Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Ultra Mega Multimedia Assignment



This assignment requires students to collaborate in groups of 3 people and develop an extended argument using multimedia composition strategies.  So, let us begin with two questions:  What is multimedia?  And how does the medium change the message you’re presenting?

The argument should defend a group that is being oppressed by another group. 

Wake us up.

You are going to create something related to a genre known as alternate reality gaming, or chaotic fiction, or transmedia storytelling.

The Wikipedia article for alternate reality games might be helpful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
And this article actually is a pretty good overview:  http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7045.pdf.

You will create a fictional narrative using metaphor to address a real issue.  It works, essentially, like a digital scavenger hunt, where one clue leads to the next.  You have to create the nodes, with clues, and lead your audience from one to the next, which may help us to rethink the rhetorical triangle.  Your own game projects need to include 6 nodes or six places that lead from one to another.

In communication networks, a node (Latin nodus, ‘knot’) is a connection point, either a redistribution point or a communication endpoint (some terminal equipment). The definition of a node depends on the network and protocol layer referred to. A physical network node is an active electronic device that is attached to a network, and is capable of sending, receiving, or forwarding information over a communications channel.




You will have several self-determined qualities to your final projects, but all of you must at least use the following components, which can be split up among your group members:

·       A Manifesto, a proclamation of your group’s beliefs and protests against whatever oppressive group your contending with.
·       A Video: (I know, you’re totally freaking out right now, but it doesn’t have to be long or complicated.) 
You can use iMovie if you’re a Mac person, Windows Movie Maker if you’re a PC person, or you can capture video with Picassa which is free software, or even using your laptop’s webcam through Youtube here:  http://www.youtube.com/my_webcam.  You can also edit video with Youtube here:  http://www.youtube.com/editor
·       A Social Media site, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, or whatever else…
·       A Document Design: A pdf, Word document, Google document, or something else.
·       Some form of website, which might be a blog, which you’re familiar with already.  You can also create free websites at wordpress.com, wix.com, moonfruit.com, yola.com, webs.com, weebly.com, and sites.google.com, as well as other places.
·       An e-mail account set up especially for this project.
·       Two statistics to show that you’ve researched your issue enough to thoughtfully engage with it.

Think about what you care about.  Then, think about what resources your group has and go from there. 

Each student will write his or her own 500 word reflection paper detailing your project’s rationale and process, which should accompany the final project and will be due to me on midnight on the last day of class.  Tell me what you did, why you did it, and how it was working in a group.  The reflection does not have to be MLA formatted this time.  Use whatever fonts you want!

The project will be shared with the class on the last day of our course. 
Your presentation of the project needs to include all five senses, and you should dress nicely
And finally, have fun with this project!  That’s always a goal of your education.

Multimedia Tools



Multimedia Literacy

George Lucas
"In the 21st century, can you honestly tell me that it’s not as important for these students to know as much about Hitchcock as they do about Hemingway?”

“Well . . . I began to realize that the potential for multimedia to enhance the learning process was just astronomical. . . .  I’m a big proponent of a new kind of grammar that goes beyond words.  To tell a story now means grasping a new kind of language, which includes understanding how graphics, color, lines, music and words combine to convey meaning”

“Don’t you think that, in the coming decade, students need to be taught to read and write cinematic language, the language of the screen, the language of sound and image, just as they are now taught to read and write text?  Otherwise, won’t they be as illiterate as you or I would have been if, on leaving college, we were unable to read and write an essay?”





Helpful Tools for Multimedia Composition:
Prezi.com
PechaKucha
Presentationzen.com
Wordle.net
Dafont.com
Download.com
Issuu.com
Gmail
Google Voice
Drobbox

Sound:
Audacity.com
Jamendo.com
Aviary.com
Garageband/Sound Recorder

Images:
Creative Commons, Google, Flickr
SXC.hu
Aviary
Gimp
Paint.net

Web:
Komposer
Wix
Wordpress
Blogger
Moonfruit
Yola
Webs
Weebly
Sites.google.com.

