digital media production, fall 2013

MS 320: Digital Media Production
MWF 11:45-12:50 (Section 2)
MWF 1:00-2:05 (Section 1)
Kalmanovitz Hall 211

Professor David Silver
Contact: dmsilver [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu
Office: Kalmanovitz Hall 141
Office hours: MF 10-11 & by appointment

Digital Media Production is a media studies production course designed around creating, sharing, and collaborating with social media. Using words, photographs, animation, and maps (not to mention links, sets, and hashtags), students will explore and experiment with social media, participatory media, or what we might as well just call contemporary media. Along the way, students will research and participate in an issue, organization, or movement that combines social justice and social media.

Learning Goals:
1. To learn how to use many different social media tools and platforms quickly, independently, creatively, and collaboratively;
2. To dig deeply, through research and participation, into a particular issue, organization, or movement that combines social justice and social media; and
3. To develop, through social media, a unique voice that combines creative expression and engagement with others.

 
Course Texts and Costs: All readings will be made available for free – online, via Gleeson Library, or outside my office. All students are required to make at least one $25 micro-loan, via kiva.org, which will be returned in full.

Calendar: In general, Mondays will be spent discussing readings, Wednesdays will be devoted to workshops and field trips, and Fridays will be guest lectures and Demo Days (class periods when students demo new work). On Fridays, the professor, in collaboration with the students, will decide next week’s topics, readings, workshops, and assignments.

Course Grading:
20% Quizzes and homework
20% Class participation
30% Individual projects
20% Group projects
10% Collaborative content project with students enrolled in Adam Fish’s Viral Video Production course at Lancaster University, UK

Attendance Policy: Missing class, or attending class unprepared, will significantly affect your final grade. If you do miss class, contact a classmate or two to find out what you missed. After doing this, if you have questions about missed material, visit me during office hours.

Course Rules:
1. No late work accepted.
2. If you have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.
3. Starting Friday, 8/23, no drinking out of non-reusable containers in class.

twitter guest panel in DMP

last friday in DMP, we had a twitter guest panel, featuring shawn calhoun (@GleesonLibrary), char lobo soriano (@itweetUSF), and thomas listerman (@usfca).


first up was shawn, head of access services at USF's gleeson library, who shared some of his experiences tweeting for gleeson. shawn talked about using twitter to notify followers about library news and materials, build a broad and diverse community, and share knowledge about free, open-access tools and resources. shawn also raised the fascinating question of whether or not to tweet about the shortcomings or limitations of one's own organization.

next up was charlene, associate director of USF's first year student services, who brings to her presentations the same energy she brings to her tweets. charlene talked about developing your own voice on twitter and suggested the best voice is your true voice. she talked about reaching out to and engaging with USF students in general and first year students in particular and she shared some of her strategies for building community.

the last panelist was thomas, USF's advancement e-communications manager, who approaches twitter as one tool to get across other tools. he talked about using social media to reach out to alumni, students, and parents. he talked about maintaining a somewhat formal voice but linking out to and retweeting less formal material. he also talked about using twitter as a kind of campus calendar and, like shawn and charlene, talked about building community.


"learning how to use twitter," i told my DMP students the first day of class, "is totally easy. developing a voice on twitter - now that's another story." after this excellent panel, i hope they got a good taste of that story.

twitter assignment #2

twitter assignment #2 for digital media production.

1. by now, you should be on twitter, familiar with the basic functions of twitter, and following all members of our class.

2. also by now, you should be in the habit of searching for and following all people whose work (writings, video, web) is assigned each week. for this week, you should be following @scottros (scott rosenberg) and @jasonpontius (jason pontius). you should also follow this week's guest panelists: @GleesonLibrary (shawn calhoun), @itweetUSF (char lobo soriano), and @usfca (thomas listerman). if after a week you find their tweets less than amusing, by all means unfollow them.

3. reply to at least one tweet. any tweet. make it good.

4. retweet (or RT) at least two tweets that you think are relevant to members of digital media production. re-read that last sentence. although i encourage you to use twitter in any way you see fit, here i am asking you to retweet stuff that relates to what we are discussing and exploring in class. important: one of your RTs must be old school style and the other must be via the way supplied by twitter. be ready to discuss the pros and cons of each RT method - or any other methods you use - in class.

5. learn how to use bit.ly. use it with at least one tweet. be ready to discuss the pros and cons of bit.ly and tinyURL in class.

6. when appropriate, consider using the hashtag #dmp10 in your posts.

