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We’re creative because we care

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I asked Dr. Oblivion if digital storytelling students should continue to experiment with AI in making art, and got responses from both sides of him. Has he ever steered us wrong?

For our final final week, let us celebrate the creativity of the class. Consider these two prompts:

  • What is the best thing you saw in the course? Explain why it was good.
  • What was the best thing you made in the course? Explain what you got out of making it.

We at ds106 have had some legal threats from Aggressive Technologies, even as they profess to love us. So let’s frame our closing week as the Aggressive Technologies conference, where we will each do a brief video, less than two minutes, addressing the above prompts and making a case for why Aggressive Technologies should support ds106. You can do this using your character, or as yourself, or as someone else. You have total power, as our old friend Bob Ross would say. Have fun with it. Embed the video in a post and tag it ATconference. My plan is to put a menu link on the http://ds106.ai/ site that collects all the posts with the tag, so they will all be in one spot.

Final project: “A robot uprising would be a bonus”

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I asked Dr. Oblivion for his thoughts on the final project. I don’t know how helpful they are though. So here are the final project details:

  • You have the option of doing the final project individually or as a group project. If you do it as a group project, each group member needs to blog about it.
  • Your project should showcase the multiple digital media skills you have developed over the semester. It could take the form of a post or a subdomain with embedded media, or a complex video incorporating audio production and design, or something else if you have a different idea.
  • Potential final project prompts:
    • Aggressive Technologies vs ds106. See the visit from AT’s legal counsel. How should we respond, individually or as a group? The idea of pitting the class against its own creation has a sort of Frankenstein or Utron appeal to me. What do you think? ds106 takes no guff from corporate lawyers.
    • Characters and Aggressive Technologies. Bring some of the story threads the class has developed over the past several weeks to a conclusion. You might build upon the radio show project, or go in a different direction. This concept has good potential for collaboration because you could develop intersecting or interrelated storylines and work remotely and asynchronously. It would be interesting to see how many stories we could get to intersect, or even connect tangentially.
    • Analysis of pros & cons of artificial intelligence based on course experiences. What can we do with AI? What should we do with AI? What would Dr. Oblivion do? In spite of that last question, this would be an option to take a serious approach to issues of artificial intelligence. Has AI helped you be more creative in ds106, or has it felt more like a cheat or a crutch? Perhaps a little of both?
  • As with everything else in ds106, you have a great deal of freedom as to how you interpret these prompts and execute the project.
  • One of the things that makes ds106 what we know and love is the student input. Perhaps you find the above prompts lacking. Do you have ideas for final project prompts? It should be something that builds upon what we’ve been doing, involves the use of a variety of digital media, and gives people room for creative exploration. Feel free to post ideas, thoughts or questions in the #finalprojects channel in Discord. Take advantage of this if you’re looking for collaborators as well, or if you have questions about the assignment.
  • Project size: You want the project to showcase what you can accomplish with digital media. It is a two-week project, so it should represent a fair amount of work. Your write-ups for each week should detail the thought processes and effort that go into the project. Ideally it should be something that you will want to archive and show off to family, friends, and future generations.

Timeline

Due Friday, 4/19, by midnight: a weekly summary outlining your project and detailing the work done so far. It would be a good idea to post one or two progress updates during the week, to share ideas and get feedback from the class, and to prevent procrastination.

Due Friday, 4/26: the finished project and a weekly summary reflecting on the work and your creative process, and describing how well it represents what you have learned over the semester. The project and the summary could be separate posts or they could be included in one – whichever works better for your project. Again it would be a good idea to post a progress report during the week.

Daily Creates

Daily Creates are optional for these two weeks.

Week 11: Where do we go from here?

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1. ds106radio

The class shows will be broadcast Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 7pm. I would like to do it at noon, but so far only three people indicated that they could be available. If we get a few more we may add a noon session. We will listen on ds106radio and discuss in Discord in the ds106radio channel. If the tech is cooperative and people are willing, I would like to get people on air to talk about their shows. Those may be big IFs. We would like at least one person from each group to be listening and on Discord when the group’s show is broadcast to answer questions about the show. Everyone should listen to at least one other group’s show and blog about the experience. Tag this post showlistening.

Schedule:
Monday 7PM: Ravioli Radio, Logic Pod
Tuesday 7PM: Pop Perceptive, Three Point Chatter
Wednesday 7PM: Digital Agencies, Aggressive Testimonials

2. Video

For weeks 11 and 12, we will expand on our video work, specifically looking at what we can do with manipulation. Some people were able to animate Dr. Oblivion a few weeks ago with the Wav2Lip script, and someone even got Frank to say a few words. Let’s experiment further. You can use that script on other videos. Some points to be aware of:

The video project for this and next week should have some sort of narrative involving the course theme of AI, your course character, Aggressive Technologies, Dr. Oblivion, or any combination thereof. As always, it is up to you to decide how to interpret this, and creativity is encouraged. You may choose to build off of ideas developed in your radio projects, or you may try something different. The project must incorporate editing, clips, audio, graphics and text or titles. It should have an opening and an ending.

