Students are putting the final touches on their Pecha Kucha presentations for the Student Symposium on Friday, December 6 in Winnie Davis Hall 104. They will use their social media accounts, as well as their HootSuite Social Media dashboard, to promote their talks. They will post the promotional samples (see examples below) on their blogs!
Posted Tuesday via HootSuite
Posted Wednesday via HootSuite
Posted Thursday via HootSuite
Sample schedule for posting
In Thursday's class, students will get a "checklist" to help them prepare their portfolio defense presentations for Final Exams.
Students in Digital Communication 1 class are preparing to participate in the Student Symposium on December 6 on the campus of Limestone College. They will present individual talks on various aspects of Social Media in a shared session.
Students have already compiled research, written a thoughtful presentation on Social Media, molded a Pecha Kucha speech from their work - in 20-second segments - and have developed a shot list of images for their presentation. Over the weekend they will:
1. Watch some sample Pecha Kucha presentations from sites like Pecha Kucha's official website, or simply search in YouTube or Viemo for "Pecha Kucha" to find examples like this one:
2. They will carefully word-smith their presentations to meet the 20-second constraints of the presentation form.
3. They will careful prepare visually powerful slides from their own original art, and from "freegal" resources - carefully attending to citation issues.
4. They will develop visual promotion materials (for a "save the date" type announcement) for their social media platforms, announcing their upcoming Pecha Kucha presentations and participation in the Student Symposium. (Date only at this time - specific time and locations are forthcoming.)
Students will present their "first-run" practice in class on Tuesday, December 3 - and will post their first promotions in social media, and activate their followers, community, etc.
For Thursday's class, students will begin converting their research in to the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format in anticipation of the Student Symposium on December 6.
They will also complete chapters 7 & 8 in the HootSuite Academy curriculum. (See modified guide on the class website at the bottom.)
Topics:
Brandon - Catfishing
Joy - YouTube Influencers
Maren - Social Media Reputations
Nick - Cyber-bullying and Trolling
Alec - Getting Fired for Facebook
Morgan - Businesses Trying to Connect with Younger Demographics
Students will use the information from the article, and ideas from teh examples to revise and complete their websites. In their Blogs, students will provide a link to completed work for each of these items:
Home/Landing
Page
About
Me/Bio Info
Resume
Portfolio
(various work by student: writing, design, art, photography, research,
experience, etc.)
Social Media Research Page (preparing for Student Symposium Panel.)
1. Using what you've learned from our exploration of computer algorithms from professional vetting services, make a fearless, no-holds-barred examination of your social media content, cleaning up any posts that would raise any of the "red flags" we discussed: alcohol, drugs, profanity, sex, bigotry, bullying, or polarizing topics. Be prepared to discuss changes you made.
2. Apply your knowledge of SEO and Usability requirements to re-write your Page Titles and Meta Tag Keywords, and Met Page Descriptions for your most important pages in your website.
Digital Communication Students will complete units in HootSuite Academy on building a community of social media advocates. (The growing HootSuite Curriculum can be found on the class WEBSITE.)
Students will post 3 QUESTIONS on their blogs to stir discussion in the next class. (Questions should be a mix of "big picture strategy" and "detailed tactics.")
They will also write a brief "plan of attack" on how to build an advocate community for their own personally-branded website.
But, first... Students will consider just what the internet already knows about them - and the implications! In the class website, students will log into their Gmail accounts, and thenclick this link.
Whoa.
Students will read these two articles over the weekend, and post comments in preparation for a lively discussion in Tuesday's class:
For the Weekend, students will continue to work in the HootSuite Academy, completing sections 1-4 of the "growing guide" that can be found at the bottom of the class website: https://limestonedigital.weebly.com/digital-communication-1.html On Tuesday, students will join the CM103 class for a field trip to the Earl Scruggs Center (http://earlscruggscenter.org/) in Shelby, where they will explore a digitally-enhanced museum space that has much to offer in visual design and information design. Cost is $8.00 for admission, plus money for on-your-own lunch at one of the local downtown dining spots in Shelby - http://bit.ly/2BN6ls6. We will return to campus by 1:50pm. On Thursday, we will debrief on the Museum Trip and chapters 3 & 4 in HootSuite Academy, as well as preview the "meat" of social media strategy. Here's a pic of previous Digital Comm students visit: https://theta360.com/s/nqHqXaxiTEsrSHbTHTo7EW3CC
After reviewing the initial student website designs, members of the class will post a "Mid-term Blog Post" containing links to the following:
Link to (your favorite) blog post on images - photo composition, freegal resources, etc.
