#bsocials17 course calendar

About the Course Calendar (updated 2/18/17)

Texts are to be read/watched/listened to for day they are listed. For example, Braun, Coates, Hobbes, Lewis, Walls are to be read for Monday, January 23. Homework in addition to texts will be presented in yellow. The schedule is subject to change; it is your responsibility to check it regularly.

Week One: Introductions

W 1/18: Introductions, Syllabus, Examples: Anna, Nolan, TCCWB; Skills Survey

Assignment for Friday, 1/20
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: billwolffsju (http://twitter.com/billwolffsju), 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.

F 1/20: Bill Sick. Fellows Panel, Client Reveal, Meet with your team
Hand out Social Media Documentary Assignment

Week Two: Human Beings and their Promise

M 1/23: Fellows Panel, Client Reveal, Meet with your team

Assignment for Wednesday, 1/25
Read selections from Braun, Coates, Hobbs, Lewis, and Walls. Braun, Coates, Lewis, and Walls, are from memoirs; Hobbs is from an autobiography of a man named Robert Peace. While reading, I’d like you to think about the lives of each of these individuals and pay attention to how you respond to each one. What is your initial reaction? What might you have assumed beforehand and how did that change (if it did) while reading? What were the contexts of their childhoods? What opportunities did each of the individuals have? Braun went on to found a global philanthropy; Walls and Coates became successful authors; Lewis became a civil rights icon and Us Representative. Robert Peace went to Yale before dying young. What does this tell us about the relationships between who these people are and their past?

Read through the Social Media Documentary Assignment, start following your classmates on Twitter and Instagram, and begin live-tweeting your work by tweeting 8 passages that were particularly meaningful to you, two from each reading. I’d also like you to use your classmates’ tweeted passages as conversation starters by replying to 4 of those passages in ways that create a conversation. Original authors, continue that conversation.

We will discuss the readings and your tweets in class on Wednesday.

W 1/25: Braun, Coates, Hobbes, Lewis, Walls
Discuss Social Media Documentary Assignment

Assignment for Friday, 1/27
Please watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk, “How great leaders inspire action”:

After watching the video, tweet 3 interpretations or reactions to Sinek’s ideas about how humans are motivated, including some thoughts about your own personal Why? That is, what your core belief or beliefs are that guide how to act and interact in the world. Respond to several of your classmates and have a conversation.

Please read through the Project Team Assignment, which we will discuss in detail in class.

F 1/27: Reflection Friday: Sinek and the Golden Circle; The Promise
Hand out Project Team Assignment

Week Three: Jena Nardella and the Story of Hope

Assignment for Monday 1/30
Spend some time reading through the Developing a Team Identity portion of the Project Team Assignment. There is a lot of that page, so try to keep your focus on the Identity portion for now.

Please read Christensen’s interview with Jensen about integrity and then the Prologue and all of Part One of Nardella’s book. Tweet 5 ways you see Jensen’s ideas on integrity coming through in Nardella’s story, either through her actions, beliefs, or structure of the book.

In class we will discuss both the interview and the book and try to connect these to your Team Identity.

M 1/30: Christensen (2014); Nardella, Prologue and all of Part One
Handout Story of Learning Assignment
W 2/1: Nardella, all of Part Two; Kickstarter stories

Assignment for Friday, 2/3
Please continue working on the Team Identity portion of the Semester-Long Project Assignment and start looking at Part I  (only Part I) of the Background Research portion of the assignment. You will have time in class on Friday to work on both.

F 2/3: Reflection Friday: Preparing for Initial Client Meetings
My Story up to this Moment and first weekly update due by 11:00pm
Team Identity due by 11:00pm via shared GoogleDoc.

Week Four: Initial Client Meetings

M 2/6: Class Canceled for Client Meetings
Background Research Part 1 Due 5 hours before client meeting in shared GoogleDoc
W 2/8: Class Canceled for Client Meetings
F 2/10: Nardella, all of Part Three and Epilogue

Week Five: Interviewing and Storytelling

Assignment for Monday, 2/13
Read Lambert on storytelling (see Readings page), watch Mia’s Story, and the profile of Nolan for Fair Food:

While watching the videos, note places where you see examples of Lambert calls the elements digital storytelling. Tweet at least 5 of those places, which element you see, and why.

