Activities for R 11/12

Look at Google Docs templates > From Google Docs go to Browse Template Gallery.

Audio > Look at audio and Audacity postings from last class. GarageBand tutorials. Example: Murmur


Edit collaborative document > Work on essential logic of the argument. Work by groups, below:
Group 1: Alexander, Balnionis, Bergamo, Caughie, Ehrlich, Graff, Miller, Simmons, Spencer, Yoder
Group 2: Alonso, Berardi, Castillo, Center, Garland, Lewis, Reedy, Skomorucha, Suder, Zarkades

Activities for T 11/10

Return to today's blog post > What will you do for your creative gallery?

Example from last year: "I recorded a musical piece and created a Facebook group, allowing members to listen to the song and write their own lyrics. For the final project, I used a set of lyrics as inspiration, and the same general music, with variations here and there."

InBFlat again

This week > Audio. Goal: Create an audio file by the end of the week. Host it at Box.net. Be sure to enable enclosure links to link to the file from within a Blogger post. To do so: go to Settings > Formatting tab and set the "Show Link fields" option to "Yes."

Where to get sounds?

• Make your own with a mic or straight into a computer
  
• CCMixter andCreative Commons (Jamendo) and CC-Wired mix
  
• Freesound
• Open Music Archive
  
• Hippocamp
• Micromusic
  

How to edit sounds?

• Download Audacity
• Audacity tutorial
• Don't forget the Lame MP3 encoder
• Download additional plugins

Work on collaborative document.

Activities for R 11/5

For those working on Fan Fiction, look at the Organization for Transformative Works.

Creative responses working with text >

Creating hypertext fiction. Examples of collaborative blog-based fiction: A Million Penguins and Flight Paths. To create write hypertext fiction on your blog:

1. First create a new blog by going to your Blogspot dashboard and selecting Create a Blog.
2. Write your story. Plan at least one fork per post i.e. two links coming off each post.
3. Think about the type of story and genre that requires forking. Try this science fiction beginning: "The last person in the world sat in a room. There was a knock at the door. The question was: to open it or to remain seated?"
4. Make links off the words "open" and "seated." Make sure you are in the "Compose" mode. Add a link to "open.html" on the word "open" and to "seated.html" on "seated." Now create a new post and give it the title "open" (without quotes). The link from the first page will go to this new page. Do the same for seated, and continue to write your story this way.
   
5. Create a link from your main blog to the story blog. Important: link to the individual posting that starts the story, rather than the blog as a whole.
6. For example. Here's the story of the last person in the world.
   
7. Next, try Hypertextopia, a visual hypertext form.

As alternative, write a story or a novel using Twitter or Facebook or email or txting or something else. Do it on your own or invite collaborators. Here's an example of Neil Gaiman's Twitter novel . Make use of comments, links, photos, etc. Here's a list of fictional blogs or flogs. Another possibility: create the life and story of a character with existence across multiple sites...

Try a Google maps story. Place and location are powerful storytelling devices. Mapping is fundamental to narrative. Here's Google maps for telling meteor landing sites. Why not use this to tell a story? Here's an example: The 21 Steps. (Note: loads slowly if at all. Here's an image from it.) Here's another in German: Senghor on the Rocks. Here's Joyce Walks (James Joyce Google mapped).

1. Go to Google maps and go to My Maps.
2. Create a new map. Give it a title.
3. Add locations to the map. Write text into the location. This is your story! You can also add images, videos, audio, etc.
   
4. Add lines, other features.
5. Be sure to click Done when you are done editing.
6. Click on the Link button in the upper right to get the html code to paste into your blog. You can embed your map directly into your blog!
   

Translation text. Use online text to create new work in/across languages.

1. Take an English text and translate back and forth into other languages. Use any languages you want - use several.
2. Use any text you want - perhaps something of your own or tou might use a Dickinson poem or Bush quotes .
3. Use Google Language Tools, Babelfish, Lost in Translation, or other tools.
4. Post the original and translated text on the blog, and tell what tools you employed.
5. Next, try to Shannonize a text or Dialectize a page.

Please look at shared document and make adjustments! Add, re-order, comment.

