Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due June 17, 2019 by 11:59.

Some of you have gotten a lot of things up and running and fixed by using the Digital Knowledge Center.  The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Here is the topic most students find both the most challenging and/or rewarding portion of ds106: video. It presents challenges with file formats, creating more complex narratives, and working with more complicated software.

But it is also one of the most engaging forms of media — hence the current statistic that in the span of one minute, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

Before jumping into video editing, you will spend some time first looking critically at some cinema techniques. Read the rest of this post for details about the work for this unit as we learn to “read” movies. Then you will be completing your own video stories, from start to YouTube– this unit is two weeks long, so plan your time accordingly.

Before jumping into video editing, you will spend some time first looking critically at some cinema techniques. Read the rest of this post for details about the work for this unit as we learn to “read” movies. Then you will be completing your own video stories, from start to YouTube– this unit is two weeks long, so plan your time accordingly.

 Video Ready Your Tools

For the work in the next week, you will need to be using software that allows you to combine, edit, augment, re-sequence video, as well as being able to add or even replace the soundtrack within a video.

Reference the Tools for the Trade for links to software you might want to use as well as our new Video Guide for video resources and tutorials.

We most strongly recommend for the future assignment that you use the applications that come with your computer either Windows Movie Maker Live or Apple’s iMovie, these are generally the easiest to get started with and should be available on your computer.

We recommend using video editing software that allows you to cut and re-arrange clips on a timeline, and to add, and layer audio tracks. Most typically this is the software that came with your operating system- iMovie on Macs and MovieMaker on Windows PCs.

Many of the assignments will require downloading of clips from web sites such as YouTube and vimeo. You will need to use a tool that can download videos to a file format you can use on your computer (usually MP4). Our tool of choice is SaveFrom.net but we review a few other techniques as well.

Windows users may have challenges in importing the downloaded mp4 video files into Movie Maker (We have been told that the Windows Movie Maker Live can import MP4)- you may have to use a converter to change mp4 into AVI or WMV file formats. See the ds106 Handbook for some video converter options.

Other resources that may help you include:

Focus on the storytelling aspect of your video making- -do not get caught up in the technical points or making the video just for the assignment points…  Be very sure that your videos tell a story, that it surprises us, that it perhaps jars us, and that when you write-up your blog post you are providing full details and context for your videos

Learn How to Read a Movie

You have likely watched plenty of movies, but when we say “reading” movies, we mean looking at them with a keener eye for the cinematic elements that make them successful (or not). This is not about reviews of “good” or “bad” movies, but how well they convey the story to all our senses, how well they suspend our disbelief to make the plot real, to draw us in– how well they tell a story.

For your work in this week, you are expected to look for details in movies, many of which are found in Roger Ebert’s “How to Read a Movie” which you must read this week.

In addition, to get a deeper appreciation for the power of cinematic techniques, watch at least 3 of the following videos about filmmaking.

Look, Listen, Analyze

Now apply some of the criteria you reviewed above to a classic movie scene. From the YouTube playlists below, pick one scene from a classic movie you will analyze — do not watch it yet! — just choose one that might interest you. If you want to use another clip, it should be a complete scene, not a movie trailer.

You will now analyze the clip by watching it three times, in different ways.

  1. Analyze the camera work. Before watching the first time, turn the volume on the clip (or on your computer) all the way down. Take notes on the visual aspects of the clip. Look for camera angles, cuts, how many times the camera switches view, the quality of light, the cuts or transitions. Look for the ways the camera tells, guides the story.
  2. Analyze the audio track. Now turn the volume up, but play it without looking at the screen (or turn off the screen); just listen to the audio. Take notes on the pacing of the dialogue, the spaces in the audio, the use of music or sound effects (think back to our work earlier on listening to audio).
  3. Put it all together. Finally, watch the scene as normal. Pay attention to something you may have missed the first time or how the elements you saw in the first two steps work together.

Write up a blog post that includes the embedded clip, and the notes you made in the three views of the scene. Did you notice anything new by minimizing one of your senses?

Also use what you have read in Ebert’s column or anything else you observed in the cinematic technique videos to identify key elements of this scene. Include specific reference to Ebert’s ideas of left/right character placement, what the camera angle suggests, how the way the scene is shot builds the story element. We are looking for the video aspects that makes this work well (or not) – not just “this is a great scene” or “this is my favorite movie”.

Video Assignment Bank

For this week you should complete two ds106 video assignments of at least eight stars, each should be posted to your blog, appropriately tagged and categorized. All videos should have an opening and closing title/credits sequence.

I have to reiterate because many people are not doing this.  Each assignment blog post should include:

  • Write about thinking behind the assignment, the inspiration, what it means to you. What is it’s story? Does it make a story spine?
  • The video you produced for the assignment is embedded into your blog post. Your videos should have an opening title sequence and a closing credits sequence. Check your video software for it’s title creation features.
  • Share your process. What tools did you use? What techniques? Think of this as information that would help someone else doing the same assignment. Include a screenshot of your video editing screen. You must provide URLs/sources for all media you included that were not ones you created yourself.
  • To have your work connected back to the assignment, your blog post must include the two tags for the assignment, one will be VideoAssignments and the other will have a name like VideoAssignments447. Look for the tags entry box on the right side of the WordPress editor, below the Categories.

Weekly Summary Checklist

Your summary blog post for this week should include and link to the following requirements. Remember, I am also looking for more that a list of what you did; take some time to reflect on what you learned or discovered this week. Include in your weekly summary again a sense of what kind of feedback you are getting on your blog and how you are giving feedback to others.

  • Reading Movies Write a blog post that includes your response to the methods suggested by Ebert- why might they work (or not)? Summarize what you learned from the two videos you watched about cinema techniques.
  • Look. Listen. Analyze. Write up a blog post that includes the embedded clip for the scene you reviewed, and the notes you made in the three views of the scene. Did you notice anything new by minimizing one of your senses?
  • Assignments: You should link to and discuss the posts for the two ds106 video assignments completed. Each post should be put in categories that you made for your site, and should also include the tags specific to each assignment. Be sure that your assignment blog posts contain the elements out line in the ds106 Handbook.
  • Comment on other blog post: Make sure that you do different people for each comment.  Make sure you comment on at least 4 blog post and that you take a screenshot and put it in your summary.
  • Daily Creates: Do four daily creates.

Summer Week 3

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due June 9th by 11:59 on Canvas.

