Archives for September 2016

This is the post for the Wednesday, September 28, 2016 class meeting.

Design Presentations

• 2:30 Class: Maury
• 4:00 Class: Lisha

Today’s Class Work

Today’s session is about getting work done. Here are the things you can work on:

• Have your Sources & Assets Plan set up and be ready to show me when I stop by your desk. See the Monday, 9/26 post for more information. Remember I just want to see that you have started and understand. The plan does NOT need to have scores of assets listed.

• Finish up your Formal Pitch if you have been using the Grace Period so that you can turn it in by 11:59 PM tonight.

• Create your PowerPoint movie and turn it in to the PowerPoint Movie Practice Discussion.

• Gather sources and assets for your projects and list them on your plan. You can search for still images, videos, audio, or websites that you can use in your projects or use as reference material as you work on your projects.

• Write Design Journal #6, which is due on Monday. Read through your classmates’ entries and leave comments or likes for previous entries.

• Update your Participation Log to reflect the ways you have contributed to the course and put in your best effort. You can list how you worked in class today, taking best advantage of the time, on the Other tab in your log.

Homework

1. The grace period for your formal pitch ends at tonight at 11:59 PM. The submission instructions are at the bottom of the Formal Pitch page.

2. For Monday, 10/3, watch Up and Running with Audacity (1h 49m on Lynda.com), and complete Design Journal #6. Download and install Audacity (Mac, Win) on your computer as well. We will use it in class. If you want to use an alternate tool, that is fine, but I won’t use it in class.

This is the post for the Monday, September 26, 2016 class meeting.

Design Presentations

• 2:30 Class: Morgan G.
• 4:00 Class: Katelyn M.

Finding Assets

Finding things you want to use in your project is easy. They are everywhere. Finding things that you can freely use without violating someone else’s rights is the hard part.

Intellectual property rights for your assets (the things you use to make a project) fall into three categories, all of which require documentation:

• Protected by Copyright—You will have to prove Fair Use or get permission. Use the Copyright Genie.
• In the Public Domain—You can use these freely, without seeking additional permission.
• Protected by Creative Commons—You need to follow the license. See p. 68 of Writer/Designer.

Use the Where can I find graphics that I can use in my projects? FAQ for links to public domain and creative commons assets.

Tracking Assets

As you find sound clips, video clips, photographs, and so forth to include in your projects, you need to track where they came from so that you can credit your sources.

Make a copy of the Project 4 Source List Template and track your sources there. See the assignment on pp. 62–63 of Writer/Designer (“A Multimodal Annotated Source List, Part 1”) for the information to include in your annotations. This document will be your Sources & Assets Plan, as noted in the Deliverables on the Major Projects Workflow page.

Practice with PowerPoint Video

Create a movie based on a PowerPoint slideshow with five or six free-to-use images, including the one you made last week, and a free audio track at http://dig.ccmixter.org (or a similar site). Share your movie in the PowerPoint Movie Practice Discussion. Remember to test your movie before submitting it.

If you are using PowerPoint for Mac 2016 (on the classroom computers), once you create your slideshow with transitions and audio, save it and quit PowerPoint. Launch Keynote on your computer, and open your saved PowerPoint file. Use the Export command on the File menu to create a QuickTime version of your slideshow. Save your PowerPoint and QuickTime files to a flash drive or email them to yourself, as they will be deleted from the classroom computer when you log out.

The grace period for this discussion ends next Monday, 10/3.

Homework

1. The grace period for your formal pitch ends at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 28. The submission instructions are at the bottom of the Formal Pitch page.

2. For Wednesday, 9/28, read the Graphics FAQ pages. Have your Sources & Assets Plan set up (see the Tracking Assets section above), and be prepared to work on your projects in class. I will check your plans in class.

3. For Monday, 10/3, watch Up and Running with Audacity (1h 49m on Lynda.com), and complete Design Journal #6. Download and install Audacity (Mac, Win) on your computer as well. We will use it in class.

This is the post for the Wednesday, September 21, 2016 class meeting.

Design Presentations

• 2:30 Class: Justin M.
• 4:00 Class: Hanna H.

Still Images in Videos

A very simple way to make a video is to create a series of slides in PowerPoint and then save your work as a movie. The example below was made using the PowerPoint technique.