Link to (your favorite) "thought piece" blog post - on articles, process, etc.
Link to HootSuite Certificate for completing HootSuite Platform Training.
Link to Brand Guide/Style Sheet (11x17 document)
Link to one Social Media profile you have revised.
Link to Student Website (with bio, thoughtful organization, and design that reflects personal brand guide, space for your Portfolio, Social Media Links, and an external page link to your blog.)
No tests for the materials, but work through the materials thoughtfully and carefully - paying attention to the in-chapter reviews. Also - see the recommended reading selections I've highlighted in the pdf.
A detailed "walk-through" of creating a site in Weebly:
The student websites will reflect the student's' personal brands by being guided by their style sheets. Their functionality will be built to reflect the intentionality and purpose of their navigational maps.
Each Student website will contain these basic elements:
Students have reviewed their personal brands and have revised their style sheets, as well as articulated their personal and professional vision and goals. They will now apply this work to creating quality social media profiles.
The article linked below from HootSuite Academy shares numerous templates to spur on ideas for shaping the profiles for each of the student's social media profiles (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) There is also a link at the end of the article to a Google Doc with editable templates.
Students will re-write the profile/bio/about me sections using these guidelines, and will post a blog entry with links to each of their social media profiles.
Students will work through the interactive article
"Personal Branding 101" by Lisa Quast (interactivity layers by Dr.
Nichols) via the InsertLearning Link below. (Keep in mind that the
"discussion questions" are shared among all colleagues for collaborative learning benefits.)
After completing the interactive article assignment, students
will reflect on their findings, and will apply their design skills to creating
a composite image in the tradition of Robert Weingarten's "Portrait Unbound" (see videos below) - using original photos and other images to create a collage/montage that reflects their own
"brand." They will post these images on their blogs with reflections on the process.
Students may use design programs like PhotoShop,
Illustrator, Indesign, etc. to create their "Portraits unbound." AFTER completing the project, students will use web-based collage makers from Adobe Sparkor
Canva to make a representative collage.
Student in Digital Communications class will begin refining their research topics in the area of Social Media. Ideas the students are investigating range from identity and catfishing to the impact of social media posts on careers. There are a plethora of potential connections to social media, including privacy, advertising, safety, marketing, education, etc.
Students will use search engine tools, as well as tools like Flipboard, Pocket, or News360. Students will sort through articles of interest, and will put the most relevant articles in a Pinterest Board to share their research.
Refining the subtopic will allow students to find a focus for a term-end presentation on their findings at the Student Symposium or other venues.
They have already begun to optimize the look and feel of their social media accounts by building a header for each platform that reflects their brand guidelines and style sheets.
They have connected their social media accounts to HootSuite and organized their dashboards.
They will all begin (in class) the HootSuite Platform Training in the HootSuite Academy.
Over the weekend, they will complete the training and take the certification exam in the module.
Students in Digital Literacies will be developing tactics to handle the constant deluge that is our modern digital reality. They will read: an Interview with Richard Lanham, and "Untangling the Web Through Digital Aggregation and Curation."
In order to TAKE BACK CONTROL, (i.e. exercise their agency,) they will apply their knowledge into developing a strategy for handling
the daily flood of digital information. They will set up Flipboard to aggregate research from contemporary sources, choosing the topics and sources they want to read about - and making the internet serve their intentional information demands, rather than letting the internet control their reading habits.
They will use the aggregated articles in Flipboard to CREATE A MAGAZINE in Flipboard on the topic of SOCIAL MEDIA, and will post a widget to their magazine on their blogs. You can get tips on using Flipboard here: https://about.flipboard.com/tutorials/
In class, we learned some key principles of photographic composition. (See class website for Composition Tutorials - Parts 1 &2.)