Some of you have gotten a lot of things up and running and fixed by using the Digital Knowledge Center.  The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Introduction to Audio

This week in ds106 we’re going to be diving into our first storytelling genre: audio. Working with sound can be a bit daunting and unfamiliar, so we’ll be easing you into it this week. Nearly all previous ds106 students start here dreading this media, and in a few weeks they totally change their mind.

We’ll ask you to do some listening exercises as well as do some audio story editing.

PART I:  About Audio Storytelling

Look, Listen and Watch below.  Pay attention and keep track of the “nuggest” that grabs your attention- and write a blog post summarizing what you learned about how these experts describe their craft. Come back to these later when you review some audio shows I recommend listening to.

For many of you radio may seem like old technology, but there is a lot of current powerful creativity done in a single media. Audio is most effective when sounds generate stories in the minds of listeners.  You might be familiar with the panic caused in the late 1930s when Orson Wells produced the radio show of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds– it was so effective, people thought it was real. If you think we are much more savvy in the modern age, read about what happened when producers of an Italian movie tried to play out a promotional video as something like looked like a real news broadcast.

I’d like you to listen to some experts on audio storytelling describe a bit of how this is effective, probably no one has their game on for this than Ira Glass, host of This American Life, a weekly radio storytelling show on National Public Radio.

Listen to least two parts of Ira Glass’ Series on storytelling (all together they’re about 20 minutes)

Find Part Two; Part Three; Part Four.

For another point of view, listen to a short interview with Radiolab‘s Jad Abumrad on “How Radio Creates Empathy”:

or listen to his longer talk where he shares how he and his colleagues go about the process of creating radio shows.

Jad Abumrad: Why “Gut Churn” Is an Essential Part of the Creative Process from 99Uon Vimeo.

PART II: Introduction to Audio Techniques

Some things to notice when listening to audio are the pacing (think of the equivalent of paragraphs in sound), the use of music, sound effects, ambient/environmental sounds, the introduction of radio “bumpers” to remind us of the show, introduction and exits. Of key importance is trying to hear the layering of sounds, of how audio can create a sense of place by being more than just a recording, but a deliberate stacking of audio.

For a great reference reference, you might listen to an episode of Howsound, the radio show that takes you behind the scenes to understand how these shows are produced- Dissecting Joanne Rosser, Papermaker.

As another example, we took out elements of an hour long episode of RadioLab, a 2007 show called Detective Stories, and uploaded a shorter version to Soundcloud, where the comments indicate how some of these are used in the show. See if you can pick these out in this example and then in other audio you listen to this unit.

Another technique that is counter-intuitive, is when sound is left out. Listen to this annotated clip, an intro to an episode of the TED Radio Hour, for what happens near the 3 minute mark when the background music suddenly stops

Here are some references for audio techniques:

And, if that is not enough, among the open participants of ds106 is Scottlo, a guru of audio and radio technique.

Also useful from Scottlo are archives from his daily series from the Summer ds106 Zone class of 2013, below are some selected episodes where he reviews audio and shares Audacity tips:

Lo Down Episode 1
Lo Down Episode 8
Lo Down Episode 9
Lo Down Episode 10
Lo Down Episode 11
Lo Down Episode 12
Lo Down Episode 13
Lo Down Episode 14

 

Part III: Listening to Stories

listeningOne of the best ways to understand how audio can be used to create stories is to listen to some great examples. We’ve assembled a list of audio stories for you.

Overall, how effective do you think audio was for telling the story(ies)? What types of audio techniques did the producers use — sound effects, layering of sounds, music, etc. — to convey their story? While we are interested in reading what you thought of the story being told — but we’re just as interested in your reflection about HOW the story was told. Try and step back from the story itself, and reflect upon the technique that the storytelling/producers used. What choices did they make that impacted your understanding of and feelings about the story? What are the techniques from the references above that you may not have noticed before?

Pay very close attention to not only the stories told but how they are constructed in audio format. Take the time to focus on listening, not just in the background of being on your computer. Put the phone down, turn off the TV, tell the family to leave you alone. Just listen.

Listen to “Moon Graffiti” This is an excellent example of audio storytelling. Think about how the sounds, both the sound effects and the changes in sound, tell you what is going on, how they create a sense of place, a sense of space and a sense of atmosphere. We hear these same techniques used in film and video, where they are vitally important but often unnoticed. Consider what we watched, read and listened to this week and in the previous weeks. How does sound drive stories? How does it impact mood and create atmosphere? Write a blog post on your thoughts on audio storytelling. Use specific examples and embed them in your post. Tag the post audioreflection.

Part IV: Your First Audio Stories

Start your work on these assignments by reviewing this list of audio resources and/or the Audio Section of the ds106 Handbook section on Tools. You will find information here about software you can use to produce your own audio, as well as links to sites where you can download free clips, music, and sound effects.

  • We strongly recommend Audacity, a free and open source audio-editing program, further details below. If you have access to and experience with a different audio editing system, you are free to use it instead. Along with Audacity, you will need to download and install the LAME mp3 Encoder in order to save audio as .mp3 files.Download and Experiment with Audacity: Unless you have a lot of previous experience with audio editing, you should plan on spending some time this week getting comfortable with Audacity. It is recommended that you do this right away, because you will find that audio editing can be quite time-consuming. If you have another audio editing platform that you’re familiar with, you can skip this step. But everyone needs to get their hands dirty with audio editing. If you’re overwhelmed by Audacity, make an appointment with at the Digital Knowledge Center for help: http://dkc.umw.edu.

Complete 12 Stars of Audio Assignments: This week you must complete at least 12 stars of assignments from the Audio category in the Assignment Bank.

 Involve the character you created in at least one of the assignments in some way. One assignment everyone must do is the sound effects story (3 ½ stars): This is a challenge to tell a short story (no longer than 90 seconds) using nothing but sound effects! And make it something more interesting than waking up, taking a shower and eating breakfast. We highly recommend using http://freesound.org to find free sound effects for this project.

Make sure all your completed assignments are uploaded to SoundCloud, and write up a post for each assignment in which you embed that audio from SoundCloud. Note: If you use copyrighted content in your audio projects, the SoundCloud content police may block them. You can use CC Search to find content that you can safely use.

Share each of these contributions in separate posts on your blog, and tag them according to the instructions on their assignment page.

Part V: Weekly Summary

Your weekly summary is due by Sunday, June 11, 2017 at midnight. As always, link to or embed all of your work from the week. Use this as an opportunity to reflect upon your initial foray into audio. What did you struggle with? What ideas/exercises were most challenging or interesting?

