After some technological missteps during the first couple of weeks of the course, I’m pleased to report that the classroom component of SP711 is starting to build some momentum. Students did a great job of building four draft syllabi which will soon be woven into some form of document to greet and explain to newly arriving sock puppets what’s happening with this course. Hopefully the document will be pulled together later this week.

After students presented their draft syllabi last Friday, they were asked to write a blog post to serve as a starting point for the first digital story project. Prior to this, they’d scanned Cogdog’s 50 + Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story, the ds106 Assignment Bank, and Bryan Alexander’s New Digital Storytelling site to get ideas for possible projects. 

In tonight’s class, we will have a look at the students’ blogs and discuss ways to go about tackling the projects. Some of the interesting early submissions we’ll look at include:

• Sho Tanaka’s plan to use Black Out Poetry
• Yamasavina’s idea to mash Creative Commons music with anmated GIFs
• Faked Nielsen’s intriguing idea to build a parody based on the Japan Naval Self Defense Force’s mascot character: Oton (pictured above)

Hopefully those interested in joining the fun can get a sense of what where up to checking the awesome student blogs. Until I’m able to figure out how to set up a mega RSS feed with each of the blogs, the best way to track the blogs down is from this Netvibes page.