The Basic Process

1. Create your slides in PowerPoint. Google Slides won’t work.
2. Add Transitions between your slides and set them to advance automatically (not by clicking).
3. Insert Audio to add royalty-free or free-to-use background music or your own narration.
4. Drag the Audio icon off the slide.
5. Use the Audio Tools -> Playback option to make the recording “play across slides,” and edit any other settings you’d like.
6. Save the slide show as a movie. The technique you use depends upon your version of PowerPoint.

Practice

Create a movie based on a PowerPoint slideshow with five or six free-to-use images, including the one you made last class, and an audio track at http://dig.ccmixter.org. Share your movie in the PowerPoint Movie Practice Discussion.

The grace period for this discussion ends next Wednesday, 9/28.

Work on Formal Pitches

At 3:15 in the 2:30 class and at 4:45 in the 4:00 class, we’ll stop playing with PowerPoint and shift to working on the formal pitches. Those of you who want to work, can work independently. I’ll pair up those of you who want to do peer review and let you read each other’s work.

Homework

1. Your Formal Pitch is due by 11:59 PM today, Wednesday, September 21. The grace period ends at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 28. The submission instructions are at the bottom of the Formal Pitch page.

2. For Monday, 9/24, read Chapter 4 of Writer/Designer, and complete Design Journal #5 by finding and analyzing a still image (not video or sound).

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! ’tis th’ post fer th’ Monday, September 19, 2016 crew meetin’ arrr.

Survey Says…

Take the two-question Peer Review Survey to tell me what you want to do on Wednesday.

Design Presentations

• 2:30 Class: Victoria D.
• 4:00 Class: Katie H.

Paying Attention to Design

We will review the Ten Design Tips page, and then apply some of the ideas to a student’s draft for the Formal Pitch:

• Original Draft
• 2:30 Revision
• 4:00 Revision

Editing Images

1. Go to PicMonkey.com. It’s a free site, and it does not require a login.
2. Watch for the crown logo, which represents Royale upgrades that you would have to pay for. Don’t waste time on them.
3. Find and save an image that is “free to use” using Google Image Search. (You will read about Creative Commons in Chapter 4 of Writer/Designer.)
4. Note the source information about the image for your documentation. (More on this next week.)
5. Choose Edit at the top of the PicMonkey page, and then upload your image.
6. Crop out any distractions in the background so that the image focuses on the main point.
7. Edit the image as you like, adding filters, special effects, and so forth.
8. Add text to the image that complements the image to help communicate your message, if desired.
9. Save your image with a new name and make a backup.

We are using PicMonkey in class because it’s easy and free, but feel free to use whatever image editor you like for your projects. See other tools and how-to details on the Major Projects Resources page.

Homework

1. Your Formal Pitch is due by 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 21. The grace period ends at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 28.

2. Have your formal pitch draft with you, and whatever you would need to work on it, on Wednesday.

3. For Monday, 9/24, read Chapter 4 of Writer/Designer, and complete Design Journal #5 by finding and analyzing a still image (not video or sound).

This is the post for the Wednesday, September 14, 2016 class meeting.

Design Presentations

• 2:30 Class: Dom D.
• 4:00 Class: Victoria B.

Major Projects Pages

• Planning Your Major Projects
• Major Projects Workflow
• Major Projects Resources
• Formal Pitch Assignment

Informal Pitches

Today you will share your current plans for your major project with the members of your small group. As Writer/Designer explains, “A pitch is a short presentation that explains how the what and the how of your idea might come together in the final project” (55).

Use the questions on p. 56 of Writer/Designer to guide your discussion. You can record your informal pitch on the Small Group page of your Participation Log.

Homework

1. Read pp. 90–92 of Writer/Designer (on proposals).

2. Review Ten Design Tips page.

3. If you want to get ahead, watch Up and Running with Online Social Video (49m 28s) on Lynda.com (free with your VT.EDU login). If you have trouble, go to the Virginia Tech login page first.

This is the post for the Monday, September 12, 2016 class meeting.

Class Work for 9/12

1. In Canvas, go to the Calendar and then choose the Scheduler to sign up for your Design Journal presentation time slot. You can check the Canvas documentation if you need help.