Now we are moving into the main part of the course where the bulk of your work is writing up assignments, you are going to be expected to follow the criteria  – just posting “here is my assignment” is not going to be enough to earn credit. There needs to be writing with your media, a story about the story.

This week’s checklist includes:

  • Summarize the key points you learned about audio storytelling from the Ira Glass and Jad Abumrad videos.
  • Summarize TED Radio Hour and ScottLo.
  • Summary of the “Moon Graffiti” you listened to, making special notes of the techniques used. Be sure to link to the show you listened to.
  • Summarize/link the Audio assignments
  • Summarize/link At least 4 Daily Creates
  • Summary of your feedback from your Comments and what you gained by looking at other people’s blogs.  You must make at least 5 comments on other people’s blog, they must be different people.  It must be construct feedback not this is great.
  • At least a paragraph on what you learned this week, what questions/complaints you have.
  • Weekly Summary Every week, you will be required to submit a summary post by the weekly deadline (generally due on Sundays at midnight). These posts should include links to or embedded media from all the work you have done for the week: storytelling assignments, daily creates, reflections etc. In addition, you should use this post to reflect upon your activity of the week:
    • How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?
    • What gave you trouble? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn?
    • What would you do differently? What questions to you have?
    • What are some of the larger issues surrounding your work? Cultural/Societal implications?

These weekly summaries are what we will use to find all of your weekly work as we determine your grade for that week. In addition, they are an opportunity for you tell us how you feel you are doing and what’s giving you trouble, overall, in the course. If you forget to include something in a weekly post, I may not realize you’ve completed it. If you fail to submit a weekly summary, you will get no grade for that week! By the way proper English and good writing are required!

These posts are REALLY important. I use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why?Final Note: you MUST submit the link to this weekly post in Canvas by midnight on Sunday.  NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.

Summer Week 2

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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All work is due by midnight on June 2, 2019 via Canvas

  • The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Week 2 will be focused on the design. For this week you will be ramping up your command of image editing as well as closely considering design elements such as color, font, iconography, etc. Additionally, you will be required to reflect on questions of copyright as it relates to creative works online.

General Design & DesignBlitz Resources

Below you will find a set of general design resources as well as brief descriptions and resources for several concepts of visual / graphic design (Typography, Color, Minimalism, Affordance, Balance, Proportion, Unity, etc) that you will be using in your DesignBlitz assignment. You should refer to and review the general resources as a way to familiarize yourself with concepts and approaches to design — they will prove helpful as you complete all your design work this week.

You should review the DesignBlitz concepts, specifically, to help you with that particular assignment. Your task is to get a basic understanding of these concepts, and spend this week searching for examples of them as you complete your DesignBlitz. Refer to this week’s assignment post for details about what you must do to complete the DesignBlitz.

NOTE: We’re not expecting you to read every article or watch/listen to every video or audio on this page. This is a resource list and you should refer to it, as needed, this week while you complete the design unit. We DO recommend that you spend some time reviewing at least some of the resources here because we think you will find them useful. 

General Design Resources

What is Design?

What exactly is design? It factors into almost every object or thing we see on a regular basis. It involves the planning of an object’s presentation so that it achieves its purpose, be it a advertisement for chewing gum or a door knob.  Is good design as noticeable as bad design?

We Are All Artists

Listen to Tim Owens ” We Are All Artists”  (MP3 file) as well as the list of sites below that he refers to in his talk. You may find several of these resources very useful to you as you complete your design assignments this week!

DesignBlitz Resources

Color

Color creates mood, draws attention to key elements. Good designs can use bold color or none at all (lack of color or monochrome makes a message too). What colors work well together? What methods of using color are more effective? What do saturate colors say as compared to pastels?

Resources

Typography “is the visual component of the written word” – It is the form in which text is displayed, and the characteristics of the type used- Is san serif always better? why or why not? What do aspects of font weight, style, spacing, kerning have to do with how a message is transmitted and received?

Resources

Metaphors & Symbols

What are best practices for using symbols to represent objects, things, ideas? What works? How can complex ideas be represented in symbols?

Resources:

Minimalism & Use of Space

How can designers do more with less? What makes elegant designs?

Form, Function, Message

How well does design convey its meaning or potential use or real world objects?

Resources

Balance

“Balance is an equilibrium that results from looking at images and judging them against our ideas of physical structure (such as mass, gravity or the sides of a page). It is the arrangement of the objects in a given design as it relates to their visual weight within a composition. Balance usually comes in two forms: symmetrical and asymmetrical.”

Principles of Design

The Everyone video Symmetry is a fantastic study on the ways things can display visual symmetry

Rhythm

“Rhythm is the repetition or alternation of elements, often with defined intervals between them. Rhythm can create a sense of movement, and can establish pattern and texture. There are many different kinds of rhythm, often defined by the feeling it evokes when looking at it.”

Proportion

“Proportion is the comparison of dimensions or distribution of forms. It is the relationship in scale between one element and another, or between a whole object and one of its parts. Differing proportions within a composition can relate to different kinds of balance or symmetry, and can help establish visual weight and depth. ”

Dominance

Unity

What you need to do this week.

1. Read and Reflect on The Vignelli Canon: A design resource that’s worth looking at is The Vignelli Canon. It’s a short booklet by Massimo Vignelli, who was a superstar in the world of graphic design. The booklet is light on text and heavy on space and imagery, so it’s a quick read. His purpose in writing it was to share his knowledge for the benefit of other designers. As he says, “Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.”Vignelli did most of his work in the pre-Internet era, when graphic design meant ink on paper, so some of the information is not so relevant to our online environment, but the principles still stand. So take a look at it, and let us know what you think. Categorize your reflection post under Thoughts/Ideas and tag it “vignelli” (no quotes).

 

2. Complete a DesignBlitz: To reinforce your understanding, you need to undertake a “Design Blitz.” Carry your camera with you this week and take photos of objects, ads, signs, etc. that illustrate at least four of the ten concepts listed below (one photo per concept).   The concepts are discussed in length above but here is a list of the concepts.

    • Color
    • typography
    • metaphors/symbols
    • minimalism & use of space
    • form/function/message
    • balance
    • rhythm
    • proportion
    • dominance
    • unity

 

    • Share all your photos on Flickr and tag them designblitz; also make sure you write up a blog post sharing what you found and tag it “designblitz”.
    • When you have completed your Blitz, write a blog post that includes (THAT MEANS EMBED!) the photos and your analysis of the design elements and what makes them effective or not. (You should do this in one single post.)
    • PRO TIP: Sometimes we can learn just as much from badly designed things as we can from well-designed things!

