cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by gavinzac

That’s right, everyone, we are in the final two weeks of this semester of ds106 at UMW. For the most part, everyone should know what they need to do between now and December 14th, but there are a few details and one small assignment that still needs to be shared.

To recap:

Final Projects

You should all be working on your final projects based on your planning post (and any feedback you received). The final version is due by December 14th and must be posted on your blog. If you need to review the project assignment, you can find it here.

Tutorials & Assignments

You must all create 2 assignment ideas (and complete an example) and 2 detailed assignment tutorials by December 9th at midnight. Each of these should be written up on your blog and tagged correctly! (With the assignment tag or tutorial tag that is associated with the assignment) To answer a few questions that have come up:

• Yes, you MUST do the assignments that you create and post them on your blog.
• If you login to the ds106 site, you can rate your assignment. Actually you can provide an initial rating now when you create an assignment.
• Assignments may be in any of the genre categories
• If you already wrote up detailed tutorials for an assignment that you did, you may use it — but it must be detailed, complete, and tagged correctly!
• You may do a tutorial for an assignment idea you create, if you like.

If you have any other questions, ask us on Twitter!

Daily Create Ideas (Alan’s Students Only)

You must submit two Daily Create prompts at the TDC site and include them in your summary post to Canvas by December 9th. Be sure to save a copy of the ideas you submitted; they are in draft mode for the site and will likely appear on the site in early 2013.

Note about Submitting Tutorials, Assignments & Daily Creates

This is important because Martha and Alan are asking for these to be submitted slightly differently!

For Martha’s Students:

Each assignment and tutorial must be it’s own post. Then, write up a summary post for assignments and a summary post for tutorials, and submit the URL’s for these in Canvas by midnight on December 9th.

For Alan’s Students:

Create a category and place all of your assignment, tutorial, and daily create posts in it. Then, submit the URL for that category in Canvas by midnight on December 9th.

Paying it Forward

As you are all soon to be ds106 graduates, we need you to create an advice piece for future students of this class. It should be in the form of some kind of media (audio, video, set of animated gifs, etc.) It should NOT be a written essay. In this piece, consider what you would tell students of ds106 in the future about this class. What should they expect? How should they approach the work? What will they love/hate about the class? What will surprise them most about the class? What will they get out of the experience?

When you do this, make it conversational as if you are really talking to a future student. For some examples see the “letters home” created by students in the the summer 2012 class.

Organizing Your Blog

Way back in boot camp we had you set up categories on your blog, if you have not been using them, now is the time. This will help you be sure your site is clean and organized as class finishes. If you have not done so already, create and assign your posts to appropriate categories (this is easiest done in the Dashboard, using the Quick Edit links as you hover over post titles). For more about creating and using categories, see the ds106 Handbook: http://ds106.us/handbook/blogging/organizing-with-categories/

If you do not already have a Best Work category, create it now.  Add your blog posts to this category that represent what you consider your best work done in this class, choosing at least 5 items. We would like to see at least one from Visual/Design, one from Audio, one from Web, one from Video, one from Remix, but the choice is up to you.

Final Summary Post

By noon on December 14th (this deadline is not flexible!), you write your last summary post that includes the following:

• Link to and reflection upon your final project. More than sharing us how hard (or easy) it was to make, tell us about what the story means to you, or what you hope others see in it.
• Link back to and review your Week 3 blog post about your definition of Digital Storytelling – How has (nor not) your concept evolved having done this class?
• Summarize and provide links to your tutorial/assignment/daily create posts (Martha’s students) or blog category (Alan’s students).
• A link to your best work category and include some commentary on why you made those selections.
• Link to your Advice to Future students piece post.
• Any final thoughts, reflections, complaints, ideas about your experience in ds106!