in course work.

Plus/minus grades

I will use the following scale to determine plus/minus grades:

  • A+: 97 and above
  • A: 93-96
  • A-: 90-92
  • B+: 87-89
  • B: 83-86
  • B-: 80-82
  • C+: 77-79
  • C: 73-76
  • C-: 70-72
  • D+: 67-69
  • D: 63-66
  • D-: 60-62
  • F: 0-59

Personal website

Description

You will create a personal website to showcase your professional persona and your work in this course. While all elements of your site are expected to function and display correctly in a variety of web browsers, because you will be allowed to use third-party site-building software, the project will primarily focus on the appropriateness of the website–its design and implementation, the text and other media it contains, and the overall appeal and effectiveness of the site and its orgaization.

Requirements

Your site should contain the following major sections:

  • A blog.
  • An about page featuring a brief description of the purpose of the site, as well as information about you (as appropriate). It is not necessary for you to divulge personal information about your life, but you should provide a description of yourself as the author of the site, explaining what you hope to share on the site and why visitors should be interested in it. This will page contain at least 300 words of text and at least one image. The writing should showcase your wit and ability to connect with your site’s potential visitors.
  • A portfolio section, highlighting the digital work you will create as part of the course (although you can feel free to include any other digital work of yours that you feel would be appropriate)
  • A credits page acknowledging all the work on the site not produced solely by you (i.e. images, logos, etc.). You do not need to document third-party material included in your blog posts or your projects on the portfolio page as long as that material is documented in those posts or projects.

Your site will be a work in progress to which you will add material throughout the semester, serving as a portfolio for your course work. It should be legible, appropriate, and attractive in its use of site colors, backgrounds and other images, and typefaces. The site should make effective use of visual material like photographs and illustrations when appropriate. If amy material on the site is not wholly created by you, you must acknowledge the original author and link back to his or her work on the site’s credits page.

Website due dates

In addition to the requirements above, your grade for this project will also depend on your ability to meet the following deadlines. You should have created your site on WordPress.com before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21 so you can begin blogging. To show that you have met this deadline, you will post a link to the forum section on this site titled “Personal Websites” before that deadline. The complete about page, along with the portfolio and credits pages should be added to your site by 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24. It’s ok if there is no material for the Portfolio and Credits pages at first; when you add them, you can simply include some filler text, like “Coming soon,” and then add the content later as you complete your other projects. All of these projects should be posted to the site no later than 5 p.m. on the last day of class, Apr. 25.

Grading

I will evaluate your personal website using the following five categories:

  • Design: The site adheres to the best practices for Web and multimedia design.
  • Accessibility and requirements: The site adheres to the best practices for linking and image use and is free of major errors in organization or structure. The site meets all of the requirements laid out in the assignment description.
  • Readability and effectiveness: The text and other multimedia elements are free of major and minor errors in structure, syntax, and grammar and display the quality of writing appropriate for a professional publication.
  • Multimodality: Multimedia elements are effectively incorporated into the site to complement, comment on, and/or extend the written text.
  • Citation and research: All of the elements of the site are either the sole creation of the author, explicitly licensed for reuse, no longer covered by copyright, or used within the bounds of fair use. All sources used on the site that are not the sole creation of the author or authors are fully cited using a format appropriate to the medium.

Weekly discussion forum postings*

Description

Each week you will be responsible for participating in online discussions of the course readings from Program or Be Programmed and Blown to Bits on the discussion forum. Each week one or more Discussion Leaders (DL) will be responsible for guiding the discussion of the readings and any related topics.

By guiding the discussion, I mean that the DLs can analyze the readings, challenge them, compare and contrast them with other pertinent texts/resources, pose a question or questions to their peers (that they should also attempt to answer), or otherwise stimulate a discussion around the readings for the course.

Requirements

All students in the course are required to post one long comment as well as one shorter reply to the forum each week.

Discussion leaders. One of the DLs will begin the discussion by posting a new topic in the Weekly Discussion forum. This topic should be titled according to the week number—for example, the forum for the week of Jan. 27-31 should be titled “Week 4.”

To receive credit, the DLs’ topic posts should have a descriptive title, be at least 250 words in length, and be posted before 9 a.m. on Monday of their assigned week. Discussion leaders are also required to post one reply of at least 150 words to the discussion in addition to their initial topic post before 5 p.m. on Friday of that week.

On many weeks, there will be more than one DL. However, there should be only one forum topic for each week. DLs scheduled for the same week should coordinate with each other to decide who will create the initial post for their week.

Everyone else. The rest of the class will post to the forum by replying to the topic created by the DLs for that week. These initial replies should engage with the prompts provided by the DLs and should be at least 150 words long. After their initial reply, students should post at least one reply of at least 75 words to another student’s post. All posts and replies for a given week are due by 5 p.m. on the Friday of that week.

There is no limit to how many replies a person can make to the forum each week, and you are free to continue discussions on the weekly forums throughout the semester. Obviously, the sooner that everyone contributes to the online conversation, the more lively and substantive the discussion can become.