7. in order to get credit for this assignment, steps 1-6 must be complete by 9 am on friday, september 10.

twitter assignment

twitter assignment for digital media production.

1. if you have not yet joined twitter, join twitter.

2. create a profile. in either your user name or bio (or both), use your real name.

3. make your profile public. if you already have a twitter account that is private and wish to keep it that way, create a new account for this class.

4. find and follow all members (students and professor) of our class.

5. search for and follow all people whose work (writings, video, web) is assigned each week. if after a week you find their tweets less than amusing, by all means unfollow them.

6. post at least one tweet!

7. all of this must be complete by midnight on wednesday thursday.

8. please get into the habit of checking twitter at least once a day.

digital media production (fall 2010)

this fall, i'm teaching two classes. one of them is digital media production, or DMP. classes begin august 25, 2010.


digital media production
MWF 10:30-11:35 am
Cowell Hall 313

Professor David Silver
Office: Kalmanavitz 141
Office Hours: MW 9-10 am
Contact: dmsilver [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu

Digital Media Production is a production course designed around creating, sharing, and collaborating with social media. Using tools and platforms like twitter, flickr, blogs, iPad, kiva, Creative Commons, youtube, yelp, USFPool, and Wikileaks, students will explore participatory media, digital storytelling, transmedia, co-authorship, user-generated content, and collective intelligence. Readings and discussions about digital media culture will accompany and inform our production and participation.

Learning Goals:
1. To learn how to use digital media creatively and effectively;
2. To learn how to use digital media collectively and collaboratively; and
3. To learn how to learn new digital media tools quickly and independently.

Course Texts/Costs:
o All readings are either free and online or free via Gleeson Library.
o Although you will be able to complete your assignments with a free flickr account, you are encouraged to purchase a flickr pro account for $25.
o In early October, we will be field tripping to see The Social Network in a local theater which will cost approximately $10.
o All students are required to make at least one $25 micro-loan, via kiva.org, which will be returned in full.

Calendar:
Week 1:
Wed, August 25
o Introduce ourselves, the course, and course expectations.
Fri, August 27
o Read/Watch: Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2008; and Ira Glass, On good taste … (Video: 5:20), This American Life, August 12, 2006.

Week 2:
Mon, August 30
Read: Steven Johnson, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, Time, June 5, 2009; Rachel Dry, What Would Warhol Blog? Washington Post, August 16, 2009; and Peggy Orenstein, I Tweet, Therefore I Am, New York Times Magazine, July 30, 2010.
Wed, September 1
o Read: Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, Flickr Changes Lives, Launches Photog Career, MediaShift, August 2, 2007; and Chris Colin, Nasty as they wanna be? Policing Flickr.com, SF Gate, September 29, 2008.
Fri, September 3
o Demo Day

Week 3:
Mon, September 6
o No class: Labor Day
Wed, September 8
o Read: Scott Rosenberg, Putting Everything Out There [Justin Hall], from Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters (2009); and Jason Pontius, On Blog Themes, Dwell, July 12, 2010.
Fri, September 10
o Guest panel: Shawn Calhoun (@GleesonLibrary), Thomas Listerman (@usfca), and Char Lobo Soriano (@itweetUSF).

Week 4:
Mon, September 13
o Read: Ken Auletta, Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? The New Yorker, April 26, 2010.
Wed, September 15
o Read/Watch: Frontline/World, Uganda - A Little Goes a Long Way, PBS, October 31, 2006; and additional Kiva readings TBA.
Fri, September 17
o Demo Day

Week 5:
Mon, September 20
o Prior to class, watch The Matrix (1999) and be ready to discuss it.
Wed, September 22
o Read: Henry Jenkins, "Searching for the Oragami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling," in Convergence Culture (2006), pp. 95-134.
Fri, September 24
o Read/Watch at least one other piece of Matrix-related transmedia (including but not limited to Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, the web comics, the anime, the computer game, or the massively multiplayer online game) and be ready to share your understanding of it in class.
o Project 1 due.

Week 6:
Mon, September 27
o Student-generated readings on Creative Commons, part 1.
Wed, September 29
o Student-generated readings on Creative Commons, part 2.
Fri, October 1
o Demo Day

Week 7:
Mon, October 4
o Read/Watch: Ethan Zuckerman, Listening to global voices, Ted Talks, July, 2010; and danah boyd, Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace, Apophenia blog, June 24, 2007.
Wed, October 6
o Read: Farhad Manjoo, How Black People Use Twitter: The latest research on race and microblogging, Slate, August 10, 2010; Jessica Faye Carter, A Response to Farhad Manjoo's "How Black People Use Twitter," Jessica Faye Carter blog, August 12, 2010; and Scott Poulson-Bryant, How One Black Person Responds to "How Black People Use Twitter," Scott Topics blog, August 13, 2010.
Fri, October 8
o Field trip to see The Social Network (2010).

