Welcome to the world of digital storytelling. For students in the Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) Program at George Mason University (GMU), this is going to likely be a very different experience from the rest of your programs.
Very different. If you feel dis-oriented, then you are right on track. Stay with us.
Students in EDIT 572: Digital Audio/Video Design and Applications will get my primary attention for the next seven weeks. I am teaching this class with a focus on the method storytelling, and how that plays out on the web.
The class you are taking is modified from previous iterations of a digital storytelling class called DS106 I and others have taught for 4 years. What makes it unique is that we do our work on an open web site, and invite people not in the class, to optionally follow, participate, and be part of the experience. They do not get credit, or as much direct feedback from me, but in many ways they act as extra sources of help, inspiration. This is a new approach to learning.
Why run a class like this? We have found that the connected space of the open web provides exactly the kind of place that Steven L Johnson describes in Where Good Ideas Come From as “a space where ideas can mingle, and swap, and create new forms”. In this RSA Animate video based on his talk, Johnson frames how this is the kind of ecosystem where innovation can be found
Below is information worth reviewing before class starts March 18, 2014 so you can be ready for this experience. Each section opens up to reveal more, kind of like how good stories work.
How the Course Works
This course runs for seven weeks, with each week’s tasks published Monday at 12:00pm EST on the ds106 web site at
http://ds106.us/category/the-site/spring-2014-gmu/. Each new announcement will include a short video introduction from your instructor, a reading or video to watch (all freely available online) related to the topic, and a series of assignments to be completed that week. All students will get an email introduction for the week as well.
All assignment work will be done on a blog each student maintains (see below). For students in the GMU classes, credit for the week’s work is based on your weekly summary blog post that needs to be published by 11:59PM Sunday EST of each week. A summative project is due May 12, 2014.
We will subscribe to blogs from every GMU participant on this web site, so we can see posts for all GMU students combined or by section (section 1 blogs, section 2 blogs) plus those from open participant blogs. For information about what is expected in a writeup see How To Write Up Assignments Like a Blogging Champ.
Students will have a participation requirement based on their giving constructive feedback to each other. This is way the work we do is mingling together.
The Nature of this Course
This is not class in how to use software– what we hope to do is teach you the elements of storytelling and how that can be applied to different modes of communication. This assignments call for a lot of practice in creativity. You will make a lot of media. You will try a lot of new software. You will use likely from the internet and pop culture. Why? Because we can learn from the way these new media forms operate, generate interest, and gets people excited about topics.
Many of the assignments in this course, on their face value may not be directly applicable to the work you do, they tend to be on the playful side. The assignments are not the end goal. It is the practice of creating a narrative, and of being able to write about the thinking behind your work. And in that writing, you may find connections to the things in your profession.
If you think this is a real stretch, then consider the work we have done this past year with a group inside the corporate firewall of 3M, who went though an experience in parallel with out open ds106 course. You may be hearing from the current round of 3M staff doing a similar experience in 2014.
In this class, you are encouraged/expected to create highly fictional pieces, to make things up, to alter reality, to experiment with what may seem like silly ideas. We follow the wisdom of This American Life producer Ira Glass who stresses that you have to try a lot of things, again and again, to get good at this kind of storytelling:
Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
Because of this class being on the open internet, here are a few special considerations primarily for the GMU students.
- You will be creating accounts on several social media sites, and creating a WordPress log for your work. We recommend that you do not use your full name, or any name at all in your online work space. Make a pseudonym, a nickname. Find a creative title and URL for your WordPress blog, maybe a fictitious company name. You should not write about your work or private life in your public space. Of course this is your choice; and you are free to represent yourself in any way online (your instructor will ask for your sites URLs so he can track your work)
- Before you start creating accounts, you should choose a graphic icon to represent yourself when you create the accounts below. It should not be your photo, it can be any symbol (I use a dog!), but should be a square image file at least 100px wide. If you are unsuare, check out the large collection of icons at Icon Archive.
- Your blog is more that a place to deposit your assignments. The work in this course asks you also to write reflectively on your ideas, methods. Think of it as a notebook or ideas. We are not looking for polished writing, but of well thought out ideas. It should become an artifact of your learning experience.
- We do not teach specific software, you are welcome to use whatever software you have, plus we provide a comprehensive set of web-based and open source software for media editing. There is some expectation that you will be or learn to be savvy in finding answers, and knowing how and when to seek help. The most common phrase my previous students say is, for figuring out how to do assignments “Google is your friend”.
We have an extensive collection of advice from previous students.
Getting Ready
These are web sites where GMU students will need to create accounts.
GMU students must use their GMU email addresses. SoundCloud and vimeo will not be needed until after week 4.
You will need access as well to software/tools for editing graphics, audio, and video. You are free to welcome any commercial software you have access to; we provide an extensive collection of free open source tools or web-based ones. Some notes on each (these will be introduced in more detail for each unit that calls for new software).
- For graphic editing, we suggest a tool that allows editing in layers- you cannot create rich media with a simple paint tool; what you make will end up looking like cut and paste. Layers allow you to cleanly stack, and manipulate visuals. Suggestions include PhotoShop ($), GIMP (open source), pixlr (web based).
- For audio editing, we highly recommend the open source Audacity, but if you have commercial software (Adobe Audition, Garageband) you can use that as well. Soundation is a versatile, free-web based audio editing tool. Layering tracks again is important, as well as access to effects, and an ability to export as mp3
- For video editing, you should use the software that comes with your operating system- Windows Movie Maker Live or iMovie
How To Get Help
If you try to figure out everything in this class alone, you will be overwhelmed and definitely frustrated. Again a benefit of our open approach is a wider pool of people available willing to lend a hand. Our suggestion is keeping your wheel spinning to no more than an hour before trying to find help. A common
reminder from previous students is “Google is Your Friend”– you can find many many more answers to tech problems, video tutorials than one instructor could cram into their head.
GMU students will be provided direct contact details for their instructor. They also have access to a class Blackboard set up solely with discussion forums meant for Q&A. Giving someone else in your class help is considered participation. If enough students are interested, open office hours can be set up using the Blackboad Collaborate tool in the class site.
We have a lot of helpful tips and documentation in the ds106 Handbook
This class typically uses a #ds106 hashtag in twitter and/or a Google Plus community as spaces for sharing the work in this class and giving help to each other. This is not required for GMU students but if you have accounts in these spaces or want to create ones, these are often the most helpful for getting assistance, and support.
Are you ready to start?
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