2. Use the slideshow if you need to review the concepts from today’s reading.

3. Practice identifying Audience, Purpose, Context, Author, and Genre as a class with these examples:

• Jeanne Abel and Alan Abel, “Vote for Yetta,” StoryCorps
• Get in the ring with Kmart, WWE Fan Central!
• Mellow Mushroom – ED Commercial
• Disney Princesses
• Virtual Tour: The World of Shakespeare
• If FROZEN Was A Horror Film
• A Guinea Pig Pride and Prejudice trailer

4. Identify Audience, Purpose, and Project Potential in small groups:

• Return to small groups.
• Have one person in your group email me (tengrrl@vt.edu) the names of your group members, so that I can set up groups in Canvas.
• Review the Design Journal Entries for everyone in your group. If someone is using the grace period, skip that person obviously.
• Choose an entry that your group will share with the class
• Identify the Audience and Purpose, using these questions from the textbook:
  • Who is the intended audience?
  • Who might be the secondary audience(s)?
  • What values or opinions do the primary and secondary audiences hold? Does the author appeal to these values or opinions in any way?
  • What do you consider to be the overall intention for the text? What leads you to this conclusion?
  • Might there be one or more secondary intentions? Why do you think so?
• Brainstorm some ways you might use the same kind of text in a major project for the course.
• Involve all members of your group in some way, and be ready to present by 3:15 in the 2:30 class or by 4:45 in the 4:00 class. Aim to use no more than 5 minutes presenting.

Homework

1. Read Chapter 3 of Writer/Designer and the Presentation FAQ page for Wednesday.

2. Be prepared to talk about your tentative plans for your course projects. You will share informal pitches with your group. Formal pitches will be due to me next week.

3. Begin playing with the video recording options available to you. You will need to have some video footage to play with in class next week. Your footage can be anything that is appropriate for the classroom. It doesn’t have to be on the topic for your project.

4. If you want to get ahead, watch Up and Running with Online Social Video (49m 28s) on Lynda.com (free with your VT.EDU login). If you have trouble, go to the Virginia Tech login page first.

This is the post for the Wednesday, September 7, 2016 class meeting.

Class Work for 9/7

1. Make any updates to the attendance chart in Canvas.

   Use of Tardy Label:
   Absences where you provide a note from Schiffert, the Athletic Dept, or some other university office are marked as “Tardy” in Canvas. Using the “Tardy” label for these excused absences allows me to still know when people were (or were not) in class while not having that absence count in the Canvas calculation for Attendance.

2. A Calendar link is now in the site menu at the top of the page

3. Go over the Planning Your Major Projects page, and talk about the 3844 Potential Topics List and Kinds of Audio and Video Projects.

   We’ll look at some partial examples:

   • Zelda Fitzgerald
   • Rainbow Springs State Park
   • Pemberley
   • Rosemary Remembering

4. To practice identifying the modes of communication, we are going on a multimodal dig, a sort of personal inventory of multimodal texts.

   1. Begin by digging through your backpack or bag to locate all the multimodal texts that you have with you. Think broadly and creatively. One item may have more than one way that it is (or contains) a text. For instance, your smartphone could be a multimodal text, but Candy Crush Saga is a multimodal text that might be on that device. So you have multiple texts there.

   2. Go to the "Multimodal Dig" Discussion in Canvas for your class time, and create a Reply that lists the multimodal texts you have with you (or on you). It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive list. Aim for at least 10 texts, and look for the unusual.

      • 2:30 Class Multimodal Dig
      • 4:00 Class Multimodal Dig

   3. Once you have your list, label the items with the modes they include. You can use the first letters (e.g., L=Linguistic, V=Visual). See the slideshow or page 4 of Writer/Designer if you need a refresher. Additionally, note whether they are digital or not.

   4. Once everyone has posted, I will ask you to share your most unusual text with the class and how modes are used by writers as they create texts.
       

   This activity is graded Pass/Fail and counts as part of your participation grade as a class discussion. The grace period for this activity ends on Thursday, September 8 at 11:59 PM.

Homework

1. Write Design Journal Entry #3 by noon Monday in Canvas:

   • 2:30 Class Discussion
   • 4:00 Class Discussion

2. Read Chapter 2 of Writer/Designer for Monday. Read Chapter 3 of Writer/Designer for Wednesday.

3. [Optional] Still time to post in the AMA discussion if you like.