Week 8:
Mon, October 11
o No class: Fall Break
Wed, October 13
o Watch: Michael Wesch, An anthropological introduction to YouTube (Video: 55.33), presented at the Library of Congress, June 23, 2008.
Fri, October 15
o Demo Day

Week 9:
Mon, October 18
o Read: Kathleen Richards, Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0, East Bay Express, February 18, 2009.
Wed, October 20
o Read: Stephen Baker, Will Work for Praise: The Web's Free-Labor Economy, Business Week, December 28, 2008; Eric Karjaluoto, Is Tim Ferriss acting like an asshole? ideasonideas, August 11, 2009; and Stephanie Clifford, Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal, New York Times, July 30, 2009.
Fri, October 22
o Read: Rob Walker, Handmade 2.0, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2007.

Week 10:
Mon, October 25
o Brainstorm Know Your Digital Rights exhibit.
Wed, October 27
o Build Know Your Digital Rights exhibit.
Fri, October 29
o No class: David out of town.
o Project 2 due.

Week 11:
Mon, November 1
o Student-generated readings on music and social media, part 1.
Wed, November 3
o Student-generated readings on music and social media, part 2.
Fri, November 5
o Guest lecture: Bennett Grassano, Director of Development, Kiva.org. Readings TBA.

Week 12:
Mon, November 8
o Read: Raffi Khatchadourian, No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency, The New Yorker, June 7, 2010.
Wed, November 10
o Read: Jay Rosen, The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World's First Stateless News Organization, PressThink blog, July 26, 2010; also read 2-3 of the links Rosen includes in his blog post and be ready to share your understanding of them in class.
Fri, November 12
o Demo Day

Week 13:
Mon, November 15
o Read/Use/Explore: Everyone Says They Have the Best Pancakes in San Francisco, Gridskipper, October 4, 2007; James Barron, Taking a Walk Through J. D. Salinger's New York and Walking in Holden's Footsteps, New York Times, January 28, 2010; A Peek Into Netflix Queues, New York Times, January 8, 2010; Frank Jacobs, Sense of POPOS: Secret Spaces of San Francisco, Big Think blog, January 27, 2010.
Wed, November 17
o Read: Rob Reed, 10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World, tonic, July 31, 2010; and Victor Keegan, Meet the Wikipedia of the mapping world, Guardian, February 4, 2010.
Fri, November 19
o Read/Use/Explore: Kim Severson, Neighbor, Can You Spare A Plum? New York Times, June 10, 2009; Roxanne Webber, New iPhone App Finds You Free Fruit, Chow, January 12, 2010; and Seasonal Ingredient Map, Epicurious.
Week 14:
Mon, November 22
o Read: John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972), pp. 7-34.
Wed, November 24
o Read: Robert Harrison, "On the Lost Art of Seeing," from Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition (2008), pp. 114-124.
Fri, November 26:
o No class: Thanksgiving Break

Week 15:
Mon, November 29
o Read: Steven Johnson, Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social, New York Times, June 18, 2010; Henry Jenkins, Why Heather Can Write, Technology Review, February 6, 2004; and Tracy Seeley, Slowing Down My Own Monkey Mind, Tracy Seeley's Blog, July 17, 2010.
Wed, December 1
o Read/Watch: Clay Shirky, How cognitive surplus will change the world, Ted Talks, June 2010; Nicholas Carr, Does the Internet Make You Dumber? Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2010; Adrian Higgins, We can't see the forest for the T-Mobiles, Washington Post, December 15, 2009; and The Slow Media Manifesto.
Fri, December 3
o Read/Watch: Jane McGonigal, Gaming can make a better world, Ted Talks, February 2010; and Michael S. Rosenwald, FarmVille, other online social games mean big business, and bonding, Washington Post, August 3, 2010.

Week 16:
Mon, December 6
o Read: Jaron Lanier, World Wide Mush, Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2010; and Caterina Fake, Participatory media and why I love it (and must defend it), Caterina.net blog, January 19, 2010.
Wed, December 8
o Class party
o Project 3 due.