The point here is to create a video narrative, and to push your boundaries by experimenting with a variety of video components and techniques. I am not specifying a time length because it can take hours of work to plan and produce a well-edited two-minute video, or it could take almost no work to point a camera at something for twenty minutes. If it’s something you want to show off to people and it gives you a lot to blog about, it is a good project.

You all have the option of working in groups on this project. All group members must blog about their work for the project. You can also work independently.

Due Friday, 4/5 by midnight:

  • A blog post on the radio show listening experience
  • A blog post on your video project plan and progress. Tag this videoplan. This post will include a detailed outline or storyboard of the script.

Due Friday, 4/12 by midnight:

  • Embed your video in a post tagged videoproject, along with the usual detailed reflective analysis.

3. Daily Creates – Let’s do 3 each week.

4. Commenting – as usual.

5. Looking ahead

We have five weeks left in ds106. Here is our plan going forward.

  • Week 11 & 12: ds106radio listening and video project planning
  • Week 13: final project planning
  • Week 14: final project completion
    • The final project will also be an optional group or individual project.
    • Your project should showcase the multiple digital media skills you have developed over the semester. It could take the form of a post or a subdomain with embedded media, or a complex video incorporating audio production and design, or something else if you have a better idea.
    • Potential final project prompts:
      • Aggressive Technologies vs ds106 – see the visit from AT’s legal counsel
      • Characters and Aggressive Technologies – bring some of the story threads the class has developed of the past several weeks to a conclusion
      • Analysis of pros & cons of artificial intelligence based on course experiences. What can we do with AI? What should we do with AI?
    • One of the things that makes ds106 what we know and love is the student input. Do you have ideas for final project prompts? It should be something that builds upon what we’ve been doing, involves the use of a variety of digital media, and gives people room for creative exploration. Feel free to post ideas, thoughts or questions in the #finalprojects channel in Discord
  • Week 15: wrap-up: Aggressive Technologies conference
    • Everybody gets to do a short video presentation, no more than 2 minutes, on their experience with AI106. We hope to get these on ds106tv

Weeks Nine & Ten: The show must go on

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3/15/24 – 3/29/24

For weeks 9 and 10 we will be working on producing long-form audio narratives, AKA radio shows. The shows will be broadcast on ds106radio the week after they are due.

Group Radio Show Guidelines

The radio show will be a group project. You will have two weeks to complete the project. These are the specifications:

  • The show must have some sort of narrative, and it must connect to the course theme of AI in some way. How you go about that is up to you. Creativity is encouraged.
  • Consider what a show should sound like. There needs to be an opening and a closing. You may need transitional elements. You will need to do audio production. This will include editing sections together, layering in background sounds, incorporating music, etc. It must not be just a recording of a conversation.
  • On the subject of music – in the past some people had their work blocked by Soundcloud due to copyright violation. You can use CC Search to find openly licensed music and other media. You could also google open source music. You won’t find hits, but you will find things you can use.
  • All group members must contribute to the final radio show. I recommend you create a Google Doc for planning and collaboration. If you invite me to be part of it, I can offer advice and input. It’s up to you. But I recommend it.
  • The total show should be around 20 – 30 minutes, equal at least 5-7 minutes times the number of members in your group (for example, a three person group would produce a show of about 20 minutes; five people would go about half an hour.)
  • The show must include at least 3 ds106 radio bumpers (they can be specific to the show or general bumpers for ds106radio) that are produced by group members.
  • The show must include at least 3 commercials that the group creates. These are opportunities to do something creative that may or may not directly tie to the narrative of the show.
  • Blog about your process and progress. Every member is expected to blog at least once during the first week about progress; every member is expected to blog at least once during the second week about the completion of the project. These should be substantive blog posts in which you explain what progress/decisions the group had made, what individual work you’ve been doing, what tools/tech you’re using, what’s going well, what’s not working, etc. tag: radioshowweek1& radioshoweek2
  • Each group member needs to do at least one promo poster/bumper sticker/logo etc. for their show during the first week — a little splash of design work.
  • Keep the instructor apprised of your progress. You can email me, send me messages on Mastodon or Discord, etc.

As you found out during Intro to Audio week, audio editing is time consuming. Plan to be done early and you will probably be done on time.

Summary of Deadlines and Assignments for the next 2 class weeks

Due by Midnight 3/22 (Summarized, as usual, in a weekly post):

  1. Radio Show Progress:A blog post on your radio show process and progress. Tag this radioshowweek1
  2. Radio Show Design Project:A blog post for your radio show poster/bumper sticker/logo etc. Write this post just like you would an assignment post — with the same amount of detail we usually expect! Tag this radioshowpromo
  3. Commenting: Everyone needs to be reading/commenting on other students’ work.
  4. Audio Assignments:  Complete at least 2. You should use your audio assignments to develop content for your radio show (bumpers, commercials, intros/outros/transitions, etc.). We are assigning these this week so that you make progress on developing content for your shows! If you do random assignments just to make the quota you are wasting your time and efforts. Feel free to bend or create assignments to suit your needs.
  5. Daily Creates:Complete 3 TDCs this week.

Due by Midnight 3/29 (Summarized, as usual, in a weekly post):

  1. Completed radio show. Upload it to Soundcloud or Google Drive.

    Remember to check “Enable direct downloads” in Soundcloud so we can get your show on the air

  2. Radio Show Progress: Second blog post summarizing your radio show process and progress. Tag: radioshowweek2
  3. Commenting: The more, the better. It may be a challenge this week though.
  4. Daily Creates:Complete 2 TDCs this week.

Audio resources:

In addition to the Audio Resources page, here are a few additional items worth reviewing:

The UMW Digital Knowledge Center is available for tutorials for audio editing. You can schedule a tutorials for assignments and the radio show here: https://dkc.umw.edu/

Week 8: Take on the tools

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We may get a video posted later.

“AI tool laboratory” by net-art generator

3/11/25 – 3/15/24

There are two main projects this week. One is to investigate AI tools. You may use ones you’ve already worked with, or you may look for new ones. We don’t want any duplication though, so we have a form and spreadsheet where you can see what others have chosen. If you look at the list and see the name and URL of your chosen application, then you should pick something else. And don’t use anything that asks for payment or data you don’t wish to share. The other project is to form groups for the upcoming collaborative audio project. Details about the project will come out Week 9, but we want everyone in groups beforehand.

1. AI Tool Laboratory

There are a lot of AI-based tools for creating and manipulating digital media out there. Rundown AI keeps a healthy list which lets you sort out the free ones, and you can probably find many more through Google.  Your mission is to investigate a free tool, try it out, and find out its capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. The resulting list will be something to benefit the whole class, ideally.

Aggressive Technologies is looking to expand its AI arsenal, and has put out an open call for acquisitions. They are offering a finder’s fee and/or stock options to anyone who can make a good case for a target, to be awarded if they choose to make the buy.

Have your character (or you if you so wish) make a sales pitch to Aggressive Technologies about why they should acquire it, or why they should put it out of business if you prefer. The pitch can take any form you like, but it should include some sort of example of what the tool can do. Put it in a blog post and tag it AIpitch. To make it easier for everyone to avoid duplicating each other’s efforts, we have a form where you can enter the AI tool you will be using. That form populates the spreadsheet below, so check it first to make sure your tool isn’t already taken.

2. Looking ahead: Prepare for group audio projects

During weeks 9 & 10 we will be creating audio productions for ds106radio. This will be a group project, involving the course theme and your characters. You get to form your own groups. You will be forming groups this week so you can hit the ground running at the start of week 9. Further details on the project will be posted at the start of week 9.

Some advice on group formation:

Get into groups:

  • Membership: You will have the chance to self-organize into your groups for this project.
  • Show Ideas: It may be easiest to form groups around show ideas. There are a lot of great ideas out there, so this should not be a problem. You can see everyone’s ideas at https://ds106.ai/category/radioshowideas/ — at least everyone who tagged their posts correctly! The Aggressive Technologies connections may also be a good impetus for forming groups. You can see these at https://ds106.ai/category/aggressiveconnection/. If you see an idea you like, contact the originator about working together. If you have an idea you like, put a call out on your blog and Discord for collaborators.
  • Use Discord: If you need to find a group, put the word out on Discord in the ds106radio channel that you’re looking for a group to join.
  • Let Us Know Your Group: I created a spreadsheet to facilitate group formation. You should have received the link to it in an email. Give your group a name, put down a brief description of your show idea, and list the group members. There is also a section for people who are looking for a group.

Group sizes:

Groups should have 3 or more members. If a group grows to 8 or more people, we may decide to split it in two, unless the group can make the case that all members will be actively involved in the show’s production.

Group deadline:

You should start forming groups immediately. Everybody should be in a group by Thursday, March 14, by midnight. Your names and groups should be on the spreadsheet to make it official. If you have not joined a group by that time, you will be putting your fate in our hands. We will assign you to a group, but it will be entirely your responsibility to make the situation work.

3. Daily Creates: Let’s do three again.

4. Commenting: As much as you can

Week Four: The sound of science

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from friend of #ds106 @floatingtim

2/2/24 – 2/9/24

All work is due by midnight on 2/9/24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U78BzLNWPJ8 

This week we will dig into audio storytelling. That goes beyond the words and tone of voice to include sound effects, background noise and music. We will be asking you to consider how these subliminal elements impact the story. We are also introducing ds106 radio (an open, Web-based, community radio station) this week, where we will be broadcasting stories Monday – Wednesday, 8:00-9:00 PM. We will also begin experimenting with audio production. We strongly recommend Audacity, a free and open source audio-editing program, further details below. If you have access to and experience with a different audio editing system, you are free to use it instead.

NOTE:There is an Audio Resources page which includes lots of information and resources to help you complete the week’s assignments. We strongly recommend you read it and refer to it during the week.

  1. Download and Experiment with Audacity: Unless you have a lot of previous experience with audio editing, you should plan on spending some time this week getting comfortable with Audacity. It is recommended that you do this right away, because you will find that audio editing can be quite time-consuming. If you have another audio editing platform that you’re familiar with, you can skip this step. But everyone needs to get their hands dirty with audio editing. If you’re overwhelmed by Audacity, make an appointment with at the Digital Knowledge Center for help: http://dkc.umw.edu. Additionally, you may find it useful to install the FFmpeg library with Audacity.
  2. Set up a free account on Soundcloud. You can store and share your audio creations on Soundcloud so they don’t use up your server space, and embed them in your blog posts.  
  3. Think about Audio Storytelling:
  4. Watch: These two short videos from RadioLab’s Jad Abumrad. He speaks of radio as a way of making meaning and connection, and as a modern incarnation of an ancient art.

Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad: How Radio Creates Empathy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSJ4Rd-V-K4

Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad: Digital Shamanism and Old-Fashioned, Newfangled Storytelling Magic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7HFn58VdQ

  1. Listen: to “Moon Graffiti” This is an excellent example of audio storytelling. Think about how the sounds, both the sound effects and the changes in sound, tell you what is going on, how they create a sense of place, a sense of space and a sense of atmosphere. We hear these same techniques used in film and video, where they are vitally important but often unnoticed. Consider what we watched, read and listened to this week and in the previous weeks. How does sound drive stories? How does it impact mood and create atmosphere? How do the ideas in Abumrad’s videos relate here? Write a blog post on your thoughts on audio storytelling. Use specific examples and embed them in your post. Tag the post audioreflection.

https://soundcloud.com/phb256a/oblivion-bumper 

  1. Create a Radio Bumper: We will be working with ds106 radio this week, and in some future weeks, so we want you to try your hand at making your first radio “bumper” – a 10-30 second short audio that announces the radio station that is played between songs to remind listeners what they are tuned in to. This should be saved as an MP3 file, and then upload it to SoundCloud. Make sure in Soundcloud that you enable the option to allow downloads (so we can add it to ds106 radio!) Your audio must be embedded in your blog post summary of this assignment. You can embed Soundcloud audio by putting the plain text URL on its own line, and when you publish, WordPress will create a player to allow visitors to listen. The radio bumper is an assignment in the Assignment Bank, so you should tag your blog post correctly when you’re done. You may be able to get Dr. Oblivion to help out, if you ask nicely. Tag: radiobumper
  2. Listen: Participate in a live listening session with ds106 radio this week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 7:00-8:00 PM. We will be listening to audio productions and sharing our thoughts on what we hear. You might even hear your bumpers. We will use the #ds106radio channel in Discord for our discussion. If you didn’t get the Discord invitation in week 1 let us know and we’ll resend it. Blog about the experience and tag it ds106radio.
  3. Do a Sound Effect Story. One assignment everyone must do is the sound effects story: This is a challenge to tell a short story (no longer than 90 seconds) using nothing but sound effects! And make it something more interesting than waking up, taking a shower and eating breakfast. We highly recommend using http://freesound.org to find free sound effects for this project. The BBC Sound Effects archive is another good source.
  4. Complete 3 other Audio Assignments:This week you must complete at least 3 assignments from the Audio category in the Assignment Bank.

 Some of the star ratings have gotten silly, so we’re trying a different approach. Use the assignments to challenge yourself creatively, but also to gain experience and confidence with recording, manipulating and editing audio.

Also, involve your course characters, Dr. Oblivion, or the course theme of AI in at least two of the assignments in some way. You could use an assignment or two to give your character a voice. There are some free speech generation tools here (https://supertools.therundown.ai/) and some other text-to-speech tools online, or you could use your own voice through Audacity. 