Citation and reference. Weekly forum discussions will not cover technical readings, such as those from WordPress 24-Hour Trainer; there will be separate forums for discussing issues related to setting up your WordPress sites and dealing with other technical issues. Rather, they will only cover our readings from Blown to Bits and Program or Be Programmed.

When referencing these works, DLs and all other students must clearly indicate when they are directly quoting the text and provide page references for all quotations and paraphrases. For example, when quoting from page 8 of Program or Be Programmed a student would write:

As Rushkoff argues, “digital technologies are in many ways a natural outgrowth of what went before” (p. 8).

If a student were to paraphrase this same passage, it would be like this:

Rushkoff argues that are current technologies are organic developments from previous technologies (p. 8).

The same processes should be used when referencing sources outside of the readings, with the addition of either full citation information for print sources (author, title of work, year, and publication information) or a link to the original page for online sources.

Instructor participation. The weekly discussion forum is designed to be a space where students engage with the course texts. I will read all of your posts, and although I reserve the right to participate in these discussions, I may do so sparingly.

Instructor discussion prompts. Occasionally, I will assign discussion prompts for the DLs and the rest of the class to respond to. These prompts will be posted in the course schedule, so everyone should check the schedule prior to posting to the forum each week.

Discussion forum postings due dates

DL’s first posts are due by 9 a.m. on the Monday of their assigned week. The DL’s second post and the posts by all other class members are due before 5 p.m. on the Friday of that week.

There will be no DL assigned during the first two weeks of class. Your first forum post will be due on week 2, before 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 17. I will assign DLs to individual weeks and email the DL schedule to everyone during our second week of classes. (Update, 1/9: If you would like to request to be the DL for a particular week, post your request to this thread on the forum.)

Because DLs are required to begin a discussion about the readings assigned for that week, and because their posts are due before 9 a.m. at the beginning of the week, DLs  must complete the assigned readings from Program or Be Programmed and/or Blown to Bits before the week they are listed on the schedule so as to allow themselves time to compose and post a substantive prompt for that week.

For example, to receive credit for the post on the week of Monday, Jan. 27, the discussion leaders must complete the readings for Jan. 27-31 and post their introductory comments by 9 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 27, and everyone else must post their initial responses to the thread and one shorter comment before 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 31.

Grading

I will evaluate your forum posts and replies according to how rich they are in content, insight, and analysis. All posts and replies should make clear connections to previous or current content (readings, other discussion posts, relevant outside examples) and authors should make new ideas and new connections in a way that gives them depth and detail.

As with all other writing in the course, forum posts and replies should be thoughtfully composed, revised, and proofread so that they are largely free of errors in content or typographical or other surface errors.

Forum postings cannot be made up and those posted after they are due will receive no credit.

*This project is adapted from an assignment by Jill Woods.

Personal blog posts*

Description

Your blog posts are designed to give you an outlet for reflecting on your learning in this course. Periodically throughout the semester, spend at least 15 minutes writing about your work in the course, including both what you are learning and how you are learning it. For example, you could write about what you are learning about WordPress and/or a particular success you have had (or challenge you have faced) with the system; you might write about your plans for your video or issue/cause website, using the blog as a way of brainstorming these projects; or you might address your generally progress in the course, such as what you have learned at that particular point in the semester and hope to learn before the end of the term. As long as your post addresses the content of the course and your participation in it, it should be acceptable. If you have any questions about topics for your blog posts, feel free to contact me.

I will regularly read your blog posts in order to keep track of your progress throughout the semester. I will sometimes, but not always, comment on those posts in order to provide feedback on problems you’re trying to work through, if that seems necessary. If there are problems with a post’s writing or design, I may ask you to revise it.

Requirements

While the length of individual posts will vary depending on the topic, the average length of your posts should be 300 words, and all of your posts after the first should include at least one image.

You are not required to create the images on your blog yourself; however, as with all other work in the course, you must acknowledge the source of your images—and all non-original content on your blog—by clearly linking back to the original site where you found them.

Blog due dates

  • Your first blog post is due before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
  • By 5 p.m. on the midterm, Feb. 28, you will have posted four additional blog posts (for a total of five) as well as all the other sections of the site listed above.
  • By 5 p.m. on the last day of class, Apr. 25, you should have posted an additional five blog posts (for a total of ten).

Grading

Your posts will be evaluated according to how conscientiously you have followed the requirements above, the creativity in your choice of blog topics and depth with which you have engaged these topics, and the polish and correctness of your writing.

*This project is adapted from an assignment by Jill Woods.

Issue/cause website

Description

Pick an issue or cause that is important to you and identify a particular audience that is likely uniformed about that issue or cause. Then design and build a multipage website that uses both text and multimedia elements to provide more information about the issue. You will create the site separately from your personal website—this will require you to create a new WordPress.com account.

Requirements

Your website should consist of at least four separate pages, including a static home page and an about page where you describe the purpose of the site and give a short introduction to yourself as the site’s creator. Additional pages might describe the history of the issue or cause, where site visitors can find more information about it, controversies surrounding the issue or cause, or any other pertinent information related to the issue or cause and the purpose of the site.