Course Grading:
Reading quizzes - 10%
Homework assignments - 10%
Class participation (this includes student-generated reading exercises) - 20%
Demo Days - 10%
Projects (3) - 30%
Know Your Digital Rights exhibit group project - 20%

Course Rules:
1. No late work accepted.
2. If you have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.
3. Whenever possible, publish your work under your own name.
4. Starting Friday, August 27, no drinking out of non-reusable containers in class. Be creative with your thirst-quenching solutions.

google maps assignment

google maps assignment for digital media production

1. learn google maps.

2. create a google map with at least three pins. the content attached to those pins is entirely up to you. experiment heavily with the design and layout of the pins.

3. when your map is ready, tweet about it.

4. in class on thursday, be ready to demo your map.

5. finally, find a USF student who currently has an internship or service project in san francisco. be ready to discuss the internship/project in class on thursday.


keep in mind:

a. the main thing i am testing is your ability to learn google maps with zero instruction from me.

b. i am also testing your ability to design and deliver digital content in strategic and creative ways. don't settle on your first or second idea.

c. if you have no new content to demo on thursday, do not come to class.

flickr project

flickr assignment for digital media production

1. we spent a significant portion of today's class taking digital photographs of USF. feel free to take more.

2. if you do not already have a flickr account, create one. if you have an interest in photography, consider opening a pro account ($25/year). if not, sign up a for a free account.

3. find and follow on flickr all DMP students and professor.

4. upload your photos of campus to your flickr account. title and tag all of the photos. be smart and strategic with your tags.

5. using no less than 5 and no more than 10 photos, make a flickr set. title the set. add a description to the set.

6. join the flickr group "USF photography and photographers."

7. revisit your flickr set of campus. add any - or all - of your photos to the "USF photography and photographers" flickr group. be aware that by adding your photo or photos, they can be featured on USF's web site.

8. once finished with steps 1-7, tweet about it. include a link to your flickr set so that other people can see your work.

9. use twitter to keep up with your classmates' work and visit and view their flickr sets.

10. comment on at least 5 photographs taken by 5 different DMPers.


rules:

1. follow all directions.

2. flickr project is due saturday, february 13, at noon. no late work accepted.

twitter assignment

twitter assignment for digital media production, green media, and community garden outreach

1. if you have not yet joined twitter, join twitter.

2. create a profile. in either your user name or bio (or both), use your real name.

3. make your profile public. if you already have a twitter account that is private and wish to keep it that way, create a new account for this class.

4. find and follow all members (students and professor) of our class.

5. search for and follow all people whose work (writings, video, web) is assigned each week. if after a week you find their tweets less than amusing, by all means unfollow them.

6. please get into the habit of checking twitter at least once a day.

digital media production (spring 10)

in spring, i'm teaching three classes. one of them is digital media production. classes begin january 26, 2010.


digital media production
Tues & Thurs 8:30 - 10:15 am
Education 304

Professor: David Silver
Office: Kalmanovitz 141
Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 10:30 - 11:30 am & by appointment

Digital Media Production is a production course designed around creating, sharing, and collaborating with digital media. Using tools and platforms like facebook, twitter, flickr, yelp, blogs, google maps, and kiva, students will explore ideas of digital storytelling, transmedia, co-authorship, and large-scale collaboration. Readings and discussions about digital media history and culture will accompany and inform our production and participation.

Learning Goals:
1. To learn how to use digital media creatively and effectively;
2. To learn how to use digital media collectively and collaboratively;
3. To learn how to learn new tools quickly and independently; and
4. To learn about and participate within the intersections among digital media and social justice.

Required Texts/Costs:
o All readings are either a) free and online or b) will be made available for free in the library and outside my office.
o Although students will be able to complete their assignments with a free flickr account, you are encouraged, especially if interested in photography, to purchase a flickr pro account for $25.
o All students are required to make one $25 micro-loan, via kiva.org, which will be returned in full.

Calendar:

Tuesday, January 26
o Introduce ourselves, distribute syllabus, and discuss course expectations.
Thursday, January 28
o Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2008.
o Rachel Dry, What Would Warhol Blog? Washington Post, August 16, 2009.
o Clay Shirky, How social media can make history, Ted Talks, June 2009.

Tuesday, February 2
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Social Networking in Plain English, Common Craft, June 27, 2007.
o danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).
o Kate Miller-Heidke, Are You F*cking Kidding Me? (Facebook Song), YouTube
Thursday, February 4
o Justin Smith, Exclusive: Discussing the Future of Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Inside Facebook, June 3, 2009.
o Stephanie Clifford, Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal, New York Times, July 30, 2009.
o Lori Aratani, When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook "Friend," Washington Post, March 9, 2008.
o Kevin Bankston, Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 9, 2009.

