Look at This (VR/360) Photograph!

Knowing: Each of our colleagues contributed an article from their research on Virtual Reality to this weekend's reading assignments.Students will read each of the articles, and post a brief blog entry on insights gained from each article.

• Brandon suggests "The Rays are using virtual reality to prepare for pitchers" from Fox Sports.
• Ryan Suggest VR Scout's "5 Ways Traditional Storytelling Changes With 360° Video"
• Alexis recommends the Forbes article, "Five Reasons Why Virtual Reality Is A Game-Changer"
• Shay suggests the season-appropriate "YouTube Stars To Shoot Virtual Reality Horror Videos Around The World"

Doing: Students will try their hand at VR photography with the Cardboard Camera App for Droid or iPhone. They will

• shoot both 2D and 3D/VR shots of their colleagues, 
• shoot both 2D and 3D/VR of an assigned building on the Main Campus Quad, and 
• re-shoot 4 shots in VR similar to the ones they shot in 2D for the photo composition assignment.

Making: Students will "publish" their VR photos to their blogs (via links and embedded interactive imagery) using the SPHCST site.Their blogs will contain he images assigned above, and will serve as the basis for our discussion on "remediating" new grammars and rules for the emerging medium of VR photography. This publication will establish the sudents as "pioneers" in the field.

Look at this Photograph (Is it Legal-use?)

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 have been working in various ways with images: rules of composition, lighting, 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 even drafting a "Fair Use Statement" for their use of an image in a class project.

What's next? Hmmm... well, students will tackle two significant exercises:

1. They will explore semiotics in imagery and color - and try their hands at Making a Movie Poster with "freegal" images. 
2. They will experiment in (brand) new media composition by re-shooting some of their shots in 3D VR! (They will learn one way to "publish" VR photos in the RhetoricSoup Blog HERE.)  or direct link to the site here: https://sphcst.com/upload

Watch for their work - in which they will post their 3D photos in their blogs - just as I did this image taken by my granddaughter:

More Fun with Photos!

Over the weekend, Digital Literacies students will have a little more fun with images!

Knowing: Students will engage a few lessons, workshops and tips from these sites:

1. National Geographic Photo Tips
2. Morguefile Classroom
3. LifeHacker Phone Camera Tips 

Doing: Students will take more photos, using the information from previous lectures and the new sources above. (Focusing on things like indirect light, magic hour, and camera movement.)

Making: Students will:

1. Create a blog post with 6 new photograph samples - including at least one "Magic Hour" shot.
2. Make 4 "image memes" and post a blog entry describing the memes - and how they might be used.

Photography: Knowing, Doing, Making

Keeping in mind the principles from our classroom workshop on Photography Composition Tips, grab your smartphone, tablet or digital camera and dig into photography:

• Knowing: Click through Getty's "12 Rules to Win with Digital Images." Click deep and glean more photo tips!
• Doing: Take photos! Lots of photos! Take from different angles, using different perspectives, etc. Try out the principles from our class lecture and the Getty article.
• Making: Post a mini-gallery of at least 12 photos in your blog - incorporate at least 3 "places" pics, 3 "people" pics, 3 "object" pics and 1 "group photo." Beneath each pic, describe which principles you are demonstrating in the photo, and how this affects the picture.

Untangling the Web: Digital Aggregation and Curation

One things that makes "New Media" new is that these media have not yet formed all their rules, grammars, best practices, etc. That is to say, that even though students explore these media without dear, they are, indeed, pioneers - blazing trails adn discovering paths of literacy. 

In this digital curation project, students learn to design meaning in, and through, digital media. The goal of the project is to help students develop, not a specific grammar or a taxonomy, but rather a workable approach for forming grammars, methodologies, heuristics, etc. where none exist as standards. A set of methodologies that handles the flood of information in the digital age will be in much demand. 
 
Students in the Digital Literacies class will use Flipboard as a tool of aggregating (gathering) information on a specific topic "Virtual Reality." They will use Pinterest as a tool of curating (organizing and displaying) their findings from the research in Flipboard.

Students will share their Flipboard findings (Magazine) - as well as their Pinterest collections (Board) in their blogs. These examples will serve as example for them on how to use such tools for research on other topics in contemporary digital publications.

Here is an example of my own VR Research Magazine in Flipboard.

Drinking from the Digital Firehose

"The scarce resource is the human attention needed to make sense of the enormous flow of information, to learn, as it were, how to drink out of the firehose." -Richard Lanham

I hope you're thirsty.

Students in Limestone's Digital Literacies class are experimenting with tools to help them manage the floods of digital information and distractions that are inherent in our digital age. They will work in our "Knowing, Doing, Making: framework as follows:

1. Knowing - students will read excerpts from Lanham's "The Economics of Attention," along with this Interview with Lanham.
2. Doing - students will explore the possibilities of "managing" digital resources by playing around with the interface and functionality of HootSuite.
3. Making - students will: 
• blog about their experience with HootSuite (and, optionally, Altomail) and how tools like these address the issues raised in Lanham's comments.
• create a useful and functional HootSuite dashboard to handle their social meia interactions (for at least 3 social media.)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Shows How New Media Breaks the Old Media

Sure, "Video Killed the Radio Star," but New Media also breaks Old Media.

"When the Net absorbs a medium, it recreates it in its own image." -Kevin Kelly

Consider the popular Netflix series, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

First - it is Emmy-nominated, even though it is not a "television show." (It is an internet streaming show.)

Second - the theme song is a Songify mash-up meme - see the formation and final result.

Formation:

Final Theme Song: