After reading the articles and watching the videos it’s really astonishing to see the prominence of graphic design and how its trends shape our perceptions of different items and tones. I never really thought about how similar movie posters look based off of what genre they are and conveying the audience each movie is trying to draw in. It was very eye opening to see in the VanityFair video many different posters of similar style movies next to each other in comparison because of how apparent the similarities are. I thought about how difficult it is to otherwise grasp how many factors play into those movie posters because of how far apart each movie is released. A continuous theme I noticed when reading the articles and watching the videos were trends. People often look back to the past in order to gain inspiration for the current design project. This is seen in the Stranger Things Retro Title video using title designs and technology from the 80s to make the well known title logo that is seen in the show. Furthermore, this trend is seen in the article about Chip Kidd and all of the subtopics that go into design such as Symmetry vs. Asymmetry and Simplicity vs. Complexity. Overall, the articles and videos made me reflect on how frequent and influential design is and will continue to be.
Simply after reading the Introduction Reading Postman in 2020: Towards Technopoly, I could see the many connections that Neil Postman’s ideas and work had to The Terminator, the film I watched last week. Postman initially discusses the dangers of society becoming overly dependent on technology, losing its critical thinking and traditional values in the process. Throughout the reading, the author examines Postmanâs critique of technology and its evolving impact on society, particularly in today’s context with a more advanced and developed digital age. The first chapter uses Thamus’ judgment as a metaphor for the modern-day skepticism about new technologies, particularly digital media. This sense of skepticism is especially relevant in the context of social media, smartphones, and other technologies, and is seen in The Terminator with the rise of rogue technology. The 2nd chapter focuses on a state Postman calls technocracy. In a technocracy, experts in technology and data hold significant power, and technology begins to shape the priorities and values of society. In the terminator, the development of technology begins to move from being a neutral tool that humans control to a driving force that fits the noir theme in wanting to gain control over its creators. The first two chapters really drove the other three, reviewing other aspects such as an “improbable world”, but all support a renewed awareness of the ways technology influences every aspect of life. The author also challenges readers to reconsider how they engage with it, aiming for a more balanced and thoughtful approach to its integration into society, furthermore relating to The Terminator resulting in its viewers having increased awareness of its quick development.
My reflections and Dr. Oblivion’s response heard here were positive. I agree even more with the author’s reflection on Postman’s ideas after rewatching The Terminator in the context of analyzing it. It wasn’t super eye opening or unexpected, but it’s a needed reminder or realization in the more digitized age we live in today.
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 letâs 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.
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 ATâs 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 weâve 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 youâre 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.
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 groupâs 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:
For Wav2lip, video clips cannot be more than 60 seconds or the script will fail
videos appear to work best when one person is talking, more or less directly at the camera. See video above.
There is also public domain video in the Internet Archive, for example in the Prelinger Archives. Some content there is in questionable taste, so proceed cautiously.
People found a few other ways to animate characters. Whatever works is okay. Even if you have to resort to the level of fakery from the other weekâs video.
If you find the idea of fakery objectionable, feel free to find another way to animate. There may be useful tools on the Week 8 list or in peopleâs AI pitches.
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.
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
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 â 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 wonât 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. Itâs up to you. But I recommend it.
The total show should be around 20 â 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 youâve been doing, what tools/tech youâre using, whatâs going well, whatâs 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 â 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):
Radio Show Progress:A blog post on your radio show process and progress. Tag this radioshowweek1
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 â with the same amount of detail we usually expect! Tag this radioshowpromo
Commenting: Everyone needs to be reading/commenting on other studentsâ work.
Audio Assignments: Â 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.
Daily Creates:Complete 3 TDCs this week.
Due by Midnight 3/29 (Summarized, as usual, in a weekly post):
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
Radio Show Progress: Second blog post summarizing your radio show process and progress. Tag: radioshowweek2
Commenting: The more, the better. It may be a challenge this week though.
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/
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 finderâs 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 otherâs 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 isnât 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 everyoneâs ideas at https://ds106.ai/category/radioshowideas/ â 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 youâre 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 showâs 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.
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 â 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 weekâs assignments. We strongly recommend you read it and refer to it during the week.
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 youâre familiar with, you can skip this step. But everyone needs to get their hands dirty with audio editing. If youâre 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.
Set up a free account on Soundcloud. You can store and share your audio creations on Soundcloud so they donât use up your server space, and embed them in your blog posts. Â
Think about Audio Storytelling:
Watch: These two short videos from RadioLabâs Jad Abumrad. He speaks of radio as a way of making meaning and connection, and as a modern incarnation of an ancient art.
Listen: to âMoon Graffitiâ 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 Abumradâs 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.
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 âbumperâ â 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 youâre done. You may be able to get Dr. Oblivion to help out, if you ask nicely. Tag: radiobumper
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 weâll resend it. Blog about the experience and tag it ds106radio.
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.
Complete 3 other Audio Assignments:This week you must complete at least 3 assignments from the Audio category in the Assignment Bank.â¨â¨ Some of the star ratings have gotten silly, so weâre 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.Â
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 âopen source music.â
Complete 3 Daily Creates: You must complete at least three daily creates this week. Make sure you also blog your TDCs.
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 showâsomehow related to or inspired by the theme of the course and involving your characters âon 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.
Commenting: Comment, comment, and comment some more. Commenting creates community.
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 whatâs 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 heâs 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: Letâs do 3 this week.
5. Commenting: You should all be following each otherâs 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:
Now that weâre set up for our adventure, letâs look at where weâre heading. This week is an orientation to what weâll 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 â visual/design
Week 4 â audio
Week 5 â video
Week 6 â video
Weeks 7 â design
Week 8 â AI tool lab
Week 9 & 10 â audio group project
Weeks 11 & 12 â video group project
Weeks 13 & 14 â 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 whatâs to be completed this week.
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 â 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! Donât 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.
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.
Explore the Assignment Bank: This week, we will begin using ds106âs 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 âstarâ 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 âright,â 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 ârightâ way to do this, except to have fun with it and exercise your creativity.
Itâs your job to narrate the process, explain your thinking, and tell the story of your creation â see item 1 above on this list.
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 blogâs title should not be DS106 or My Blog. Those names are not creative, and more importantly, theyâre 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 wonât need to approve that person again.
Build Your Participation: Participation is not only a component of your success in this class, itâs also an essential element of building our online community. If youâre 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 studentsâ 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 â 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 itâs 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 classmateâs work, or someone elseâs 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 didnât 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!)
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. Theyâre starting points, not limitations. Here is a form where you can build your characterâs 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 doctorâs 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.
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. Oblivionâs response in a post and tag it manifesto
Re-write your Film Review:Â 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.
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 weekâs 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.