 

3. Do your Daily Creates: 4 TDCs this week.

 

4. Complete five different design assignment of least 12 stars

  1. Complete five different design assignments of at least 12 stars of Design assignments from Assignment Bank.
  2. Everyone must complete Are We There Yet? Three Stars
    • Example Photos Not A Complete Blog Post

fourthreeone
two

 

3. A least one assignment you complete this week needs to be 4 stars or higher. It’s time to push yourself.

4. Each design assignment must be blogged and narrated with your process and thinking! Don’t forget to review Writing Up Assignments some of you have been very light on the write-ups, and that’s not a good thing.

5.  2 animated GIF assignments: Go to Animated Gif Assignment Bank . Pick two assignments, each assignment must be blogged and narrated with your process and thinking! Also, here’s a tutorial for creating GIFs using GIMP.

7. Weekly Summary Every week, you will be required to submit a summary post by the weekly deadline (generally due on Sundays at midnight). These posts should include links to or embedded media from all the work you have done for the week: storytelling assignments, daily creates, reflections etc. In addition, you should use this post to reflect upon your activity of the week:

  • How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?
  • What gave you trouble? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn?
  • What would you do differently? What questions to you have?
  • What are some of the larger issues surrounding your work? Cultural/Societal implications?

These weekly summaries are what we will use to find all of your weekly work as we determine your grade for that week. In addition, they are an opportunity for you tell us how you feel you are doing and what’s giving you trouble, overall, in the course. If you forget to include something in a weekly post, we may not realize you’ve completed it. If you fail to submit a weekly summary, you will get no grade for that week! By the way proper English and good writing are required!

These posts are REALLY important. We use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why?Final Note: you MUST submit the link to this weekly post in Canvas by midnight on Sunday.  NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.

Summer End of Week 1

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due on Sunday, May 26at 11:59pm on Canvas.

Intro and Visual/Design

The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Part III Photography (Start at 5:00 minute mark)

Getting into the visual storytelling.  This section deals with how we use visual elements to capture meaning and tell stories. We’ll be doing some work with photography and I’ll ask you to review some resources about improving your photography (and being more thoughtful about what you take pictures of). Additionally, I’ll be asking you to continue organizing your blog.

    1. How to Be a Better Photographer

      The suggestions are borrowed from TEN: Ten Ways to Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involve Buying Gear a $5 ebook by David duChemin. You don’t need to buy the book, we’ve lifted some key points.

      • Get Pickier: Instead of using your camera like a rapid-fire machine gun, spend more time pre-composing in your mind. As you get more practice, you can be more selective, and more deliberate.
      • Better Contrast Makes Better Stories Contrast can be in terms of colors and lighting, but also elements in your photos- look for things that maybe not belong together. Look for near and far perspective.
      • Change My Perspective By Changing Yours: Find different and unique points of view. Look down, up, lay down on the ground. Seek perspectives of lines.
      • Create Depth: Look for ways to add dimension of visual depth in your 2-dimensional images- play with foreground, lines, use of wide angle lenses, use of dark backgrounds
      • Get Balanced. The rule of thirds is not only about placement on a grid; duChemin describes visual mass, elements that draw more attention in a photo and how to balance that effectively. “Becoming more intentional about creating and playing with balance in your images will help you create images that are more intentionally express what you have to say.”
      • Pay Attention to the Moment: Sometimes it means slowing down, but also being more aware of the action in a scene, trying to anticipate the moment of something interesting before it happens e.g. watching a family at the table preparing for when baby might spill the glass of milk? at sporting events trying to be ready for the kick that scores the goal?
      • Look to the light. Probably the most key lesson- be aware of the light that works and what does not. Knowing about shadows, directions, aiming for directions where light is strong (or not). Good light makes every photo. Learn how to sense when light is good (and when not, and you can skip lousy shots).
      • Use the Best Lens If your camera uses different lenses, understand better what a wide angle does versus a telephoto not only in terms of what it can fit in a photo but what effect it has one photo (squashing or expanding space). If your lens is fixed, understand what its limits are (how close you can get, what happens at severe angles).
      • Expose for Aesthetics Learn how to use aperture, shutter speed, iso to control the image- what the effects of these all play on depth of field, motion freeze vs blurring. For fixed lens camera/mobile, at least understand what the level of light means for your photos (why those low light photos are blurry?)
      • Put a Great Foreground in Front of a Great Background Pay attention to the near and far. A landscape scene is dull without something in the foreground to give depth and scale. Learn to avoid clutter and distracting elements.

      These are, of course, very general guides. You get better as you look at your own and other photos. You get better when you think more before you press the shutter. You get better when you try new approaches. You get better when you break the rules.

      Review the following materials about photography and using visual elements to create stories.

      Write a blog post towards the end of the week that summarizes the tips you tried. Include:

      • Link and credit for the tip
      • Embed an example of a photo where you tried the technique
      • Describe how you thought about this or what approach (or variation) you tried.
      • Take your photo that you are most proud of in terms of learning a new photo technique, and write a summary blog post and make sure you write a portion based on the reflection of the material read/watched/listen to.
    2. Complete a Photo Safari: Below are a list of subjects I ask you to convey in photos– but you must try and capture within a 15-minute window of time. It’s a photographic scavenger hunt. Pick a place that is likely to have a good variety of subjects (your basement, a shopping mall, a busy city block). Be inventive in trying to interpret the list of subjects, in a location you choose (many of my previous university students completed this in their dorm room). Carve out a time and place to try the photo scavenger hunt; write a blog post that includes a gallery of your images, and some thoughts on the experience. There are no prizes for who gets the most done. Just try to think of interesting ways to capture the items or convey the ideas in a photo. Here is what to seek in your photo blitz!
      1. Your first photo is of something that shows the current time! Document when you started the blitz.
      2. In the next 15 minutes, try to capture as many of the following photos as you can
        • Take a photo dominated by a single color.
        • Take a photo of an interesting shadow.
        • Take a photo of something futuristic.
        • Take a photo at an unusual angle, e.g. looking up at something or looking down at something, or from the view of an ant.
        • Take a photo into bright light.
        • Take a photo of someone else’s shoe or foot.
        • Make an inanimate object look alive.
        • Make a photo that uses converging lines to draw us into the photo
        • Take a photo of two things that do not belong together.
        • Take a photo that shows a repeating pattern.
        • Take a photo where you move the camera as you take the photo, so it gives the subject a suggestion of motion.
        • Take a photo that is looking through a frame or opening to something else.
        • Take a photo that represents joy.
        • Make a photo that is abstract, that would make someone ask, “Is that a photograph?”
        • Take a photo that represents a metaphor for complexity.
      3. Take another photo of a timepiece that shows the time you stopped. It should be fifteen minutes since step 1, right?
      4. Upload your images to your blog, and create a WordPress Gallery for them.
      5. Write a blog post about your experience. Describe the place you chose to do this, and why you chose it. What was the experience like? What photos worked for you best? What do you think was the most inventive?
    3. Do three Daily Creates: Complete three Daily Creates this week. The website is http://daily.ds106.us/Here’s how to get started:
      1. Follow @ds106dc on Twitter. New assignments are posted each day at 5 AM EST. The assignments will vary in mode– photography, drawing, audio, video, writing, and maybe an oddball one now and them.
      2. Once you’ve completed your assignment, follow the instructions on the Daily Create to reply via Twitter. For your response to show up here you must include @ds106dc in your tweet as well as the tag specific for that day, e.g. code>#tdc1666.
      3. That’s it! It may take up to an hour for your response to show up here.  Make sure in your weekly summary you give the links to each of your daily creates.
    4. Complete Visual Assignments: This week, you’ll be doing at least 4 different assignments totally 10 or more stars of visual assignments from Visual Assignment DS106 Assignment Bank.  Additionally, you will be required to do the You Very Own Spubble assignment (2 stars)  (this counts toward your 10 points total) Make sure you’re tagging your assignments correctly (the required assignment tags are VisualAssignments and VisualAssignments190, and review the advice about writing up assignments.  The following is the rubric for these assignments
    5. Organize Your Blog: As you start to write more and more posts for the different genres of assignments we’re doing, your site is going to have a lot of content. Set up categories for your posts so that you (and others) can easily filter and find your work. Here is a recommended category structure you can use (feel free to modify/expand as you like:
      • Assignments
      • Daily Create
      • Thoughts and Ideas
      • Weekly Summaries
      • Best Work
      • Final Project

Now create these additional sub-categories and set the Parent to be Assignments:

      • Visual
      • Design
      • Audio
      • Video

Note: if you’re using your blog for other things besides this class, you may wish to add an overarching category for all of these of “ds106.”

Check out the Videos under “WordPress Help.”

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Part IV Weekly Summary

Every week, you will be required to submit a summary post by the weekly deadline (generally due on Sundays at midnight). These posts should include links to or embedded media from all the work you have done for the week: storytelling assignments, daily creates, reflections etc. In addition, you should use this post to reflect upon your activity of the week:

  • How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?
  • What gave you trouble? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn?
  • What would you do differently? What questions do you have?
  • What are some of the larger issues surrounding your work? Cultural/Societal implications?

These weekly summaries are what we will use to find all of your weekly work as we determine your grade for that week. In addition, they are an opportunity for you tell us how you feel you are doing and what’s giving you trouble, overall, in the course. If you forget to include something in a weekly post, we may not realize you’ve completed it. If you fail to submit a weekly summary, you will get no grade for that week!  The follow is the rubric I use for assignments.
This week you should write minimally about the following.  By the way, proper English and good writing are required!

  1. A link to a reflection about all the material you viewed/read about visuals of storytelling
  2. A link to your Photo Safari
  3. A link to your Photoreflection
  4. A link to your reflection on the photo safari
  5. Links to Three Daily Creates
  6. Links to 4 different visual assignment blog post
  7. Reflection on how you felt about Visual Storytelling.

These posts are REALLY important. We use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why? Final Note: You MUST submit the link to this weekly post in Canvas by midnight on Sunday.  NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.

Summer Mid Week 1

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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One URL with links to midweek assignments is due on Wednesday, May 22 at 11:59 pm on Canvas.

Intro and Visual/Design

The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Finish Reading: Summer Mid Week 1

Summer Session II Week 2

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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  • All work is due by midnight on July 9, 2017.

The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Week 2 will be focused on the design. For this week you will be ramping up your command of image editing as well as closely considering design elements such as color, font, iconography, etc. Additionally, you will be required to reflect on questions of copyright as it relates to creative works online.

General Design & DesignBlitz Resources

Below you will find a set of general design resources as well as brief descriptions and resources for several concepts of visual / graphic design (Typography, Color, Minimalism, Affordance, Balance, Proportion, Unity, etc) that you will be using in your DesignBlitz assignment. You should refer to and review the general resources as a way to familiarize yourself with concepts and approaches to design — they will prove helpful as you complete all your design work this week.

You should review the DesignBlitz concepts, specifically, to help you with that particular assignment. Your task is to get a basic understanding of these concepts, and spend this week searching for examples of them as you complete your DesignBlitz. Refer to this week’s assignment post for details about what you must do to complete the DesignBlitz.

NOTE: We’re not expecting you to read every article or watch/listen to every video or audio on this page. This is a resource list and you should refer to it, as needed, this week while you complete the design unit. We DO recommend that you spend some time reviewing at least some of the resources here because we think you will find them useful. 

General Design Resources

What is Design?

What exactly is design? It factors into almost every object or thing we see on a regular basis. It involves the planning of an object’s presentation so that it achieves its purpose, be it a advertisement for chewing gum or a door knob.  Is good design as noticeable as bad design?

We Are All Artists

Listen to Tim Owens ” We Are All Artists”  (MP3 file) as well as the list of sites below that he refers to in his talk. You may find several of these resources very useful to you as you complete your design assignments this week!

DesignBlitz Resources

Color

Color creates mood, draws attention to key elements. Good designs can use bold color or none at all (lack of color or monochrome makes a message too). What colors work well together? What methods of using color are more effective? What do saturate colors say as compared to pastels?

Resources

Typography “is the visual component of the written word” – It is the form in which text is displayed, and the characteristics of the type used- Is san serif always better? why or why not? What do aspects of font weight, style, spacing, kerning have to do with how a message is transmitted and received?

Resources

Metaphors & Symbols

What are best practices for using symbols to represent objects, things, ideas? What works? How can complex ideas be represented in symbols?

Resources:

Minimalism & Use of Space

How can designers do more with less? What makes elegant designs?

Form, Function, Message

How well does design convey its meaning or potential use or real world objects?

Resources

Balance

“Balance is an equilibrium that results from looking at images and judging them against our ideas of physical structure (such as mass, gravity or the sides of a page). It is the arrangement of the objects in a given design as it relates to their visual weight within a composition. Balance usually comes in two forms: symmetrical and asymmetrical.”