Remember, your Story of Learning Week 4 Weekly Update is due Saturday, 2/11.

M 2/13: Lambert, Mya’s Story, Nolan’s Story; notes-for-digital-storytelling.docx
W 2/15: Meet with Project Teams

Assignment for Friday, 2/17
The texts for Wednesday are going to be about interviewing and the power of stories. We’re going to be borrowing our interview techniques from the oral history field, which advocates for open-ended interviews.

Please read Portelli (2006) and Turkel (2006), which are available on the readings page. The scans of the readings aren’t great, I’m sorry to say. Please also listen to significant portions of Studs Turkel’s oral history interviews with

Joseph Moore:

and Leola Spann:

Please also watch the raw footage of the first 12 minutes of the interview with Nolan from Stryker Farms. (You can watch the whole thing, but around 12 minutes we pause because there is a noise coming from a water pump. The pause lasts about 6 minutes, but you’ll see that interviews are not just consistent conversations.)

I’d like you to think about what you’re read, listened to, and watched in relation to Mia’s Story and Nolan’s Story. Tweet about ways you think the kinds of interviews advocated and exhibited here could lead to the kinds of narratives told in the those videos. What is it about the oral history process that results in such meaningful statements? Also live-tweet about other questions, thoughts, and concerns you have with the texts.

F 2/17: Portelli, Turkel, and Examples
Background Research Part 2 Due by 11:00pm in shared GoogleDoc

Week Six: Interviewing & Social Media Stories

M 2/20: Sample interviewing; Polaroids

Assignment for Wednesday, 2/22
Please read Vaynerchuck (2013) [there are two Vaynerchuck essays, so be sure you are reading the right one), which can be found on the Readings page. Watch the videos America and Together and the one in this tweet:

Continue live-tweeting the readings as you have throughout the semester, responding to each other, as well. Here, I’d you to make connections between the three videos, Vaynerchuck, Lambert, and Sinek’s Why. In particular, think about the fact that the first two videos are viral successes and the latter is a 15 second composition designed for Twitter. Be sure to reply to each other and make your tweets conversation starters and continuations.

Please note that the videos assigned are not to promote a particular political point of view. Rather, they are assigned because they are social media successes that advocate for social justice issues. That is, the kinds of videos we could potentially make in B:Social. If you have questions beyond this explanation, please do not hesitate to contact me as soon as possible.

W 2/22: Vaynerchuck & video examples

Assignment for Friday, 2/24
Please read Aaker & Smith (2010), “6 Nonprofits On Instagram Who Are Getting It Right,” Jedidiah Jenkins’ Instagram posts, and the following videos:

While reading the non-profits article, click on each mentioned non-profit’s username and spend time reading their posts. Make sure you read the comments associated with Jedidiah Jenkins’ photos to help see the connections to digital storytelling.

Continue live-tweeting the readings as you have throughout the semester, responding to each other, as well. Here, I’d you to make connections between the Instagram accounts, the videos,  Aaker & Smith, and Lambert on digital storytelling. If you see parallels to Vaynerchuck, you can add those, as well.

We’ll discuss these in class, much as we discussed the videos and texts on Wednesday.

F 2/24: Aaker & Smith, Jedidiah Jenkins’ Instagram, & “6 Nonprofits On Instagram Who Are Getting It Right”; Class Picture

Week Seven: Storytelling and Content

Assignment for Monday, 2/27
Please read the short reading by Hlinko (2012) on social media multipliers. Go through your client’s last 100 or so tweets, Instagram posts, or Facebook Posts and try to identify their multipliers. Who is forwarding their messages most? We’ll discuss these chapters in class in relation to the Social Media Analysis part of the semester project (scroll down a bit to Part 3). Tweet some of your findings.

If you haven’t been keeping up with your Story of Learning Weekly updates, this is a great weekend to catch up with them. In class on Monday, we’ll discuss the Midterm Story of Learning, which is due this coming Friday evening.