Tuesday, February 9
o Demo Day: Facebook
Thursday, February 11
o Henry Jenkins, Why Heather Can Write, Technology Review, February 6, 2004.
o Samantha M. Shapiro, Revolution, Facebook-Style: Can social networking turn disaffected young Egyptians into a force for democratic change? New York Times Magazine, January 22, 2009.
o Ira Glass, On good taste ... This American Life (Video: 5:20).

Tuesday, February 16
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Twitter in Plain English, Common Craft, March 5, 2008.
o Ben Parr, HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter, Mashable, April 16, 2009.
o Mashable, How #FollowFriday Works
o Marko, Twitter Etiquette: 7 Common Sense Rules for Twitter, Twitter Tips blog, December 20, 2009.
o Virginia Heffernan, Hashing Things Out: How Hashtags are Remaking Conversations on Twitter, New York Times Magazine, August 7, 2009
Thursday, February 18
o Steven Johnson, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, Time, June 5, 2009.
o Michael Wesch, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, presented at the Library of Congress, June 23, 2008 (Video: 55.33).

Tuesday, February 23
o Demo Day: Twitter
Thursday, February 25
o Noam Cohen, Refining the Twitter Explosion, New York Times, November 8, 2009.
o Stan Schroeder, How Twitter Conquered the World in 2009, Mashable, December 25, 2009.
o Adrian Higgins, We can't see the forest for the T-Mobiles, Washington Post, December 15, 2009.

Tuesday, March 2
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Online Photo Sharing in Plain English, Common Craft, January 9, 2008.
o Virginia Heffernan, Sepia No More, New York Times Magazine, April 27, 2008.
o Michael Kimmelman, At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus, New York Times, August 2, 2009.
o Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Part II, Time Magazine.
Thursday, March 4
o Noam Cohen, Use My Photo? Not Without Permission, New York Times, October 1, 2007.
o Noam Cohen, Historical Photos in Web Archives Gain Vivid New Lives, New York Times, January 18, 2009.
o Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, Flickr Changes Lives, Launches Photog Careers, MediaShift blog, August 2, 2007.
o Chris Colin, Nasty as they wanna be? Policing Flickr.com, SF Gate, September 29, 2008.

Tuesday, March 9
o Demo Day: Flickr
Thursday, March 11
o Gina Trapani, Geek to Live: Flickr Advanced User Guide, Lifehacker blog, February 15, 2006.
o Adam Ostrow, Flickr2Twitter: Flickr Enters the Twitter Stream, Mashable blog, June 30, 2009.
o Ben Parr, 5 Impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr, May 11, 2009.
o Try out iMapFlickr.

Tuesday, March 16: SPRING BREAK!
Thursday, March 18: SPRING BREAK!

Tuesday, March 23
o Kathleen Richards, Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0, East Bay Express, February 18, 2009.
o Deborah Gage, S.F. Yelp user faces lawsuit over review, San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2009.
Thursday, March 25
o Stephen Baker, Will Work for Praise: The Web's Free-Labor Economy, Business Week, December 28, 2008.
o Eric Karjaluoto, Is Tim Ferriss acting like an asshole? ideasonideas, August 11, 2009.

Tuesday, March 30
o Demo Day: Yelp
Thursday, April 1
o Stacy Schiff, Know it All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise? The New Yorker, July 31, 2006.
o Rob Walker, Handmade 2.0, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2007.

Tuesday, April 6
o Scott Rosenberg, Putting Everything Out There [Justin Hall] from Say Everything.
Thursday, April 8
o Tom Coates, (Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... plasticbag.org, September 3, 2003.
o Doree Shafrir, Would You Take a Tumblr With This Man? New York Observer, January 15, 2008.

Tuesday, April 13
o Christian Kreutz, Maptivism: Maps for activism, transparency and engagement, Crisscrossed blog, September 14, 2009.
o Christian Kreutz, 6 innovative grassroot mashups for transparency, Crisscrossed blog, May 5, 2008.
Thursday, April 15
o Mark S. Luckie, 7 Unique and innovative maps, 10,000 Words blog, October 21, 2009.
o David Sasaki, Maps for Social Change and Community Involvement, Idea Lab blog, April 24, 2009.
o Rex Sorgatz, A Data Point on Every Block: An Interview with Adrian Holovaty, Fimoculous, February 14, 2008.
o Try out Green Maps.