Students have gathered examples of photographic composition from
"freegal" photo sites, and will explore other photographic resources on
the site - including a couple of short videos: 7 Powerful Photography Tips and 9 Photo Composition Tips.
Then students will shoot a number of photos based on the composition rules and tips from class and the course website. Students will post at least SIX photos and discuss the composition principles displayed in each shot.
This
image is a single frame from the video "Photograph" performed by
Nickleback, copyright holder SMG 2007. This image is used for
educational purposes in a class that examines copyright issues, and its
use will have no bearing on the value or commercial use of the work from
which it was taken.
Students in the Digital Literacies Class at Limestone are exploring
computer-assisted design, digital publishing, intellectual property
licenses, and more.
They are finding "freegal" (free and legal-to-use) images, and
identifying the licenses from a range of CC, Copyleft, and Public Domain
permissions. **(They are accessing a treasure trove of images via Dr. Nichols' Pinterest Board)
They will also be drafting a "Fair Use Statement" for their
use of an image in a class project.
What's next? Hmmm... well, students will will explore semiotics in
imagery and color, write a sample "Fair Use Statement," - and try their
hands at Re-making a Magazine ad with "freegal" images.
Our first few classes have involved a little time travel to see just how significant were some of the shifts facilitated (or caused) by New Media. We have explored artifacts, (including memes and viral videos,) as a way to see how the elements of remediation, meta-generativity, and agency have shaped our 21st-century media landscape.
Students will complete viewing Michael Wesch's lecture "An Anthropological Look at YouTube" and will post their reflections, reactions, and take-aways.
Additionally, student will explicate an assigned song from a playlist- researching the hisory of the song, examining the lyrics, and deriving an interpretation of how the song speaks about the state (or history) of the Music Industry. Students will post their reflections, along with lyrics, links, or video in their blogs.
Students will experiment with a few interactive digital artifacts as they explore the affordances new media brings to composition and reception of electronic "texts."
Check the Blog List to the right to see their posts!
This is the Instructor's Blog - or as we will call it, the
Class Blog. You will check here for reminders of assignments, summary
instructions, and other feedback from the Professor. This page will also
feature links to your colleagues in this section (and to colleagues who
have gone on before you.)
You could think of this as a "hub" for our class bloggers, but in reality, each of your own sites will, in pretty short order, be "hubs" of their own, connecting with your colleagues.
The main site for resources will be our Limestone Digital Class Website. (Blackboard contains only syllabus, but it is hyperlinked to these sites and other digital resources.)
CM412 students will be finishing
video resumes, and will move quickly on to adding it to their website, and finalizing their digital portfolios.
On
Tuesday, the class will meet to review the expectations for the "Portfolio
Defense" to be held during Final Exam time, (Monday, May 6,
11:00am-1:30pm.)
On Tuesday, we will also
discuss last minute preparations for the Tuesday night "VR Tour Launch"
event at the Cherokee County History & Arts Museum - which runs from
5:30pm to 6:30pm.
The CM 412 students will be re-shooting the spherical images for the VR tour, and will also be planning embedded "Close-Ups" for visitors the the Cherokee County Virtual Museum.
Students will complete the following field work:
Re-shoot images with proper orientation to match the site-map.
Take portrait-oriented 2D photos of a selected close-up" or highlight within an assigned area.
Writing a shot (25-45 words) description of teaser of that highlighted artifact.
After the shoot, students will complete the following production work in lab:
Thirty years ago - on March 12, 1989 - Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for a way to use the (then in its infancy) internet to more easily share information via something called "hyper-text."
Berners-Lee's proposal - with comments from supervisor: "Vague, but exciting."
The world wide web was born, and things would never be the same. Anyone younger than 30 has never known a world with out the World Wide Web, and would probably find it hard to conceive of such an existence. In fact, the World Wide Web is, for many "users," taken for granted, accepted as a fact of life, a default reality. But passive acceptance of the Web, and uncritical consumption of its content poses some really big problems.
I encourage my Digital Communications students to THINK about their work as digital communicators from different perspectives, and to sometimes step back and look at the big picture. One way to do this is to read this short piece by Berners-Lee called"30 years on, What's Next for the Web?" Read, reflect, respond, and THINK.
