Setting Up Your Digital Work Space

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Travis Isaacs

In this course, each student/participant publishes and writes about their work in a blog they manage. We have designed this site so it can subscribe to each blog and aggregate them (e.g. All GMU students, all open participants, everyone who is part of ds106).

If you are an open participant, you can use any blog platform you wish, and if this is your first time in DS106, register it with our site.

Now before you go start clicking… wait! Think about what this space means, more than just a box to drop your assignments or just a course blog. It belongs to you. You will get to pick a name and a unique URL (the name can be changed, but the URL is fixed), don’t just reach for “Bob’s DS106 Blog” or “Mary’s EDIT 572 Class”. A title ought to be a lead in to a story.

Consider thinking of a metaphor for a creative or reflective space. Maybe a journal, or a studio, or a laboratory, or a kitchen, or a garage, or an imaginary castle. This class is about putting creative, even imaginary ideas into place, to experiment with what you can design.

Or try a name that reflects a favorite story character, or movie, or fictional setting. I recommend avoiding putting your real name in the name, URL; try initials, or just a nickname, or a favorite pet/food/activity (heck I am a dog everywhere).

Setting Up a WordPress.com Blog (GMU Students)

This should be started ASAP because it is the place you will post the rest of your work for this course. You will find many answers for how to do X via the WordPress.com help center

• If you have never used it before, create an account at WordPress.com (if you have used it, you can just log in and create a new blog). Click the Get Started button.
• Right away you will have to select the URL for your blog (use the free wordpress.com option). Think carefully, as this name cannot be changed. My demo blog is http://ds106goestowork.wordpress.com. You will then have to confirm the account via a link in your email.
• In addition to WordPress, make an Gravatar account using you GMU email address. This can associate an icon you choose to represent yourself when you comment on other student blogs (it will do this automatically if you enter the GMU email address when you post a blog comment).

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  General Settings screen

  General — Settings: While your blog URL is fixed, you can always change the title and tagline. It’s important to set your local time zone as this defines the time date stamps on your posts. Having an icon is optional.
  
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  Theme Selector

  Appearances — Themes The default WordPress Template is fine, but it’s worth exploring the other theme options available. Be sure to click the “free” filter on the top right. You can switch themes at any time because WordPress keeps your content stored separate the part that controls its display. Find a theme that fits the metaphor for your site or a style that speaks to you.
  
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  How categories should look

  Posts — Categories Create Categories for organizing your blog posts. See this short screencast for help in creating Categories. You are welcome to name then as you see fit, and add your own, but these are categories I would like to see every student blog- note that there are four categories set to have “Assignments” as a parent:
  • Best Work
  • Thoughts
  • Assignments
    • Visual
    • Design
    • Audio
    • Video
  • Project
  • Weekly Summaries

  Also, you might want edit the name of the “Uncategorized” category used as default if you do not specify one.

• Pages — All Pages Pages are stand along content, not part of the blog chronology. The site creates a default “About” page. Edit that page to put a little information about the site (which you may not have much to say right now, this is to practice editing). Try creating a new page called “My Tools” or equivalent, keep a running list of the software and web site tools you use in this course (return to edit this as you go).
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  Example Menu Structure

  Appearance — Menus Create and edit navigation menu – you can add the post categories, and the two pages you created/edited above to the menu, as well as a menu to goes to another URL (link). On the right you can drag to re-order and indent to make a sub menu.
  
• Posts — New (or from the top menu +New -> Post). Okay! Try writing a welcome to me blog post. Write about how the experience of setting it up went, if it feels like it represents something interesting. Make sure you use one of the categories you created from the box in lower right to associate it with the ones you set up. Try adding an image to your post as well.

Exploring the Shape of Stories

Just to start thinking broadly about the ways storytelling can be done in a new way published on the web, scan the pioneering efforts of the New York Times to change the idea about what an article could look like on the web. Pay attention to what the media add to (or subtract from) the story. How well do they do to capture your initial interest?

• Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
• A Game of Shark and Minnows
• Under One Roof

Next, review the video below from author Kurt Vonnegut where he describes the structure of stories. It’s a great overview about the shape of stories. And take note of Vonnegut’s style of telling a story about storytelling- how he plays with your expectations, his use of pause, inflection…

Pick a movie, TV show, book, poem, song, etc. The idea is to outline the shape of that story in a visual and descriptive form an identify the key parts of where the story shape changes. Create some kind of media (a diagram, sketch on paper). Be creative!

Here’s a bonus infographic where graphic designer Maya Eilam applied Vonnegut’s ideas to a number of familiar stories.

Next, choose one rules from the list of 22 Rules of Storytelling Pixar Uses to Create Compelling Stories.