Make sure all your completed assignments are uploaded to SoundCloud, and write up a post for each assignment in which you embed that audio from SoundCloud. Note: If you use copyrighted music in your audio projects, the SoundCloud content police may block them. You can use CC Search to find music that you can safely use. You can also google “open source music.”

  1. Complete 3 Daily Creates: You must complete at least three daily creates this week. Make sure you also blog your TDCs.
  2. Brainstorm Radio Show Ideas: In a few weeks, you will be forming groups and creating a radio show as pre-recorded audio. In preparation, each of you needs to brainstorm ideas for a 20-30 minute radio show—somehow related to or inspired by the theme of the course and involving your characters —on your blog. Since this will be a small group project, you may want to think about how your character might interact with the others. By radio show, I mean some kind of narrative, not just music or borrowed audio clips. This post can just be some random ideas, thoughts, and/or a rough sketch. We want this to be a space where you share your ideas and people start to coalesce around a few so we can be prepared to form groups in a few weeks. This post should be tagged radioshowideas.
  3. Commenting: Comment, comment, and comment some more. Commenting creates community.

11. Weekly Summary:You all know what this is.

Week Three: Every story paints a picture

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1/26/24-2/2/24
All work is due by midnight on Friday, 2/2/24
This week we will be looking at visual storytelling, specifically storytelling through images and design. We could also consider how artificial intelligence impacts both of these. Photography used to be the gold standard for evidence. Can we trust images now, when they’re algorithmically generated right out of the gate? Is it a photo if it was made without a camera?
What does AI mean for design? Design is a deliberate decision-making process to achieve a desired end. Is using a template truly designing? Is it design if a machine does it?

There are also ethical debates about AI image generators and their training data. Should it be a copyright violation? Is it fair use?
Speaking of fair use, this would be a good point to put in a plug for Creative Commons. Creative Commons (CC) licensed materials can be adapted, remixed, reused and shared under certain conditions. You can find CC-licensed media with the CC Search tool. You may want to play with CC images this week. What are the relative advantages of CC and AI-generated images?
Below is a detailed list of what’s to be completed this week.

Instead of writing for designers, designer Chip Kidd wrote a book on design for young people. There is a Brain Pickings article about Kidd and his book with links to further design related articles. (Brain Pickings is great for sending interested people down rabbit holes. Also a great example of the power of the hyperlink in digital storytelling.) The book is also in the SImpson Library. It is worth looking at, if you can get to the Library, because it communicates design concepts with great clarity and illustrates them on nearly every page.

Between the Lines: Chip Kidd interview

This interview is good for getting a glimpse at the connection between design and storytelling. A companion video Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is. | TED Talk shows some of what he’s talking about.
Here is a look at the design of movie posters found through Open Culture, which has further discussion. The designer notes how things like space and color convey meaning, and how designs connect over time

Here is a quick look at the design of the title sequence of Stranger Things. It flashes on the decision-making process at work in design

1. Write a reflection on what you learn about design from these articles and videos and tag it designthoughts.

2. Do a 20 minute Photoblitz. Be sure to grab the code and include the seven tasks you were assigned in a blog post, along with the photos you took. Include your reflections on the exercise in your post. Tag this post photoblitz. Thanks John Johnston!

3. Assignments One of the assignments we will be requiring this week is from a course at Middlebury College called Demystifying AI. They have setup an exercise (https://dlinq.middcreate.net/detox-2024/activity/not-art/) to get you thinking about the implications of creating images using AI, and have built an excellent framework for getting your started (as well as allowing you to opt out). Be sure to read through the entire assignment as it is framed on their site and post your entry on your blog tagging it middleburyart
In addition to the Middlebury assignment, choose two visual or design assignments from the assignments.ds106.us bank, making one or both of them about the character you have created.
Note: Most of the assignments in the bank were created by students. You can create assignments too, at any point. If you find something cool on the web and want to figure out how to do it yourself, make an assignment out of it. The Bank could probably use more AI-related assignments. If you have ideas, feel free to submit them to the Bank.

4. Daily Creates: Let’s do 3 this week.

5. Commenting: You should all be following each other’s work and offering each other feedback, ideas, support and encouragement. Several people have been doing this already, which is great, but more is better. A good habit is to visit the course site every day to see what people have posted. Click through to a few posts and share your thoughts on the work, and ideas that it may inspire. We all appreciate positive feedback, and we can all be inspired by each other. This should take no more than a few minutes a day.

