About the Course Calendar
Assignments and readings are due on the day they are listed. For example, Lambert should be read for 1/21. The calendar is subject to change, so please be sure to check it daily.
week 1: Beginnings / Digital Storytelling
T 1/19: Introductions
Assignment for Thursday, 1/21
Please read and be prepared to discuss articles by Griffins & Kaminer; Ashkenas et al; Einhorn, Ward, & Williams; Lambert. All articles can be access on the Readings page. Bring with you a list of 5 – 7 ways the articles by Griffins & Kaminer; Ashkenas et al; and Einhorn, Ward, & Williams can be considered examples of digital storytelling, as defined by Lambert.I
n Griffins & Kaminer’s article, make sure you listen to the stories that accompany nearly all the images and read the Introductory text that can be accessed by clicking on “Introduction by Ariel Kaminer” in the bottom left.
Click through the course web site, getting familiar with the layout and read the Syllabus carefully. Come to class with any questions you might have.
If you do not yet have a Twitter account, please sign up for one at http://twitter.com. Twitter works best (especially for our purposes) when the username is professional and you are authentic. For example, my username is: billwolff (http://twitter.com/billwolff), and I use my full name to show who I am. My account is unlocked. Please sign up with a professional username and keep your account unlocked. We’ll be using Twitter in a professional way so there is no need to keep anything private. Make sure you have your username with you. The shorter the username the better and please avoid underscores (_); they are hard to type on smartphones.
Create an Instagram account, as well, if you don’t yet have one using the same professional criteria as described for Twitter.
Important: If you have let your web site domain expire, please re-register it (or create a new one) with Reclaim Hosting, which is $25 for a year. Make your domain name professional and easily identified with you, like williamwolff.org is identified with me. Choose a .com or .net domain, not .org. If you did not create a web site with your own domain name in COM 200, please let me know.
To create an account and install WordPress, you can follow this tutorial:
H 1/21: Griffins & Kaminer; Ashkenas et al; Einhorn, Ward, & Williams; Lambert on digital storytelling
Hand out Social Media and Photography assignments
Assignment for Tuesday, 1/26
Please read and be ready to discuss the articles by Branch; Nutt; Kaufman; and Phillips. As you read the articles (which are more robust than the ones we read for Thursday) consider how they might extend our understanding of Digital Storytelling as described by Lambert. Note that Nutt’s piece is a bit spotty at times; if the flash version doesn’t work for you, I have added a link to a more traditional layout, as well.Remember we said that Lambert’s definitions were a starting point and that in class on Tuesday we would expand his definition, in part using Phillips discussion of transmedia storytelling.
So, please be prepared to discuss how Branch’s, Nutt’s, and Kaufman’s might be considered transmedia storytelling.
Please read Social Media and Photography assignments. We’ll address any questions you have next Thursday.
Enjoy the snow!! I know I’ll be out in it with my wife and our youngsters sledding and building snowmen. . . .
week 2: Digital and Transmedia Storytelling (updated 1/26/16)
T 1/26: Discuss Social Media and Photography Assignments
Assignment for Thursday, 1/28
If you haven’t already, please read the Branch; Nutt; Kaufman on Beautiful Social; and Phillips on Transmedia Storytelling, which we were supposed to discuss on Tuesday. If you have already read them, skim through them again so you have them fresh in your minds for class.Start live-tweeting your work for the class, too!
H 1/28: Branch; Nutt; Kaufman on Beautiful Social; and Phillips on Transmedia Storytelling
Notes for the discussion (.pdf)
Hand out Semester-long Investigation Project
week 3: Conferences and Topics (updated 1/26/16)
T 2/2: Discuss Semester-Long Investigation Project
Hand out Blogging Assignment
Hand out Story of Learning Assignment
H 2/4: class cancelled for conferences
Project Proposals Due by 11:00pm
Assignment for 2/9
Please read and come to class ready to discuss Perks and Thompson, “Part I Critical Developments in Oral History” (the quality is a bit poor in this; I’ll try to find a better copy on Friday); Haley, “Black History, Oral History, and Geneology”; Thompson, “The Voice of the Past”; and Sangster, “Telling Our Stories” Feminist Debates and the use of Oral History” (see the readings page).Once you have your subdomain set up, please tweet me a link to it, adding the #digs16 hashtag. Do the same when your proposal is online.