Tuesday, April 20
o Demo Day: Google Maps
Thursday, April 22:
o Collaboration Workshop

Tuesday, April 27
o Henry Jenkins, "Searching for the Oragami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling," in Convergence Culture, pp. 95-134.
Thursday, April 29
o The Extended Reality of Cross-Media Storytelling, Power to the Pixel, February 4, 2009.
o Why So Serious? Marketing Overview
o Welcome to a World Without Oil
o Stefanie Olsen, Provocative politics in virtual games, CNET News, March 28, 2007.

Tuesday, May 4
o Alice Rawsthorn, Winning Ways of Making a Better World, New York Times, August 30, 2009.
o Frontline/World, Uganda - A Little Goes a Long Way, PBS, October 31, 2006.
o Martin Plaut, Internet loans swing towards US, BBC News, June 10, 2009.
o Erick Schonfeld, Four Years After Founding, Kiva Hits $100 Million In Microloans, TechCrunch, November 1, 2009.
Thursday, May 6
o Demo Day: kiva

Tuesday, May 11
o Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, July/August 2008.
o David Carr, The Fall and Rise of Media, New York Times, November 29, 2009.
Thursday, May 13
o To be determined.

This class has no final exam.

Grading:
20% - Reading quizzes and in-class assignments
20% - Class and online participation
20% - Demo Days
20% - Projects
20% - Final Project

If you are concerned about your grade, you can request a meeting with me anytime during the semester.

Rulez:
1. Read all assigned readings and view all assigned videos prior to class.
2. In class, listen to and learn from everyone.
3. No late work accepted.
4. If you have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.
5. Publish work under your own name.
6. Starting January 28, no drinking out of non-reusable containers in class. Be creative with your thirst-quenching solutions.

tuesday's homework

as discussed in class yesterday, tuesday's homework for digital media production is as follows:

READ: Gabriel Cohen's You Talkin’ to Me? New York's Brash, Boisterous Blogosphere; Malia Wollan, The Big Draw of a GPS Run; and Rex Sorgatz's A Data Point on Every Block: An Interview with Adrian Holovaty.

LEARN: google maps. this part of the assignment is optional: you have the option to learn google maps now or later.

LOG OFF: a) visit one place, restaurant, park, bar, store, water fountain, lake, cafe, bookstore, bus line, church, alley, or any other thing or place in the city of san francisco; b) soak it in; and c) collect, compile, and create a flickr set that includes the following information:


(be sure to tag your photos dmp09mapproject)

have a nice weekend.

yelp homework assignment

yelp homework for digital media production

1. create a profile on yelp. using your full, real name is optional.

2. write a yelp review about something or someone in san francisco.

3. when thinking about what makes a good review, consider reading some yelp reviews to get a sense of the style, tone, and flavor.

4. once you have posted your yelp review, tweet it. be sure to include a link from your tweet to your review. your tweet is due no later than monday night.

5. this assignment is not very demanding. therefore, do it really well.

flickr assignment

flickr assignment for digital media production

1. by now, all of you have a flickr account. you know how to create sets and tag photos in flickr.

2. visit keri smith's everything i've consumed today. spend some time with it. consider sharing it with a friend, roommate, or classmate and having a conversation about it.

3. for one whole day (or 24 hours), photograph everything you consume. upload your photos to flickr, create a set, provocatively title the set, and strategically tag the photos. use as few or as many photos as necessary to tell a compelling and comprehensive story about your one day's worth of consumption.

4. in doing this assignment, be responsible and exercise good judgement with what you do and do not document. keep it real, but also keep it smart.

5. once your flickr set is finished, thick tweet it, making sure to include a link in your tweet to your flickr set.

6. on tuesday, october 6, demo your flickr set in class. during your demo, encourage, listen for, and receive suggestions on how to make your flickr set even better. it is your responsibility to solicit feedback. if you have no new work to demo, do not come to class.

7. in a one page, single-spaced essay turned in at the beginning of class on thursday, october 8, discuss your project, making sure to address two topics: a) what you learned about your own consumption behaviors from doing this project; and b) how you changed, altered, or otherwise improved your project as a direct result of what one or more of your classmates said during demo day. failure to alter your project and discuss this alteration in your essay will set your grade back considerably. no late work accepted.

twitter assignment

twitter assignment for digital media production

1. if you have not yet joined twitter, join twitter.

2. create a profile. use your real name. make your profile public.

3. find and follow all members of digital media production class.

4. search for and follow all people mentioned in all of our previous readings. this includes people who wrote the articles, people mentioned in the articles, people who made the videos, and people featured in the videos. you are free, of course, to unfollow any or all of these people, but only after first following them for a few days and reading through portions of their archive.

5. keep in mind that we will be using twitter extensively and in many different ways throughout the semester. the goal of this assignment is to get all of us up and running and connected with one another.