6. Write your Weekly Summary: This is an every week thing. Your summary should link to or embed all your work for the week, and give your thoughts on the week as a whole. Submit the URL for this post to Canvas by the end of the day on Friday.
Lastly, we would like to crowdsource a list of AI tools that the class might use during the semester. Do you know of any that should be on the list? Can you find any worth recommending? The Rundown AI has a list that might be worth checking. See what you can find, and add them to the list through this form. We may continue this project in the coming weeks.
Embed code for sheet:

ds106 Week Two Assignments

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Everyone,

The work for week two is listed below. We’ll get this posted to http://ds106.ai/ soon.

Week Two: Welcome to the machine

https://tenor.com/view/metropolis-gif-8003591

1/19/24-1/26/24

All work is due by midnight on Friday, 1/26/24

Week 2 intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peQtGsL4UMY

Now that we’re set up for our adventure, let’s look at where we’re heading. This week is an orientation to what we’ll be doing. In the coming weeks we will be exploring various media and the ways we can use them to create narratives on the web. This is the basic outline, subject to change:

  • Week 3 – visual/design

  • Week 4 – audio

  • Week 5 – video

  • Week 6 – video

  • Weeks 7 – design

  • Week 8 – AI tool lab

  • Week 9 & 10 – audio group project

  • Weeks 11 & 12 – video group project

  • Weeks 13 & 14 – final project

There is a logic to this. The first few weeks cover some basics. In the subsequent weeks we work on working together and bringing ideas together. The radio shows will be small group productions, incorporating ideas of writing, audio and design. Video projects involve all those and photography as well. We have a bank of assignments, with sections corresponding to many of the weeks listed.

Below is a detailed list of what’s to be completed this week.

  1. Learn How to Write Assignment Posts: Read this post by Alan Levine on how to write up your assignment posts for ds106. It cannot be overemphasized how important this section is. You will be writing posts for each assignment you do in this course, and the write-up is at least as important as the assignment itself. There is no formula for how you should write your posts, but you should reflect on the decision making process and efforts that go into each assignment, and evaluate the outcomes. Tell the stories of the assignments – what you put into them, how you did them, and what you got out of them. If you had to look up a tutorial on how to do something, link to it in your post so others can benefit from it as well. Use this advice to make your posts strong this week! Don’t forget to tag your assignment posts properly!!
    Also, pay attention to Digital Accessibility: UMW has resources on Digital Accessibility which includes a section on website accessibility which you should look over for information on alt-text and captioning.

  2. Complete Daily Creates: This week, we will begin to use The Daily Create. The Daily Create is an integral component of ds106. Follow The Daily Create on Mastodon and you will get a creative prompt every day. The Daily Create comes with instructions about how to submit your work. You must complete at least 5 daily creates this week. Here are the rules:

    • You MUST do the Daily Create on the day it comes out. NO EXCEPTION.

    • You MUST share your Daily Creates somehow in a post on your blog this week. You can embed them in your Weekly post or you can have a separate post about them that you link to from your Weekly post.

    • You should NOT spend more than 10-15 minutes on a Daily Create (Some will take a little as 5 minutes). The idea is to get yourself in the habit of doing creative work regularly, not to create a masterpiece everyday!

    • You are welcome to creatively interpret the prompts. As with most things in ds106, there is no one right answer and there are no wrong answers. Just use the prompt as an inspiration to make something.

  3. Explore the Assignment Bank: This week, we will begin using ds106’s Assignment Bank. This resource includes hundreds of media assignments, divided into different genres. Do 3 assignments of your choice, but make sure you choose them from 3 different categories. Each assignment comes with a “star” rating that roughly (very roughly) estimates its difficulty. A 1 star assignment is estimated to be easier than a 4 star assignment, but how much effort each one actually takes is largely up to you, based on what you want to put into it. These ratings will take on more significance in the coming weeks. The point of the assignments is not so much to do them “right,” but rather to be creative and to push yourselves to experiment with media. Make at least two of the assignments relate in some way to our course theme of AI. Again, there is no “right” way to do this, except to have fun with it and exercise your creativity.
    It’s your job to narrate the process, explain your thinking, and tell the story of your creation – see item 1 above on this list.

  4. Customize Your Blog: This week, we want you to also spend some time customizing and personalizing your blog. WordPress is a powerful tool for publishing on the web. You have tools like tags, categories and menus that you can use to organize your work and space. You can use and customize themes to project an identity and aesthetic. One of your assignments this week is to personalize your blog. What should it say about you, your interests, and your work? The title is the first part of that. Your blog’s title should not be DS106 or My Blog. Those names are not creative, and more importantly, they’re not you. We have a page of WordPress Basics which we saw last week. Another option is Getting Started with WordPress. This gives you some ideas of what you can do with it. Experiment and try things out! NB: You should install the Akismet plugin, or else you will be spammed.
    Note: The Disable Comments plugin is not recommended for this course, because commenting on each other’s blogs is an integral part of what we do here. You will need to moderate comments. You will get an email when people comment on your posts, and you have to approve them before they will show up. Once you approve a comment author, you won’t need to approve that person again.