Principles of Design

The Everyone video Symmetry is a fantastic study on the ways things can display visual symmetry

Rhythm

“Rhythm is the repetition or alternation of elements, often with defined intervals between them. Rhythm can create a sense of movement, and can establish pattern and texture. There are many different kinds of rhythm, often defined by the feeling it evokes when looking at it.”

Proportion

“Proportion is the comparison of dimensions or distribution of forms. It is the relationship in scale between one element and another, or between a whole object and one of its parts. Differing proportions within a composition can relate to different kinds of balance or symmetry, and can help establish visual weight and depth. ”

Dominance

Unity

What you need to do this week.

1. Read and Reflect on The Vignelli Canon: A design resource that’s worth looking at is The Vignelli Canon. It’s a short booklet by Massimo Vignelli, who was a superstar in the world of graphic design. The booklet is light on text and heavy on space and imagery, so it’s a quick read. His purpose in writing it was to share his knowledge for the benefit of other designers. As he says, “Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.”Vignelli did most of his work in the pre-Internet era, when graphic design meant ink on paper, so some of the information is not so relevant to our online environment, but the principles still stand. So take a look at it, and let us know what you think. Categorize your reflection post under Thoughts/Ideas and tag it “vignelli” (no quotes).

 

2. Complete a DesignBlitz: To reinforce your understanding, you need to undertake a “Design Blitz.” Carry your camera with you this week and take photos of objects, ads, signs, etc. that illustrate at least four of the ten concepts listed below (one photo per concept).   The concepts are discussed in length above but here is a list of the concepts.

    • Color
    • typography
    • metaphors/symbols
    • minimalism & use of space
    • form/function/message
    • balance
    • rhythm
    • proportion
    • dominance
    • unity

 

    • Share all your photos on Flickr and tag them designblitz; also make sure you write up a blog post sharing what you found and tag it “designblitz”.
    • When you have completed your Blitz, write a blog post that includes (THAT MEANS EMBED!) the photos and your analysis of the design elements and what makes them effective or not. (You should do this in one single post.)
    • PRO TIP: Sometimes we can learn just as much from badly designed things as we can from well-designed things!

 

3. Do your Daily Creates: 4 TDCs this week.

 

4. Complete five different design assignment of least 12 stars

  1. Complete five different design assignments of at least 12 stars of Design assignments from Assignment Bank.
  2. Everyone must complete Are We There Yet? Three Stars
    • Example Photos Not A Complete Blog Post

fourthreeone
two

 

3. A least one assignment you complete this week needs to be 4 stars or higher. It’s time to push yourself.

4. Each design assignment must be blogged and narrated with your process and thinking! Don’t forget to review Writing Up Assignments some of you have been very light on the write-ups, and that’s not a good thing.

5.  2 animated GIF assignments: Go to Animated Gif Assignment Bank . Pick two assignments, each assignment must be blogged and narrated with your process and thinking! Also, here’s a tutorial for creating GIFs using GIMP.

7. Weekly Summary Every week, you will be required to submit a summary post by the weekly deadline (generally due on Sundays at midnight). These posts should include links to or embedded media from all the work you have done for the week: storytelling assignments, daily creates, reflections etc. In addition, you should use this post to reflect upon your activity of the week:

  • How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?
  • What gave you trouble? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn?
  • What would you do differently? What questions to you have?
  • What are some of the larger issues surrounding your work? Cultural/Societal implications?

These weekly summaries are what we will use to find all of your weekly work as we determine your grade for that week. In addition, they are an opportunity for you tell us how you feel you are doing and what’s giving you trouble, overall, in the course. If you forget to include something in a weekly post, we may not realize you’ve completed it. If you fail to submit a weekly summary, you will get no grade for that week! By the way proper English and good writing are required!

These posts are REALLY important. We use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why?Final Note: you MUST submit the link to this weekly post in Canvas by midnight on Sunday.  NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.

Summer Session II Week 1

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due on Sunday July 2 at 11:59pm on Canvas.

Intro and Visual/Design

The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Finish Reading: Summer Session II Week 1

Summer Week 5: Four Days Left.

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything for the final week is due June  22, 2017

The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

 

Finish Reading: Summer Week 5: Four Days Left.

Week 4

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due June 18, 2017 by 11:59.

Some of you have gotten a lot of things up and running and fixed by using the Digital Knowledge Center.  The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Here is the topic most students find both the most challenging and/or rewarding portion of ds106: video. It presents challenges with file formats, creating more complex narratives, and working with more complicated software.

But it is also one of the most engaging forms of media — hence the current statistic that in the span of one minute, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

Before jumping into video editing, you will spend some time first looking critically at some cinema techniques. Read the rest of this post for details about the work for this unit as we learn to “read” movies. Then you will be completing your own video stories, from start to YouTube– this unit is two weeks long, so plan your time accordingly.

Before jumping into video editing, you will spend some time first looking critically at some cinema techniques. Read the rest of this post for details about the work for this unit as we learn to “read” movies. Then you will be completing your own video stories, from start to YouTube– this unit is two weeks long, so plan your time accordingly.

 Video Ready Your Tools

For the work in the next week, you will need to be using software that allows you to combine, edit, augment, re-sequence video, as well as being able to add or even replace the soundtrack within a video.

Reference the Tools for the Trade for links to software you might want to use as well as our new Video Guide for video resources and tutorials.

We most strongly recommend for the future assignment that you use the applications that come with your computer either Windows Movie Maker Live or Apple’s iMovie, these are generally the easiest to get started with and should be available on your computer.

We recommend using video editing software that allows you to cut and re-arrange clips on a timeline, and to add, and layer audio tracks. Most typically this is the software that came with your operating system- iMovie on Macs and MovieMaker on Windows PCs.

Many of the assignments will require downloading of clips from web sites such as YouTube and vimeo. You will need to use a tool that can download videos to a file format you can use on your computer (usually MP4). Our tool of choice is SaveFrom.net but we review a few other techniques as well.

Windows users may have challenges in importing the downloaded mp4 video files into Movie Maker (We have been told that the Windows Movie Maker Live can import MP4)- you may have to use a converter to change mp4 into AVI or WMV file formats. See the ds106 Handbook for some video converter options.