M 2/27: Hlinko & data analysis; reading-summary-terms.pdf

Assignment for Wednesday, 3/1
Thanks, again, for your patience as we discussed the Story of Learning and the Social Media Analysis part of the semester project (scroll down a bit to Part 3). Please read through both assignments and come to class with any questions you have.

To help prepare for the data analysis section of the Social Media Analysis, I’d like you to go to Followerwonk, which allows you analyze any Twitter account to compare what’s tweeted, when it is tweeted, when followers are online, etc. I’d like you to run a report for @bsocialsju and begin to analyze the data. Based on the results, what are you seeing? Is @bsocialsju tweeting effectively? Tweet some of your thoughts about what you are seeing. We’ll discuss this in class on Wednesday.

W 3/1:  More data analysis; stat overlay  , Working within Style Guides
F 3/3: Reflection Friday
Midterm Story of Learning Due by 11:00pm

Week Eight: Midterm Conferences

M 3/6: Class canceled though you will still meet with your project team
W 3/8: Class canceled though you will still meet with your project team
F 3/10: Class canceled though you will still meet with your project team
Social Media Analysis Report draft due by 11:00pm in shared GoogleDoc

SPRING BREAK 3/13 – 3/17 (APEX!)

Week Nine: NonProfits and Heather McDanel

M 3/20: Getting back to class, important dates, B-roll

Assignment for Wednesday, 3/22
Heather McDanel will be visiting class on Wednesday and will be giving a university-wide talk at 7:00pm in Campion. She asked we watch the following TED Talk in preparation:

Please tweet questions and thoughts you have about the TED Talk and come to class prepared to discuss those and many other issues.

This week also begins our video set-up training. In preparation for that, please read: How To: Interviewing and Interacting in a Professional Environment. This post was written by former B:Social students. Please read it before your training.

W 3/22: Heather McDanel visit and talk
F 3/24: Reflection Friday
Hand out Blogging for the Beautiful Social Web Site assignment

Week Ten: Storytelling, Emotion, and the Power to Change

M 3/27: Reflection Monday: Heather McDanel visit and revisiting our Promise/Integrity

Assignment for Wednesday, 3/29
Please read pages pages 1 – 65 in Walter (2011), which is all about designing for emotion. Though the book is about web design, I’d like you to try to connect it to Aaker & Smith’s (2010) Principles and Characteristics of engaging social media campaigns and Vaynerchucks (2013) characteristics of great stories. Then, I’d like to look again at Vaynerchuck’s discussion of consistency (Part 6) and think about the relationship between consistency and emotion. Watch these videos designed for social media–Janelle; Karen Macek; Roxie; War Hero–and tweet about those two ideas—emotion and consistency within them. Other than the content of the stories, what aids to the emotional engagement?

As with other political videos, the goal of watching the above videos is not to advance a political perspective but to highlight stories in social media spaces. If you have any questions, please let me know.

W 3/29:Walter (2011), Designing for Emotion, pages 1-65; Consistent Design; Janelle; Karen Macek; Roxie; War Hero. Four Up. design-for-emotion-handout.pdf
F 3/31: Work on projects
Social Media Analysis Report final draft due by 11:00pm as formal PDF

Week Eleven: Work on Projects

M 4/3: Davis and examples Glissen and Fossel
W 4/5: TBD
Blog post draft due by class time
F 4/7: TBD
Social Media Analysis Report final draft due by 11:00pm as formal PDF

Week Twelve: Second Client Meeting (maybe?)

M 4/10: TBD
Fellow blog comments due by class
W 4/12: TBD
F 4/14: Class Canceled — Easter Break

Week Thirteen: Work on Projects

M 4/17: Class Canceled — Easter Break
T 4/18: Class Meets
W 4/19: TBD
Blog post final draft due
F 4/21: TBD

Week Fourteen: Work on Projects

M 4/24: TBD
W 4/26: TBD
F 4/28: TBD

Week Fifteen: Work on Projects

M 5/1:
Client Case Study Due by 11:00pm
W 5/3: Last Day of Class
Final Deliverables and Social Media Analysis Due by 11:00pm

Thursday, May 4, Final Documentary Video by noon
Friday, May 5, Final Story of Learning due by 11:00pm
Saturday, May 6: End of Semester Event, Place TBD, 1:00 – 3:00

 

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