6. reply to at least one tweet.

7. post at least one RT.

8. post at least one #followfriday.

9. on tuesday, we will discuss in class the difference between thin and thick tweets. post at least one thick tweet. make it good.

10. in no more than a one-page single-spaced essay, discuss why you created your profile the way you did, introduce one person you follow, and explain why you find her/him interesting.

rules: a) on tuesday, september 22, be prepared to demo your work. demo whatever you wish to demo but be sure to include a discussion of your profile, one person you follow, and one thick tweet. if you have no work to demo, do not come to class; and b) your one page paper is due in class on thursday, september 24. no late work accepted.

hints: if you are an experienced twitter user, use this assignment and class to up your skills. if you have not yet used twitter, give it a chance before declaring it silly. finally, read and follow all the directions included in this assignment.

facebook assignment

facebook assignment for digital media production

1. design a new or redesign an already existing facebook group. you may belong to the group but the group may not be about you.

2. when designing and creating your facebook group, seek and receive feedback from other people. consider talking to people who you think would join such a group; consider talking to the skeptics. seek and speak with more than a few people but not too many. above all, listen to what they say.

3. after carefully considering your feedback and paying special attention to the elements of social network sites discussed in Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, create your facebook group.

4. once you have created your facebook group, design an outreach strategy that results in people (or "fans") joining your group. your goal with respect to fans may be size, niche, geographic diversity, or anything else - but you must have a goal and you must design an outreach strategy to meet that goal.

5. in no more than a one-page single-spaced essay, explain your facebook group, your goal, your outreach strategy, and the outcomes.

rules: a) on tuesday, september 8, be prepared to demo your work. if you have no work to demo, do not come to class; and b) your one page paper is due in class on thursday, september 10. no late work accepted.

hints: a) you are allowed to create a gag/joke group but i highly advise against it. instead, you should work on/with a group that actually means something to you; and b) the most important element of this project is learning to listen to other people.

digital media production (fall 09)

this fall, i'm teaching a special topics course called digital media production. classes begin tuesday, august 25.


digital media production
Tues & Thurs 10:30 - 12:15
Professional Studies 227

Professor: David Silver
Office: Kalmanovitz 141
Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 9 - 10 am & by appointment

Digital Media Production is a special topics course designed around creating, sharing, and collaborating with digital media. Students will make digital media using facebook, twitter, flickr, yelp, blogs, google maps, transmedia, and kiva. Readings and discussions about digital media history and culture will accompany and inform our production and participation.

Learning Goals:
1. To learn how to use digital media creatively and effectively;
2. To learn how to use digital media collectively and collaboratively;
3. To learn how to learn new tools quickly and independently;
4. To learn about digital media history and culture; and
5. To experiment with the intersections among digital media and social justice.

Required Texts/Costs:
o Jessica Abel and Ira Glass, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (Chicago: WBEZ, 2008) - $5 (includes shipping)
o flickr pro account, $25
o One loan, via kiva.org, which will be returned in full.

Calendar:

Week 1: Introductions
Tuesday, August 25
o Introduce ourselves, distribute syllabus, and discuss course expectations.
Thursday, August 27
o Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2008.
o Rachel Dry, What Would Warhol Blog? Washington Post, August 16, 2009.
o Clay Shirky, How social media can make history, Ted Talks, June 2009.

Weeks 2-3: Social Media and Facebook
Tuesday, September 1
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Social Networking in Plain English, Common Craft, June 27, 2007.
o danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).
o Kate Miller-Heidke, Are You F*cking Kidding Me? (Facebook Song), YouTube
Thursday, September 3
o Amanda Lenhart, Adults and Social Network Websites, Pew Internet and American Life Project, January 14, 2009.
o Justin Smith, Exclusive: Discussing the Future of Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Inside Facebook, June 3, 2009.
o Stephanie Clifford, Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal, New York Times, July 30, 2009.
o Chadwick Matlin, Facebook Cornering Market on E-Friends: Fight to Own Social Media Heats Up, Washington Post, August 16, 2009.