Other resources that may help you include:

Focus on the storytelling aspect of your video making- -do not get caught up in the technical points or making the video just for the assignment points…  Be very sure that your videos tell a story, that it surprises us, that it perhaps jars us, and that when you write-up your blog post you are providing full details and context for your videos

Learn How to Read a Movie

You have likely watched plenty of movies, but when we say “reading” movies, we mean looking at them with a keener eye for the cinematic elements that make them successful (or not). This is not about reviews of “good” or “bad” movies, but how well they convey the story to all our senses, how well they suspend our disbelief to make the plot real, to draw us in– how well they tell a story.

For your work in this week, you are expected to look for details in movies, many of which are found in Roger Ebert’s “How to Read a Movie” which you must read this week.

In addition, to get a deeper appreciation for the power of cinematic techniques, watch at least 3 of the following videos about filmmaking.

Look, Listen, Analyze

Now apply some of the criteria you reviewed above to a classic movie scene. From the YouTube playlists below, pick one scene from a classic movie you will analyze — do not watch it yet! — just choose one that might interest you. If you want to use another clip, it should be a complete scene, not a movie trailer.

You will now analyze the clip by watching it three times, in different ways.

  1. Analyze the camera work. Before watching the first time, turn the volume on the clip (or on your computer) all the way down. Take notes on the visual aspects of the clip. Look for camera angles, cuts, how many times the camera switches view, the quality of light, the cuts or transitions. Look for the ways the camera tells, guides the story.
  2. Analyze the audio track. Now turn the volume up, but play it without looking at the screen (or turn off the screen); just listen to the audio. Take notes on the pacing of the dialogue, the spaces in the audio, the use of music or sound effects (think back to our work earlier on listening to audio).
  3. Put it all together. Finally, watch the scene as normal. Pay attention to something you may have missed the first time or how the elements you saw in the first two steps work together.

Write up a blog post that includes the embedded clip, and the notes you made in the three views of the scene. Did you notice anything new by minimizing one of your senses?

Also use what you have read in Ebert’s column or anything else you observed in the cinematic technique videos to identify key elements of this scene. Include specific reference to Ebert’s ideas of left/right character placement, what the camera angle suggests, how the way the scene is shot builds the story element. We are looking for the video aspects that makes this work well (or not) – not just “this is a great scene” or “this is my favorite movie”.

Video Assignment Bank

For this week you should complete two ds106 video assignments of at least eight stars, each should be posted to your blog, appropriately tagged and categorized. All videos should have an opening and closing title/credits sequence.

I have to reiterate because many people are not doing this.  Each assignment blog post should include:

  • Write about thinking behind the assignment, the inspiration, what it means to you. What is it’s story? Does it make a story spine?
  • The video you produced for the assignment is embedded into your blog post. Your videos should have an opening title sequence and a closing credits sequence. Check your video software for it’s title creation features.
  • Share your process. What tools did you use? What techniques? Think of this as information that would help someone else doing the same assignment. Include a screenshot of your video editing screen. You must provide URLs/sources for all media you included that were not ones you created yourself.
  • To have your work connected back to the assignment, your blog post must include the two tags for the assignment, one will be VideoAssignments and the other will have a name like VideoAssignments447. Look for the tags entry box on the right side of the WordPress editor, below the Categories.

Weekly Summary Checklist

Your summary blog post for this week should include and link to the following requirements. Remember, I am also looking for more that a list of what you did; take some time to reflect on what you learned or discovered this week. Include in your weekly summary again a sense of what kind of feedback you are getting on your blog and how you are giving feedback to others.

  • Reading Movies Write a blog post that includes your response to the methods suggested by Ebert- why might they work (or not)? Summarize what you learned from the two videos you watched about cinema techniques.
  • Look. Listen. Analyze. Write up a blog post that includes the embedded clip for the scene you reviewed, and the notes you made in the three views of the scene. Did you notice anything new by minimizing one of your senses?
  • Assignments: You should link to and discuss the posts for the two ds106 video assignments completed. Each post should be put in categories that you made for your site, and should also include the tags specific to each assignment. Be sure that your assignment blog posts contain the elements out line in the ds106 Handbook.
  • Comment on other blog post: Make sure that you do different people for each comment.  Make sure you comment on at least 4 blog post and that you take a screenshot and put it in your summary.
  • Daily Creates: Do four daily creates.

Summer Week 3

Posted on by Jennifer Polack
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Everything is due June 11th by 11:59.

Some of you have gotten a lot of things up and running and fixed by using the Digital Knowledge Center.  The University of Mary Washington’s Digital Knowledge Center provides peer tutoring to all University students on digital projects and assignments. Students can schedule 50 minute, one-one-one tutorials with a trained peer tutor on any DS106 related projects.  Click Here to set up an appointment.

Introduction to Audio

This week in ds106 we’re going to be diving into our first storytelling genre: audio. Working with sound can be a bit daunting and unfamiliar, so we’ll be easing you into it this week. Nearly all previous ds106 students start here dreading this media, and in a few weeks they totally change their mind.

We’ll ask you to do some listening exercises as well as do some audio story editing.

PART I:  About Audio Storytelling

Look, Listen and Watch below.  Pay attention and keep track of the “nuggest” that grabs your attention- and write a blog post summarizing what you learned about how these experts describe their craft. Come back to these later when you review some audio shows I recommend listening to.

For many of you radio may seem like old technology, but there is a lot of current powerful creativity done in a single media. Audio is most effective when sounds generate stories in the minds of listeners.  You might be familiar with the panic caused in the late 1930s when Orson Wells produced the radio show of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds– it was so effective, people thought it was real. If you think we are much more savvy in the modern age, read about what happened when producers of an Italian movie tried to play out a promotional video as something like looked like a real news broadcast.

I’d like you to listen to some experts on audio storytelling describe a bit of how this is effective, probably no one has their game on for this than Ira Glass, host of This American Life, a weekly radio storytelling show on National Public Radio.

Listen to least two parts of Ira Glass’ Series on storytelling (all together they’re about 20 minutes)

Find Part Two; Part Three; Part Four.

For another point of view, listen to a short interview with Radiolab‘s Jad Abumrad on “How Radio Creates Empathy”:

or listen to his longer talk where he shares how he and his colleagues go about the process of creating radio shows.

Jad Abumrad: Why “Gut Churn” Is an Essential Part of the Creative Process from 99Uon Vimeo.

PART II: Introduction to Audio Techniques

Some things to notice when listening to audio are the pacing (think of the equivalent of paragraphs in sound), the use of music, sound effects, ambient/environmental sounds, the introduction of radio “bumpers” to remind us of the show, introduction and exits. Of key importance is trying to hear the layering of sounds, of how audio can create a sense of place by being more than just a recording, but a deliberate stacking of audio.