  5. Build Your Participation: Participation is not only a component of your success in this class, it’s also an essential element of building our online community. If you’re doing the work but not actively engaging with everyone else in ds106, then you need to step up your game. Here are three important ways you can build up your participation in ds106:

    • Commenting:Commenting is the life blood of this class, and it is a large part of your overall work in this course. Read your fellow students’ blogs widely and comment freely. Commenting builds community. You should visit the course site every day to see what people are saying in the Course Blog Posts, and comment on a few posts – every day. If you want to be sure we see the comments you left, you should consider linking to them in your Weekly Summary post.

    • Discord: I set up a Discord server for the class so we could have a conversation space that is a little more private to the class. We can use it to ask each other questions and share ideas. The space is there for you to use as you see fit.

    • Responding on Your Own Blog: This is a more advanced form of participation, and it’s indicative of a student who truly understands the meaning of building community in ds106. If you find yourself leaving a very long comment, you have significant thoughts or reactions to a classmate’s work, or someone else’s work inspires you to create something yourself, write up a post on your own blog and be sure to link back to the post that inspired you. It can be incredibly satisfying to discover that something you said or created didn’t just prompt a comment, but inspired someone to write or create something of their own, on their own blog. (You can also use this technique to write about something someone said with which you disagree, but you must always do this in a polite and constructive way!)

  6. Course character
    Each of you will create a character as a way of engaging with the course. The character you create should align with one of the archetypes listed below. You are welcome to be creative in how you do this, and how you interpret the archetypes. The point of this exercise is to give you some inspiration and focus, and to offer opportunities for interaction and plot development in the weeks ahead. Your character could even secretly be a bot, with the truth not revealed until the end, if at all.

  • Innovator  – interested in making new things, trying new things, open to risk and disdainful of guardrails

  • Regulator – interested in stability and security, approaches risk with great caution

  • Luddite – militantly values people over property and technology

  • Mad genius – feels entitled to rule the world by virtue of intellectual superiority

  • Documentarian – tracks the facts and tells their story

  • Technician – dedicated to making things work and keeping things running

  • Artist – sees all tech as paintbrushes and palettes, tools and media for self-expression

  • Evangelist – dedicated to spreading the good news and preaching the potential, disinterested in drawbacks

  • Philosopher – works to bring clarity to truth, meaning and ethics

  • Investor – feels entitled to rule the world by virtue of financial advantage

As noted above, these types and descriptions are open to interpretation. They’re starting points, not limitations. Here is a form where you can build your character’s dossier. Introduce your character in a blog post and tag it ai106character.

Meet Dr. Oblivion, another course character. He is our AI-powered teaching assistant who sometimes has an attitude. You can submit questions to him and he will respond in audio. You will be able to download an .mp3 of the response as well, to do with what you will. The doctor’s areas of interest and expertise include media theory, educational technology and artificial intelligence, so he may decline to answer queries that stray too far afield. A good bot knows its limitations. Feel free to avail yourselves of his wisdom.

  1. Read. Last week we looked at AI in film over the years. Since those visions tend to be pessimistic, this week we are asking you to read The Techno-Optimist Manifesto for a bit of contrast. Consider how it relates or contrasts to the film you watched last week and write your thoughts, reactions and reflections. Submit your reflection or a summary thereof to Dr. Oblivion and ask for his feedback. Blog about your reflections and Dr. Oblivion’s response in a post and tag it manifesto

  2. Re-write your Film Review:  Many of the film reviews so far were fairly generic when it comes to details around AI. Using Dr. Oblivion as your tutor, ask him pointed questions about AI and the film you reviewed to get a sense of some of some deeper themes and ideas you might have glossed over. Integrate these into your original review, and also feel free to copy and paste parts or all of the review for feedback to see if you can make your review better.

  3. Write your Weekly Summary: Before the end of the day on Friday, write your summary of the week and tag it WeeklySummary. This is your story of the week’s activities, and should include your thoughts on the week and the work you did. Embed or link to the assignments and Daily Creates you did. Talk about how you are participating in and connecting with the class. Submit the URL to your summary to Canvas.

WALL-E Film Review

Thoughts

WALL-E is a film set in the future where robots are tasked to take care of the remaining humans left from Earth up on a ship in space and humans killed the Earth due to their polluting the environment.

I have loved this movie since it came out when I was a child. Primarily because of the cute robots but also because of the message it spreads. It is important that we take care of our home, and I think this film really shows how important Earth is to us and how, no matter what, we will always go back to our Mother Earth.

