Assignments

Final Project: HTML wireframe of your project. Delivered in class via thumbdrive or emailed before. We will click through your project in an informal presentation in class June 29th. (10% of final project grade)

Project Analysis: blog post long form
Due June 29th (250 – 350 words; submit via email by midnight; subject =”Project Analysis”) – (10% of final project grade)

Analyse your project based on the 10 criteria and any of the relevant readings. This is not a formal paper, more conversational like the blog posts. DO cast a critical eye towards your project and discuss which aspects of New Media it leverages in helping your user.

 

**** blog post 4 **** Two articles. What do you think and how do they relate?
Due June 25th (150 – 250 words; submit via email by midnight; subject =”blog post 4″)

Do you agree or disagree with the opinion article, “Free Speech for Computers?” Why? Relate this article to the one about the Facebook lawsuit settlement.

Free Speech for Computers?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/opinion/free-speech-for-computers.html?hp

 

To Settle Lawsuit, Facebook Alters Policy for Its Like Button
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/technology/to-settle-suit-facebook-alters-policies-for-like-button.html?_r=1&hpw

 

**** blog post 3 **** Winograd and Flores
Due June 20th (150 – 250 words; submit via email by midnight; subject =”blog post 3″)

Discuss your response to this article in terms of your New Media Project. How does the ontological approach work in your domain?

**** blog post 2 ****Scott McCloud reading response
Due June 11th (150 – 250 words; submit via email by midnight; subject =”blog post 2″)
Pick one:
1) In the Scott McCloud reading the representation of time is discussed. How are these issues relevant to New Media, especially with respect to the panel? You might want to use a new media entity as an example.
2) Free form! Use your imagination to show a comprehension of the issues raised in the reading as they relate to New Media. Get Creative!!!

 

****Required text****
A reader (collection of articles) is available at Copy Central on Bancroft under the name INFO 146 Foundations of New Media. Many of your readings will come from the reader if not from a link in the schedule.

**** blog post 1 ****
Due May 25th (150 – 250 words posted as a response to the blog post “blog post 1”)
Pick a New Media entity with which you have had experience using (website, game, app, etc). Describe your personal experience with it. Why is that experience a New Media experience? What old media does it relate to, if at all? (ie. YouTube might be like home movies, documentary film, or instructional video.) Get specific, have fun with it!

This assignment should take about 1 – 2.5 hours. This is part of the class participation portion of your grade, therefore, no pressure. Just think and write.

Remember, all work in this class MUST be your own. Plagiarism is against the rules, gets and F, and generally subverts your ability to learn.

 

****Short Paper****
Due June 6th (2 – 3 pages (or more), double spaced)
Draw on one or more of the readings (Heilbroner, Jenkins, Manovich, Williams ) to discuss a particular new media form or technological innovation. What insights do these author(s) make available that help us understand the development and emergence of your technology or tool. Conclude with a question that you would ask the author if they were in class.

A clarification:
Pick a new media entity (preferably one you have used and are familiar with, it will be easier that way): a website, game, device, or technological innovation. Show how one or more of the readings are relevant in helping us understand how the entity has been developed. End with questions about the reading that may be clarified by the author. For instance, if you chose Facebook, perhaps Manovich and Jenkins would be helpful in understanding the community and conversational interactions that occur there. Or perhaps the iPhone/Android has an application that causes society to behave a certain way, such as flash mobs and Heilbroner can be used to understand how technology organizes society and behavior. Perhaps a picture sharing website or application is a combination or media that can be explained by Williams.

 

End with a question you think one of the authors could answer that may help you better understand how the entity works with regard to society. For example, I would like Heilbroner to explain how flash mobs or Facebook has affected society and the structure of social organization. Or ask Manovich to explain how pictures and movies converge when posted in a discussion to create a new form of conversation which is new, not just a remix of the media.

 

The main thing is to bring together theories and criticisms in the readings with existing new media, then ask the author a question that sheds light on how the entity has come to be something you find useful.

 

I’ll post this clarification online as well so your classmates can benefit from it. I realize the assignment is open ended. I wrote it that way so you would need to get creative in your interpretation of the reading as it relates to a new media entity. If you get stuck, use one of the examples I posted above.

**** blog post extra credit **** This will account for missed blogs posts in the past or missed classes or help in the final grade. Due June 29th (150 – 250 words; submit via email by midnight; subject =”blog post Extra Credit”)

Two options (you can do both if you want):

In either (or both) of the articles below explain how the main points of the article apply to the class. How does it fit in to our understanding of New Media?

Marshall McLuhan, excerpt from The Gutenberg Galaxy.

Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” (49-64) http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html