For a great reference reference, you might listen to an episode of Howsound, the radio show that takes you behind the scenes to understand how these shows are produced- Dissecting Joanne Rosser, Papermaker.

As another example, we took out elements of an hour long episode of RadioLab, a 2007 show called Detective Stories, and uploaded a shorter version to Soundcloud, where the comments indicate how some of these are used in the show. See if you can pick these out in this example and then in other audio you listen to this unit.

Another technique that is counter-intuitive, is when sound is left out. Listen to this annotated clip, an intro to an episode of the TED Radio Hour, for what happens near the 3 minute mark when the background music suddenly stops

Here are some references for audio techniques:

View the story “ds106 Tips for Audio Storytelling” on Storify

And, if that is not enough, among the open participants of ds106 is Scottlo, a guru of audio and radio technique. Scott was one of several ds106ers who gathered in the summer of 2013 in Kamloops, British Colombia for SoundCamp, a one day hands on experience in learning audio recording and editing technique– check out the SoundCamp site for audio resources and tutorials.

Also useful from Scottlo are archives from his daily series from the Summer ds106 Zone class of 2013, below are some selected episodes where he reviews audio and shares Audacity tips:

Lo Down Episode 1
Lo Down Episode 8
Lo Down Episode 9
Lo Down Episode 10
Lo Down Episode 11
Lo Down Episode 12
Lo Down Episode 13
Lo Down Episode 14

Part III: Listening to Stories

listeningOne of the best ways to understand how audio can be used to create stories is to listen to some great examples. We’ve assembled a list of audio stories for you.

Overall, how effective do you think audio was for telling the story(ies)? What types of audio techniques did the producers use — sound effects, layering of sounds, music, etc. — to convey their story? While we are interested in reading what you thought of the story being told — but we’re just as interested in your reflection about HOW the story was told. Try and step back from the story itself, and reflect upon the technique that the storytelling/producers used. What choices did they make that impacted your understanding of and feelings about the story? What are the techniques from the references above that you may not have noticed before?

Pay very close attention to not only the stories told but how they are constructed in audio format. Take the time to focus on listening, not just in the background of being on your computer. Put the phone down, turn off the TV, tell the family to leave you alone. Just listen.

Listen to “Moon Graffiti” This is an excellent example of audio storytelling. Think about how the sounds, both the sound effects and the changes in sound, tell you what is going on, how they create a sense of place, a sense of space and a sense of atmosphere. We hear these same techniques used in film and video, where they are vitally important but often unnoticed. Consider what we watched, read and listened to this week and in the previous weeks. How does sound drive stories? How does it impact mood and create atmosphere? Write a blog post on your thoughts on audio storytelling. Use specific examples and embed them in your post. Tag the post audioreflection.

Part IV: Your First Audio Stories

Start your work on these assignments by reviewing this list of audio resources and/or the Audio Section of the ds106 Handbook section on Tools. You will find information here about software you can use to produce your own audio, as well as links to sites where you can download free clips, music, and sound effects.

  • We strongly recommend Audacity, a free and open source audio-editing program, further details below. If you have access to and experience with a different audio editing system, you are free to use it instead. Along with Audacity, you will need to download and install the LAME mp3 Encoder in order to save audio as .mp3 files.Download and Experiment with Audacity: Unless you have a lot of previous experience with audio editing, you should plan on spending some time this week getting comfortable with Audacity. It is recommended that you do this right away, because you will find that audio editing can be quite time-consuming. If you have another audio editing platform that you’re familiar with, you can skip this step. But everyone needs to get their hands dirty with audio editing. If you’re overwhelmed by Audacity, make an appointment with at the Digital Knowledge Center for help: http://dkc.umw.edu.

Complete 12 Stars of Audio Assignments: This week you must complete at least 12 stars of assignments from the Audio category in the Assignment Bank.

 Involve the character you created in at least one of the assignments in some way. One assignment everyone must do is the sound effects story (3 ½ stars): This is a challenge to tell a short story (no longer than 90 seconds) using nothing but sound effects! And make it something more interesting than waking up, taking a shower and eating breakfast. We highly recommend using http://freesound.org to find free sound effects for this project.

Make sure all your completed assignments are uploaded to SoundCloud, and write up a post for each assignment in which you embed that audio from SoundCloud. Note: If you use copyrighted content in your audio projects, the SoundCloud content police may block them. You can use CC Search to find content that you can safely use.

Share each of these contributions in separate posts on your blog, and tag them according to the instructions on their assignment page.

Part V: Weekly Summary

Your weekly summary is due by Sunday, June 11, 2017 at midnight. As always, link to or embed all of your work from the week. Use this as an opportunity to reflect upon your initial foray into audio. What did you struggle with? What ideas/exercises were most challenging or interesting?

Now we are moving into the main part of the course where the bulk of your work is writing up assignments, you are going to be expected to follow the criteria  – just posting “here is my assignment” is not going to be enough to earn credit. There needs to be writing with your media, a story about the story.

This week’s checklist includes:

  • Summarize the key points you learned about audio storytelling from the Ira Glass and Jad Abumrad videos.
  • Summarize TED Radio Hour and ScottLo.
  • Summary of the “Moon Graffiti” you listened to, making special notes of the techniques used. Be sure to link to the show you listened to.
  • Summarize/link the Audio assignments
  • Summarize/link At least 4 Daily Creates
  • Summary of your feedback from your Comments and what you gained by looking at other people’s blogs.  You must make at least 5 comments on other people’s blog, they must be different people.  It must be construct feedback not this is great.
  • At least a paragraph on what you learned this week, what questions/complaints you have.
  • Weekly Summary Every week, you will be required to submit a summary post by the weekly deadline (generally due on Sundays at midnight). These posts should include links to or embedded media from all the work you have done for the week: storytelling assignments, daily creates, reflections etc. In addition, you should use this post to reflect upon your activity of the week:
    • How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?
    • What gave you trouble? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn?
    • What would you do differently? What questions to you have?
    • What are some of the larger issues surrounding your work? Cultural/Societal implications?

These weekly summaries are what we will use to find all of your weekly work as we determine your grade for that week. In addition, they are an opportunity for you tell us how you feel you are doing and what’s giving you trouble, overall, in the course. If you forget to include something in a weekly post, I may not realize you’ve completed it. If you fail to submit a weekly summary, you will get no grade for that week! By the way proper English and good writing are required!

These posts are REALLY important. I use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why?Final Note: you MUST submit the link to this weekly post in Canvas by midnight on Sunday.  NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.