Please complete Part 1 of your Story of learning, which is due by 11:00pm. You should have received an invite to a shared GoogleDoc at your SJU email address. If you haven’t, let me know and I will resend it.
If we did not meet to discuss possible investigation topics, email me immediately with 3 ideas, so I can consider them and see if we need to meet.
week 4: Interviewing
T 2/9: Perks and Thompson; Haley; Thompson; Sangster; digs16-oh-questions-pt1.pdf
Assignment for Thursday, 2/11 (updated)
Please read the articles by Portelli and Studs Terkel with Tony Parker. Listen to Terkel’s oral history interviews with Dawn Kelly, Joseph Moore, and Leola Spann embedded below. They are about 17 minutes each.Please watch at least the first 35 minutes of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts:
Tweet five thoughts about the interviews and Spike Lee’s interview subjects in relation to the ideas expressed by Portrelli and Terkel. Use the #digs16 hashtag. Complete well before class time. We will use your tweets to generate in-class discussion topics.
If you have yet to start the photography assignment, you are getting behind. Please start immediately.
H 2/11: Portelli; Studs Terkel with Tony Parker;
Hand out Video Interview Assignment
Studs Turkel’s oral history interviews with Dawn Kelly:
Joseph Moore:
and Leola Spann:
week 5: Looking and Objects
T 2/16: Horowitz, pages 1-74, 93-138, 185-210, 241-265
Hand out Lookings Audio Assignment
Assignment for 2/18 (updated)
Please read Strohecker, Beinhart, Mitchell, and then read Turkle. They are all included in the PDF under Turkle, Sherry on the Readings page. Be sure to read Turkle last, because you need to be familiar with the others texts to fully appreciate hers. They are all short reads. Post to Instagram with the #digs16 hashtag a photograph of one evocative object in your life and discuss what makes it evocative.If you have received your business cards, please bring them in to show them off and share with BW and your classmates.
H 2/18: Readings on Objects: Strohecker, Beinhart, Mitchell, and then read Turkle
Hand out Objects Photography Assignment
week 6: Fieldnotes
Assignment for 2/23
We will be meeting in the Campion Student Center Sun Room 1 on Tuesday, 2/23. According to the reservation folks, Sun Room 1 “is located right off the Foyer, attached to the North Lounge.” Please plan to arrive early in case it is hard to find.Please remember to bring your small fieldnotes notebook.Please read Emerson, Fritz, & Shaw, pages pages 1 – 44 on fieldnotes. Come to class with a list of 10 strategies Emerson, Fritz, & Shaw, suggest for participating in the research process, observing the spaces in which you find yourself, and composing jottings in your notebooks (jottings are distinct from fieldnotes). Tweet 5 strategies as you are completing your reading.
Read through the Lookings Audio Assignment and Objects Photography Assignment. Start thinking about the expanded research necessary for the project, as we discussed in class on Thursday. Tweet a picture of an investigation mind map similar to the one we invented in class and think about the direction you’d like to start exploring first. Remember, too, according to the Blogging Assignment you are required to have at least THREE blog posts associated with your investigation. See the assignment page for details and specifics.
If you have note been keeping up with your Story of Learning Weekly Updates, please remember to keep up with those.
T 2/23: Emerson, Fritz, & Shaw, pages 1 – 44
Fieldnotes Practice; class meeting in the Campion Student Center, Sun Room 1; student-center-fieldnotes.pdf
Assignment for 2/25 (updated)
Please read Emerson, Fritz, & Shaw, pages 45 – 89 and come prepared to discuss pages 1 – 89 on participant observation, jottings, transcriptions, and scenes. We’ll also discuss what it was like to record jottings during the Campion Student Center activity.Please tweet a photograph of a page of your jottings from the Campion Student Center activity that you wouldn’t mind using to generate discussion in class. Please also tweet 5 questions you have about fieldnotes as a result of reading the text. These may also contribute to discussion.
Please bring your fieldnotes notebook to class with you.
H 2/25: Emerson, Fritz, & Shaw, pages 45 – 89; fieldnotes-reflections.pdf
Hand out Fieldnotes assignment
week 7: Checking In
Assignment for Tuesday, 3/1
Please go back and re-read Lambert, paying close attention to his list of 7 characteristics of storytelling. Re-watch the first 35 minutes of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts:
Choose 5 of Lambert’s 7 characteristics of storytelling and tweet where you see them at work in the first 35 minutes of When the Levees Broke.