You can find many “formulas” for creating stories, but one of the best approaches is the Story Spine by Kenn Adams. As he explains, it’s not the entire store, but the structure of it that holds it together, like the spine in your back. His post includes the spine applied to two popular movies.

What Makes Stories Work?

Listen to how a premiere thinker and creator of audio stories via This American Life, Ira Glass, describes what is important in the kind of storytelling practice he does:

Primary is that there are two levels at work:

• The anecdote a series of events “This happened then this”. Note the style Glass tells what he says is a boring story (use of inflection, timing)
• A question it raises that says something about the world we live in or that provides a moment of reflection. Sometimes it is called the “So What?” of the story. This plays into what Glass calls “the bait”- the hint of whats to come at the outset without giving it away.

When you listen to this video, make notes of what you think are important ideas (this will be useful for the week’s writing assignments).

For another perspective, watch the Ted Talk by Pixar filmmaker Andrew Stanton on The Clues to a Great Story (note, there is an F-bomb in the opening 3 minute)

As you listen, keep track of elements that strike you as worthy clues.

Your Starting Perspective on What is Story

What do you associate with the word storytelling? What is the visual that comes to mind? What experiences or memories does it conjure? Does it have any place in your life now?

Do not go look anything up online — I am looking for your ideas not definitions. Write a blog post to represent a starting point that says what storytelling means to you. Write it more like a free association exercise than an academic treatise. What comes to mind visually when you think of the word? Think about what the word brings to mind: images, places, people, sounds. Who do you recall as telling you memorable stories> How would you describe the idea of storytelling to someone else?

Write up your responses to both these questions as a single post in your “Thoughts and Ideas” category in your blog. You will return to this later.

Storified and Non Storified Content

Watch this “TouchCast” video about Storytelling and Design— it illustrates the difference of a story focus in video form. Both are well produced commercials for technology firms, but approach the delivery in slightly different ways.

Note: This is a new form of video that makes use of the latest HTML 5 and may not display in certain web browsers (I am glaring at you, Internet Explorer). I suggest installing a copy of Google Chrome or Firefox. Or if you just want to view the two commercials I want you to compare, view them directly on YouTube:

• Meet Your Modern Office http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zf0dqzTUPk
• Google Nexus 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LysTmwDan8

How much difference does this make? As you interact with media in your every day activities– shows, advertising, online content– start asking yourself if you are seeing a storified approach (which may not always be called for). Look for things that do not seem to be explained well, or that do not kind much interest for you to become engaged with it.

This might be an instruction manual, a recipe, a web site, a video that explains poorly complicated task, an article. This will be an ongoing activity to find an example you can use for your final project, where you will create media to add storytelling elements to it. Do not worry if you cannot find a great example, just start the process of thinking about it, and observing the world around you. This also needs to be something that others can see on the web, or for which you can post a photo/video to your blog, so for GMU students you should look for things outside the scope of your job.

This is deliberately difficult, and you will return to this topic in the next weeks as a way to brainstorm the topic for your final project. I have some examples in mind, that will be shared next week, but your first task is to struggle with this assignment. You are not graded on achieving some bar, but how you try to reach that bar.

Checklist for Weekly Summary

For GMU students, these are items your work for the week will be graded (and should match to the items highlighted in the sections above. Your Weekly summary post should provide a brief summary of what you did, and a hyperlink to it. I am looking as well for your own self assessment on your progress this week; how would you grade yourself?

Do not write it like what you expect a teacher might expect, write how you might explain your work this week to a close friend or family member.

• Create a blog at WordPress.com and email your blog’s URL to your instructor. Experiment with a different theme, add post categories, edit the About page, start a new page to track the new tools you discover, add navigation menus, and write a first “welcome to my site” blog post.
• Write a blog post with your ideas on the shape of stories (do not forget to use interesting titles!). Include an diagram and discussion of a story you drew a shape after the style of Kurt Vonnegut. Add an example from that story that aligns with one of the 22 Pixar Rules. Identify the elements of the story that match the the Story Spine format. Describe what you discovered in this process of exploring the shape of stories.
• Write a blog post about your own perception of what storytelling means to you. Expand on what it might mean to introduce the word “digital”? Add any insights ideas you got from listening to this week’s videos by Ira Glass and Andrew Stanton- what, if any, might influence your thoughts on the implication of storytelling for the types of communication you do?
• Write a blog post summarizing what you found as a possible candidate for “storifiying”. Explain why you chose it. You do not need to have a perfect example, but show that you are seeking something to work with.

Your final summary blog posts should then be linked to the 4 required posts for the week, and also give some sense of how you feel about the first week of the course.

So, does DS106 have your attention now?

Good!