Code for adding images to Google map nodes:
Note: be sure to add in "Edit html"



View My Amazing Adventure in the Barcelona in a larger map

Activities for T 11/3

The Creative Gallery > You will make creative gallery linked to your blog, where you extend your topic through something (or several things) you make. What can you make? Whatever you want! You might: make an iPod-ready soundtrack for your project, using audio that you find or create; make a YouTube video; make a presentation with images and animation; make a remix of the project, mashing up text images…; what else? All of the above and more...

Over the next several classes we will cover tools and techniques for text production, audio, and video. By Thanksgiving break, you should have a good sense of one or more creations for your gallery. After Thanksgiving, classes will be devoted to working on your gallery and showing it off.

Creativity is inherent in multimedia. The author and the user blur together. Try detournement as a method... (but you can choose other approaches as well)

Dagwood explains!



Return to blog post > Think about a "creative response" to your topic. What will you do? What will you create?

Shared document > boiled down to outline/bullet points. Please go and read and see if you want to add or rearrange. Next step: each will write three paragraphs into the outline, emerging from your project.

Activities for R 10/29

The goal today is to work with the collaborative document to extract shared claims, to cluster the shared claims, to organize the shared claims, and to discover the binding logic of the shared claims.

Work in groups to edit the shared document. If you're not editing, please work on revising your document. After about 40 minutes, we will work as a class on the shared document.

Here is the shared document.

Group 1: Alexander, Balnionis, Berardi, Bergamo, Castillo, Caughie, Center, Ehrlich, Reedy, Spencer

Group 2: Graff, Lewis, Miller, Garland, Simmons, Skomorucha, Alonso, Suder, Yoder, Zarkades

Activities for T 10/27

Blog response > Today we'll work on your essay drafts. You should have a blog post linking to the draft. Go to and edit the post, adding a brief reflection on the following: What is most successful in your draft? What still needs work?

Also, please make sure your blog has your name on it, so that readers arriving at the blog know the author's name...

Read and respond to drafts > Start with the person after you on your group list below. Read and respond. Repeat with the next in the list. If you reach the end, go back to the beginning of your group. Each draft gets at least three readings. Write your response in the comments to the writer's blog post.

Groups:

1. Alexander, Bergamo, Graff, Lewis, Ehrlich
2. Balnionis, Berardi, Miller, Reedy, Garland
3. Alonso, Castillo, Simmons, Skomorucha, Yoder
4. Caughie, Center, Spencer, Suder, Zarkades

First reading: Read the essay once for an initial response. Write about the following:

• Your overall impression
• What did you like? What didn't you like?

Second Reading: Read the essay a second time again for an in-depth response. Write about the following:

• What is the main idea / claim expressed in the essay? What are the sub-ideas or claims? Are the claims related to the main idea?
• Is there evidence supporting the ideas/claims? Name particular places where the essay could use more evidence and how.
• Does the writer use ideas and sources from the directed lectures/theories presented in class (theories of authorship, narratology, remix culture, social media, gaming, etc.)? Suggest how one or more of these concepts could be incorporated into the essay.
  
• Are the parts of the essay connected in a logical, convincing manner, with supporting evidence? Name particular places where the logic and transitions could be improved and how.
  
• Name particular places where the language of the essay is confusing or unclear. How could it be improved?
  
• Finally, what should the writer focus on to improve the essay? What should she do next?

Activities for R 10/22

Finish group critique from Tuesday and Work on drafting your essay. Remember: the essay is 1500 words minimum, due 11/10. It can be written in Google Docs or in another format and uploaded to Google Docs, and then linked to your blog; or (optionally) you can write it directly into your blog.

1. Focus on links and connections at the paragraph level. Every paragraph ends with an idea that links to the next paragraph. Every paragraph begins with an idea that carries from the previous paragraph
   
2. Focus on incorporating your materials, annotated bibliography. Work on summarizing each primary material/source, then describing ideas emerging from this, then making links.
   

Work on shared document.

Group 1: Alexander, Balnionis, Berardi, Bergamo, Castillo, Caughie, Center, Ehrlich, Reedy, Spencer

Group 2: Graff, Lewis, Miller, Garland, Simmons, Skomorucha, Alonso, Suder, Yoder, Zarkades