The site must contain a minimum of 1,500 words of text, ten images, and five minutes of video. All images and video should be created by you; any material contained on the site or in your video must be fully cited both in the text to indicate when material is not your own, along with a complete citation on a separate works cited page. The works cited page will not count as one of the four required pages for the site.

Issue/cause website due dates

Before 9 a.m. on Monday, Feb.  3,  you add a post to the “Issue/Cause Website” forum explaining in detail your plans for your site. In this post you will share what issue or cause you have chosen for the assignment and why you chose it. You will then address how you plan to meet all of the requirements described in the previous section.

For example, you could describe the structure of the site, how many pages it will contain, and what information will be on each page. You can also tell us where you will find the research that will inform your writing for the site, and how you plan to use multimedia elements like your images and video to serve the overall purpose of the site. Generally, this post should serve as a detailed proposal for the site you plan to create for your project.

This post will serve the following purposes: it will give you an opportunity to think through this assignment to help you better plan for it and it will allow your classmates and myself to provide you with feedback on your plans prior to the assignment’s final due date.

Your final version of the issue/cause website will be due before 9 a.m. on Monday, Mar. 31. You will submit it by posting it with a title and description to the portfolio section of your personal website.

Grading

I will evaluate your issue/cause websites using the following five categories:

  • Design: The site adheres to the best practices for Web and multimedia design.
  • Accessibility and requirements: The site adheres to the best practices for linking and image use and is free of major errors in organization or structure. The site meets all of the requirements laid out in the assignment description.
  • Readability and effectiveness: The content of the site effectively accomplishes the goals laid out in the proposal, including the quality of its content and its appropriateness for the target audience. The text and other multimedia elements are free of major and minor errors in structure, syntax, and grammar and display the quality of writing appropriate for a professional publication.
  • Multimodality: Multimedia elements are effectively incorporated into the site to complement, comment on, and/or extend the written text.
  • Citation and research: All of the elements of the site are either the sole creation of the author, explicitly licensed for reuse, no longer covered by copyright, or used within the bounds of fair use. All sources used on the site that are not the sole creation of the author or authors are fully cited using the MLA or APA citation format.

Book chapter remix

Description

For this project, you will choose one chapter from either Blown to Bits or Program or Be Programmed and translate the major themes and arguments of that chapter into a video project.

Your project should not take the form of you simply reading the chapter, although you can quote from it as necessary; rather, you should re-present or remix the content of the chapter in a way that both honors the original purpose of the authors and is suited to audiovisual media.

This project will require a number of skills on your part: you will need to successfully summarize the main themes of the chapter that you present in your project. You will then need to create a script for the project, planning out the ways in which you will incorporate the features of the medium to present these themes to best effect. You will need to research the resources you will include—audio and video clips, still images—and plan how you will record your new material—both shooting video and recording audio. Finally, you will need to edit your recordings into a coherent final project that communicates the purpose of the chapter.

There are many different forms your project could take. You could use the documentary form to present the ideas of the authors, illustrating their purpose with news clips and other media. You could create a narrative around the chapter, using fictional characters or settings to illustrate information in the book. You could animate the chapter, or otherwise illustrate its contents.

I am open to any of these options or others you can think of; the only firm requirement is that your project should take advantage of the resources of video—editing and the grammar of video, the use of still images and video clips, narration, and sound effects—to engage the argument of the chapter.

Requirements

As you can see from the course schedule, we will not complete all of the readings from the texts until the end of the semester, so you should scan ahead through these chapters to decide which one you will want to choose for this project. It may make sense to choose one of the chapters from your DL week, as this will allow you to focus on this chapter for both projects with less distraction.

Your video should have a title and clearly indicate what it is—a version of the chapter you have chosen—and should clearly credit the original authors. It should be 7-10 minutes long. This will require you to summarize and reduce the content of the chapter so that you can present it in this space.

As with your other projects, all outside sources must be cited, including in-text citations to indicate when you are citing materials and full citation information in the credits.

Chapter remix due dates

As with the issue/cause website, you will add a post post to the “Chapter Remix” forum explaining in detail your plans for this assignment. This post is due by 9 a.m. on Monday, Mar.  3. In this post you will tell the class which chapter of which book you plan to remix and you will address how you plan to meet all of the requirements described above. Again, this will allow your classmates to see who has chosen which chapters, and will allow them and myself an opportunity to provide feedback on your plans.

Your final remix will be due before 5 p.m. on last day of class, Apr. 25. You will submit it by uploading it to a video sharing site and embedding the video with a title and description to the portfolio section of your personal website.

Grading

I will evaluate your chapter remix videos using the following five categories:

  • Quality: The video adheres to the best practices for video structure and editing.
  • Requirements: The video meets all of the requirements laid out in the assignment description.
  • Readability and effectiveness: The text and other elements of the video are free of major and minor errors in structure, syntax, and grammar and display the quality of writing and presentation appropriate for a professional publication.
  • Summary and accuracy: The video accurately summarizes the major themes and argument of the chapter.
  • Citation and remix: All of the elements in the video are either the sole creation of the author, explicitly licensed for reuse, no longer covered by copyright, or used within the bounds of fair use. All sources used in the video that are not the sole creation of the author or authors are fully cited using standards appropriate to the medium.