Video:
youtubedownloader
Archive.org
Youtube
iMovie
Windows Movie Maker
Wax
Mpeg Streamclip
Perian
iReport

Games
Gamemaker

Facebook pages
Twitter
Flickr
Tumblr

Adobe trials…



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Strange Research Paper


Showing Strangeness in the Everyday
A Research Assignment

This assignment requires you to broaden the topic beyond just one visual text to some larger cultural, social, or political issues raised by things that we can see around us.  This assignment emphasizes research skills, including library sources, interviews, and other forms of academic inquiry.

Your goal is to find something strange around us in our culture that may not be normally considered strange.  Give us a new perspective on some cultural practice that may be strange from an objective perspective, or an outsider.  You should begin with some kind of establishment for how you’re defining strange, create a stasis situation, and argue that your examples are strange with support.  Your argument should be constructed using both writing and images.  Using your own library and field research, make an argument that offers a new perspective on the nature of strangeness in the world around us.  In other words, show us something weird that we may not have considered weird before, such as—in a vaguely similar sense—the poem “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” does.

So, you need to find at least 4 written sources that are from books, magazines, journals, or newspaper articles.  These sources have to have been printed somewhere in order to filter out some of the less carefully edited resources out there.  You might even research the history of the practice your critiquing.

In order to support your claim with some visual examples, you’ll need at least 1 picture that you’ve taken for this paper.   Show us what strange thing you’ve found and try to use photography to support your case.  Most likely you’ll be using your written sources to support the analysis of your photographic artifacts or objects of study. 

You must also include at least 4 other sources that are some other form of rhetoric.  These final examples might be an advertisement, a video, a song, a comic book, a statue, an interview, or something else. 

Also, I’d like you to push yourself to make your writing more formal and theoretical in this paper, so do not use “you” (though “I” is still okay).   You might even begin your paper with something such as, “I find the practice of applause strange” or “Keeping dogs indoors is weird.”

You need to use MLA format to cite your sources, but this time you may play with the formatting of your paper; you do not need to use Times New Roman.  The paper should be a minimum of 2000 words.

25% of Final Grade
First draft due: Week 11 Thursday, 11/8
Final draft due: Week 12 Tuesday, 11/15

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Writing is Easy.

Be sure to make our conference time, but when I see you next, you should have read "Writing is Easy" by Steve Martin.

Here's the link to get it!  http://ge.tt/9RdE7j7?c.  Enjoy!


Thursday, September 1, 2011

Your first essay assignment

Visual Rhetoric Assignment

This assignment requires students to develop proficiency in rhetorical analysis and argument by developing a writing piece that closely problematizes one visual text. 

You have two choices for a text to analyze.

  • You may choose your or a friend’s Facebook profile picture and think critically about what that image is communicating.  What kind of an ethos, or persona, is the image trying to persuade its audience that it possesses?  I want you to be critical of the image in some ways, even if it is of yourself.  You might even pick a picture that you used to use, but don’t anymore.  Why did you change it?  How does the image—whoever it is—communicate personality, good or bad?  What kind of details can you pick out that add or detract from what the person wants others to see about him or her?
  • Alternatively, you may get out a camera and take a picture.  Based on the idea that every image communicates something, walk me as your reader through the aspects that are being conveyed to a potential viewer for that image.  Is there a logic here?  Be a little critical of the image.  Think about what you were trying to communicate and how it fails or doesn’t fail.  What kind of emotions does the image draw out of a potential audience, and why and how does the image draw out those emotions?

The aim of your argument is to support a thesis about an image—using the tools of persuasion—concerning how your chosen visual text itself offers a persuasive argument with troublesome issues or tactics.  The form of this assignment is an essay that analyzes the visual image and the rhetorical elements of composition, presentation, intended audience, and effect by looking at the image’s logical, emotional, and ethical appeals.  You should quote at least two other sources for your argument other than the primary rhetorical text—that is, the image—that you are analyzing.  This assignment should include a Works Cited page, be formatted according to MLA standards (which includes double spacing, 12 point font, and Times New Roman) and be a minimum of 1000 words.

First draft due: 9/13, must be onto your third page but not necessarily complete
Final draft due: 9/22

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Our Collective Little Class Space.

So, this blog will be our homebase. Our class space in cyberspace. Our hub. I'll post files here occasionally, and other English randomness, but also you'll be able to see each others' blogs in the link list and keep up with what your community is saying and doing. I encourage commenting and sharing!!! Post whatever you like along with the posts that I ask of you. From there, the rest is yours.