First, I want you to focus on your multimedia projects.

1. Get in groups, but before you view each other’s projects, I want you to draft at least three questions that you have about your project.
• For example: if you aren’t sure if a particular editing choice you have made in a video is working, you could ask your group members about that. If you are wondering if a piece of background audio for a podcast is appropriate, you could ask about it.
• This is your opportunity to get directed feedback on the parts of your project that you aren’t sure about or think could be improved but don’t know how to improve them, so put some thought into the questions that you create.
2. Then, you should listen to or view your partner(s)’s project and respond in writing—by hand, or electronically—to their questions about that project.

Next, I would like you to focus on reviewing the descriptions of the collection on our websites (1-2:15 site, 4-5:15 site). By this point, titles, links, and descriptions for all projects should be posted to these sites.

1. Read the descriptions for both the multi-modal and multimedia projects of your group members.
• I know this will be organizationally messy because individuals worked in different configurations for each project. However, you should read the descriptions for each project for each member of the group. This should ensure that all projects get reviewed.
2. After reading these descriptions, provide written (hand-written or electronic) notes for your partner(s) responding to the following questions:
• Effectiveness: Would this description encourage someone to read/view the project? If not, how can the author improve the description so as to make it more engaging?
• Readability: Is the description free of minor errors and other problems that would distract readers from its content?
3. After completing steps 1 & 2, skim through all of the descriptions on the site and then group them together by topic. You can do this individually or with your group; however, you should have a list—again, either hand-written or electronic—of all the titles grouped together with topic headings, and you should be prepared to share your groupings with the class next week.
• You are free to group as you please, but keep the following ground rules in mind: You should have more than one grouping, and your groupings should have more than one entry in them.
4. Before the start of class on Thursday, 4/26, revise your description(s) in response to the feedback you received during steps 1 & 2.

Let me know if you have any questions.

You can access these workspaces via the following links:

• For the TT 1-2:15 section: engl303001.pbworks.com
• For the TT 4-5:15 section: engl303002.pbworks.com

You will add your projects to the “Table of Contents” page using the following format:

Title [bolded and linked to your project]
Author(s) name(s) [in italics]
Description of project. [A 3-4 sentence description of the purpose and format of the project with no special formatting (except where called for by the context). This description should be in full sentences.]

Here is an example using one of our course readings (the description is from the hosting site):

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto
Brett Gaylor
The feature documentary RiP! A Remix Manifesto explores the complexities of intellectual property in the era of peer-to-peer file sharing. Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor interviews key figures in the debate, including the film’s central protagonist, Gregg Gillis, the Pittsburgh biomedical engineer who moonlights as Girl Talk, a mash-up artist rearranging the pop charts’ DNA with his incongruous, entirely sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Rip shatters the wall between users and producers, and challenges the thresholds of “fair use.”

This information for your multi-modal project should be added to your section’s “Table of Contents” by 8 a.m. on Monday, April 16. We will follow the same process to add information about your multimedia projects next week as you complete them.

A note about the wiki: PBworks only allows one user to edit a page at a time. For this reason, you should only log in to the site to add your information when it is edited and ready to post. If someone else is logged in, you have the option of “stealing the lock”; that is, taking the editing rights away from them. I would like to discourage you from doing this. First, it’s bad form: stealers never win (not “Steelers,” “stealers”), and winners never steal. Second, if you do this, the other person will lose their changes, which is also bad form. And, because it is possible to see who edited the page when, they will know who did it.

For this reason, plan on giving yourself plenty of time to add your description between now and Monday. That way, if you try to log in and edit the page and someone else is editing at that time, you will have time to come back and edit it later.

Remember to tag your post with the correct course section number (001 for the 1 p.m. course and 002 for the 4 p.m. course).

As always, if you have questions, drop me an email or set up a meeting

Feel free to browse course information. I’m still working on the course, so it’s possible that information in here might change before the beginning of the semester. Until this information is final, if you have any questions about the course, feel free to contact me.

image credit: Adriaan Bloem