Projects
Below is course project information from the syllabus. Project descriptions will be expanded throughout the semester.
- Post to a blog
- As discussed in the course description, this course calls upon you to develop and maintain an active online presence. This presence will be based around the maintenaince of a weblog (blog) with three or four other students on a subject of your choice (sort of...). You will be posting writing to this blog a minimum of three times a week. Additionally, you will be posting at least one response each week. Total, that's at least four posts per week, or a minimum of 1,000 words a week. We will dedicate considerable classroom time to what a blog is and what constitutes a post, so don't worry if these things are unfamiliar. Just realize that you'll have to read and write something for this class everyother day. Your blogging will be assessed and assigned a numeric score (1-5) every week.
- Weblog Mission Statement
- Projected due date: Week 2
- Group Project
- Early in the second week of the course, we will ask you to spend a couple hours searching the web, using Google, del.icio.us, and other tools to research a topic in which you are interested. You will then get together with three or four other people to compare lists and draft a mission statement for your blog. This statment will end up being the first post for your group blog.
- Discourse Community Analysis
- Projected Due Date: Week Seven
- Individual Project
- After you having been posting for awhile, we'll ask you to write an analysis of your online discourse community. In this paper you will explicate the norms of the group you have joined and provide a novice with information about the community: where are the quality sites? Which sites should be avoided?
- Site Re-Design, Missions Statement Review
- Projected Due Date: Week Nine
- Group Project
- At the midway point of the semester, we will ask you to think about the visual layout of your site and to assess your missions statement.
- Book Review
- Projected Due Date: Week Ten
- As indicated above, I will ask you to read one book on blogging / new media this semester. I will then ask you to compose a 1,200- 2,000 word (max) review of the book. A book review is not a book report--you will not only summarize the content of the book, but also (and more importantly) you will evaluate and analyze the book.
- Argumentative Research Response Paper
- Projected Due Date: Week 14
- The topic of this paper will be (almost) entirely up to you: I will ask you for a 2,000 - 3,000 word (max) paper dealing with either 1) an issue surrounding new media or 2) how new media is changing a traditional media or practice or 3) how new media is engendering legal / political / cultural change or 4) whether or not I should offer this course again.
- New Media Project
- Projected due date: end of finals week
- Group project
- You will do something that says something about something somehow.