Please also read the Fieldnotes assignment.
Complete the Student Center blog posts, which are listed on student-center-fieldnotes.pdf.
Make sure you are keeping up with your weekly updates to the Story of Learning. We’ll discuss Part 1 in class. Note the due date has been extended to Sunday, 3/6.
T 3/1: More on Storytelling (video)
Discuss Story of Learning, Part 1
Assignment for Thursday, 3/3
Please read Abel & Glass, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (see the Readings page), Ira Glass on Transom, and Julie Shapiro on Sound Art. Listen to the first 7.41 of the Stochasticity episode of RadioLab:
Note: The first 30 seconds or so is an ad. Then the introduction starts.Please also listen to Rosenthal, Story Dissection, “Dead Animal Man” (note: 29 minutes; this is an episode that dissects an Ira Glass story about a man who cleans up deceased animals along highways).
Choose 5 of Lambert’s 7 characteristics of storytelling and tweet where you see them at work in the the RadioLab story of “Dead Animal Man.”
H 3/3: More on Storytelling (audio)
Sunday, 3/6: Story of Learning Part 1 Due
week 8: Spring Break 3/7 – 3/11
week 9: Assessment and Web Site Conferences
T 3/15: class canceled for conferences
H 3/17: class canceled for conferences
week 10: Web Site Work
Assignment for Tuesday, 3/22
Please read chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Aarron Walter’s Designing for Emotion (it’s a quick read with lots of pictures) and Kissane’s “A Checklist for Content Work.” All readings can be found on the Readings page.(If you are interested in user-centered design [and who isn’t, really], I have added to the Readings page the [very important and cool] first chapter of the book by Don Norman that Kissane mentions . It is not required, but you will get much from it.)
Search the web for FIVE portfolio web sites by professionals in the field(s) you wish to go into upon graduation that you think embody emotional design principles and employ content well. Tweet links to each and state how each embodies a different on of Walter’s and/or Kissane’s ideas.
T 3/22: Work on web sites: emotional design and content creation
Assignment for 3/24
Please reads chapters 1 – 4 in Jason Santa Maria‘s On Web Typography, an incredible little book that you each should get and love and care for. (Also, if you’re a fontophile you might get your hand on Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type. She wrote the intro to On Web Typography and I’m not saying her book will change your life, but I’m not saying it won’t, either).Please also read Coa’s and Neidlinger’s posts on the psychology of color, and Presenti’s post on sketching. Spend some time playing with the Color Assistance Tools Coa mentions and try to come up with some palettes you like. See the Readings page for all readings. (And if you totally love color and love music, you might look at the very fun The Sound of Color that Kelly-Moore Paints put together to create a color palette for rock, punk, and other musicians.)
Thinking of the sites you tweeted for Tuesday and what we discussed in class, create a list of 10 – 12 features that you’d like your site to have. Also list the emotion(s) you want your site to convey and what colors and font faces might correspond to those colors. Think about who the audience for your site will be, and how you’d like them to feel when they see your site. Choose a set of colors and font faces you think would help convey those emotions and help the audience receive it the way you’d like.
Then, using either the graph paper handed out in class, sketch your site, noting the important features you identified and the colors. Make sure your layout is 1024px wide. Tweet pictures of your lists and your sketches.
H 3/24: Work on web sites: typography and redesign
week 11: Project Status Conferences
T 3/29: class canceled for conferences
H 3/31: class canceled for conferences
week 12: Project Designs
T 4/5: Workshop alphabetic stories
Alphabetic text story due
H 4/7: Workshop audio stories
Audio story due
week 13: Project Designs
T 4/12: Workshop Video stories
Video Story due
H 4/14: Workshop Photo Slide Shows
Photo Slide Shows Due
week 14: Draft week
T 4/19: Workshop project mode of choice
Project Mode of Choice Due
4/20: Transmediated rough draft due by 5:00pm
H 4/21: Workshop rough drafts
week 15:
T 4/26: Course evals; Reflecting on the semester
H 4/28: Final Project Showcase
Sunday, 5/1: Transmediated final draft and reflection due by 11:00pm
Thursday, May 5: Final Story of Learning Due by 11:00pm