Reactions

This was a very impactful movie that showed the possible future of humans if we keep living the wasteful and selfish life we are living now. If we keep taking advantage of the home we have, we will no longer be free, and we will no longer have a home. This film does show a life that seems full of luxury, but it is purely based on entertainment and that is all. What kind of life would that be worth living if we couldn’t run free and breathe in fresh air and fall in love? The lives these people are living are being controlled by robots, so they stay happy and immobilized so that when the time comes, they can not stop the AI from eventually taking over.

When I first watched this movie, I didn’t understand the whole meaning of it because I was so young. But now that I am older, I can appreciate the message it is giving more, and I can integrate it into my everyday life. I often find myself thinking about waste and how I can better help the planet and be less wasteful, and I think a big part of that came from how I was raised but also because of this movie and how much I have loved it throughout my life as a child and as a young adult.

Reflections

This film really shows how AI can evolve over time and how they may become conscious and aware. WALL-E is a robot that was made to clean up the Earth so humans could eventually come back from space, but WALL-E becomes self-aware and is seen longing to be/see humans and collects things from when they were around, he even pretends to be a human and dances along with an old film he found and finds himself also longing for love as he is in complete solitude because all of the other clean up robots have died, he ends up befriending a cockroach and WALL-E shows physical emotion towards his little friend and even feeds him to keep him alive.

This film shows a possible future where humans can no longer live on Earth and depend on robots to keep them alive and thriving. We need to take better care of the Earth we were given so we do not kill everything good that we have and have to leave due to our selfish actions.

Ghosts of future past

For an AI-related movie, I watched the anime version of Ghost in the Shell, a late 20th century vision of five years from now. I hadn’t watched or read it before, so it was about time. I noticed echoes of Bladerunner, RoboCop and The Matrix. The film was based on a manga which seems to unwittingly comment on our current situation.

Manga panel with a character saying "What the hell's going on here? That's just a goddamn teach-mech!"

image from Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow

and also echoes Darwin Among the Machines from 160 years ago:

series of manga panels showing a discussion among robots, saying: Sure! Humans are a pain in the bearings to maintain, so rather than controlling them, we should annihilate them! To make matters easier, we can just trick them into quarreling among themselves - then they'll kill off each other! But wait,,, if there aren't any humans around, we'd have to do our own maintenance, develop our own accessories, and even change our own oil... Maybe we should keep them as slaves... But they're already doing those things, without our controlling or enslaving them.

image from Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow

Beyond the thematic references, I was interested in the philosophical musings on evolution, life and humanity. The hero of the story is a cyborg, essentially a robot with a human brain. Is she then human? She’s not so sure:

Major Motoko Kusanagi: Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins. Sometimes I suspect I am not who I think I am, like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and stuck it in this body. Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I’m completely synthetic like that thing.

Batou: You’ve got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours. You’re treated like other humans, so stop with the angst.

Major Motoko Kusanagi: But that’s just it, that’s the only thing that makes me feel human. The way I’m treated. I mean, who knows what’s inside our heads? Have you ever seen your own brain?

Batou: It sounds to me like you’re doubting your own ghost.

Major Motoko Kusanagi: What if a cyber brain could possibly generate its own ghost, create a soul all by itself? And if it did, just what would be the importance of being human then?

And that refers to the AI in the film, the Puppet Master

Puppet Master: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So man is an individual only because of his intangible memory. But memory cannot be defined, yet it defines mankind. The advent of computers and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought, parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.

quotes from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(film)

Could we draw a parallel between GPT and DNA? I’m out of my element here of course, but I see in both an encoding of the existing and the production of something new. The issue of memory is significant too. We used to preserve memories with film photography. This had imperfections, but was based on physical reality. The photos I take with my phone are mediated through algorithms, and have been known reinterpret reality.

So I asked our teach-mech Dr. Oblivion, “How does the vision of artificial intelligence presented in Ghost in the Shell hold up in the present day?”

includes sample of Ghosthack from Ghost In The Shell (1995) OST

I think if I asked a better question, I might have gotten a better response. AI apps aren’t known for insight, and sometimes give us the most obvious string of words. Will our AI future be dystopian, or just disappointing?

The doctor does touch on an important point. We built the internet in order to augment human intelligence. Around the time of Ghost in the Shell, we opened it up to commercial exploitation, and a few people became unimaginably wealthy. For the past couple decades, more and more it’s been developed as a tool for social control. So who is the web for? Who is AI for? In ds106 we all have our own little pieces of the web, as it was meant to be. Entities like Alphabet and Amazon and Meta and Microsoft come along like Columbus and plant a flag in it and claim it for their own. Do we go along with that, or do we want open, public infrastructure? The easy path may not be the most rewarding.