Changes to Assessment

At the symposium this week it was agreed to make a change to assessment. The final essay task now:

This task can be completed in pairs or individually. If a complete draft of the writing (minimum 1200 words) is submitted to your teacher by Friday September 26 you will receive a bonus of 5 marks. Work that is done in pairs is expected to be more sophisticated (writing, ideas, use of media, references) than work that is done individually.

The entire task, with the new addition, is available under the assessment menu of the course blog.

Blog Assessments

Blog assessments coming due real soon now. The essay, up to a thousand words please. Less is OK if you’re comfortable with it. You submit your blog assessment on paper, print the entries/copy and paste them into single doc, attach to essay on paper, hand in the usual way to level 4 of building 9. Due Friday August 30th.

Marketplace

OK, there is a new page on the networked media blog where you can ask how to do things. These will be put up on a page yet to be made and others can see what is being asked, and if they like make something that shows everyone how to do that. Put that in your blog, let me know (in case I miss it), and it will join the new help list on the main mediafactory page. If you make something in response to a request, you earn two marks.

The help list is being compiled at http://www.mediafactory.org.au/help/, and the request a how to form is on the How To? form page with an outline of the idea and principles in our new marketplace page. Be nice to extend this, to perhaps definitions or similar? What do you think?

00 Readings – to be done in Class One – What is Networked Media (the subject)

This is a speculative curriculum. We encourage speculative writing and media making, critical writing that plays with fiction and voice. The passage below is the reading for the first class.

This is networked media, at least while sitting at a cafe on a cold and wet Saturday afternoon in mid July.

Something a bit unkempt, even dishevelled. Smart, a lot – too many – of ideas. A sea indeed of ideas. An ocean of ideas. And there’s networked media. A boat. Certainly not a big one. Doesn’t really have a sail but there is some sort of mast to pin something on, against, to. Or a motor. Not adrift. It bobs, floats, weaves. Seeks and follows eddies of the breeze, currents, a wave. Sometimes it gets blown and washed around, other times darting along with deliberate intent revelling in its boat knowledge of breeze, current, wave. There is no shore. Not at least to be seen. Anywhere. All ocean, and because it is all water one place is as well as close enough, or further away, than any other. Each wave is different. Different enough to have a difference, a difference that matters. This gives this ocean contour, currents, eddies and tides. You dip an oar, seeking something over there, enjoying the whirl and whorl of water around the oar.

Some Possible Questions
What sort of experience might it be to be on this boat? What might you need to know to get by? Is this is a metaphor of the network? Why? How? Why not? If this is a description of this subject (it is) then what does it suggest, for you, about what is going to happen here? What are the things that have knowledge, that ‘know’ in the speculative, imaginary, description? What does it even suggest, that things know? What isn’t in this description, as a subject?

The Big First List of All The Things To Be Able To Do in My Blog

These are the ‘blog how to’ basics that we will be working through as part of the first two or three classes.

Real Basic

  • know how to log in
  • know the URL of my blog
  • know the URL of the subject blog
  • be able to post entries to my blog

Defaults

  • able to set comment controls
  • turn on spam filtering
  • set time zone
  • know where to change/set email address and change password
  • know how to recover lost password
  • write an appropriate ‘about’ page
  • making the about page visible
  • linked to the disclaimer page from your footer or sidebar (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/disclaimer)

Writing Outwards

  • can create a link from text in a blog post out to somewhere else
  • built a blogroll
  • uses different ‘sections’ (categories) in my blogroll
  • provided links to other services and/or sites I am on or use
  • use categories with posts
  • use tags with posts

Making it Mine

  • can use the edit tools in the post editor
  • have experimented with a different template
  • have modified a template using widgets
  • have modified the title, subtitle, colours and header of my blog
  • make categories visible/available on my template
  • made tags visible/available on my template
  • added pages

Beginning to Weave

  • posted a photo in a blog post
  • embedded a vine clip in a blog post
  • embedded a photo of fine from flickr, instagram or some other photo service into my blog
  • embedded video of mine from flickr, vine, vimeo, or some other video service in my blog
  • send something from my phone to my blog