Tuesday, September 8
o Demo Day: Facebook
Thursday, September 10
o David Gauntlett, Participation culture, creativity, and social change, YouTube, November 12, 2008.
o Due: Facebook Project

Weeks 4-5: Identity, Community, and Twitter
Tuesday, September 15
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Twitter in Plain English, Common Craft, March 5, 2008.
o Sherry Turkle, Can You Hear Me Now? Forbes, May 5, 2007.
o Ben Parr, HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter, Mashable, April 16, 2009.
o Mashable, How #FollowFriday Works
o Virginia Heffernan, Hashing Things Out: How Hashtags are Remaking Conversations on Twitter, New York Times Magazine, August 7, 2009
Thursday, September 17
o Corey Flintoff, Gaza Conflict Plays Out Online Through Social Media, NPR.org, January 6, 2009.
o Evgeny Morozov, Think Again: Twitter, Foreign Policy, August 6, 2009.
o Steven Johnson, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, Time, June 5, 2009.

Tuesday, September 22
o Demo Day: Twitter
Thursday, September 24
o Tim Lemke, Athletes open up in Twitter arena, Washington Times, May 26, 2009.
o Rick Maese, With Twitter's Arrival, NFL Loses Control of Image Game, Washington Post, August 2, 2009.
o Jennifer Van Grove, Michael Vick Signs with Eagles: NFL Players Tweet Reactions, Mashable, August 13, 2009.
o Jay Fienberg, I'd really wish someone with a muted trumpet would walk by right now and play something dusky.
o Due: Twitter Project

Weeks 6-7: Images, Public/Private, and Flickr
Tuesday, September 29
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Online Photo Sharing in Plain English, Common Craft, January 9, 2008.
o Virginia Heffernan, Sepia No More, New York Times Magazine, April 27, 2008.
o Michael Kimmelman, At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus, New York Times, August 2, 2009.
o Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Part II, Time Magazine.
Thursday, October 1
o Ira Glass, On good taste ... This American Life (Video: 5:20).
o Amparo Lasén and Edgar Gómez-Cruz, Digital Photography and Picture Sharing: Redefining the Public/Private Divide, Knowledge, Technology & Policy, August 2009

Tuesday, October 6
o Demo Day: Flickr
Thursday, October 8
o Noam Cohen, Historical Photos in Web Archives Gain Vivid New Lives, New York Times, January 18, 2009.
o Eugenio Tisselli, "thinkflickrthink": a case study on strategic tagging, 2009.
o Due: Flickr Project

Weeks 8-9: Free/User-Generated/Exploited Labor and Yelp
Tuesday, October 13:
o No Class (Fall Break)
Thursday, October 15
o Stacy Schiff, Know it All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise? The New Yorker, July 31, 2006.
o Stephen Baker, Will Work for Praise: The Web's Free-Labor Economy, Business Week, December 28, 2008.
o Eric Karjaluoto, Is Tim Ferriss acting like an asshole? ideasonideas, August 11, 2009.

Tuesday, October 20
o Demo Day: Yelp
Thursday, October 22
o Rob Walker, Handmade 2.0, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2007.
o Kathleen Richards, Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0, East Bay Express, February 18, 2009.
o Deborah Gage, S.F. Yelp user faces lawsuit over review, San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2009.
o Due: Yelp Project

Weeks 10-11: Words, Images, Video, Sound, Links, and Blogs
Tuesday, October 27
o Tom Coates, (Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... plasticbag.org, September 3, 2003.
o Andrew Sullivan, Why I Blog, The Atlantic, November 2008.
o Paul Boutin, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, Wired, November 2008.
Thursday, October 29.
o Michael Wesch, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, presented at the Library of Congress, June 23, 2008 (Video: 55.33).

Tuesday, November 3
o Demo Day: Blogs
Thursday, November 5
o Scott Rosenberg, Putting Everything Out There [Justin Hall] from Say Everything.

Weeks 12-13: Place, Movement, and Google Maps
Tuesday, November 10
o Spend a significant amount of time exploring: Oakland Crimespotting, Hillary Rodham Clinton in Africa, PhillyHistory, Fallen Fruit
Thursday, November 12
o Gabriel Cohen, You Talkin’ to Me? New York's Brash, Boisterous Blogosphere, New York Times, January 9, 2009.
o Malia Wollan, The Big Draw of a GPS Run, New York Times, August 19, 2009.
o Rex Sorgatz, A Data Point on Every Block: An Interview with Adrian Holovaty, Fimoculous, February 14, 2008.

Tuesday, November 17
o Demo Day: Google Maps
Thursday, November 19
o Due: Google Maps Project

Weeks 14-15: Digital Storytelling, New Literacies, and Transmedia
Tuesday, November 24
o Jessica Abel and Ira Glass, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (Chicago: WBEZ, 2008)
o Henry Jenkins, Why Heather Can Write, Technology Review, February 6, 2004.
o The Extended Reality of Cross-Media Storytelling, Power to the Pixel, February 4, 2009.
Thursday, November 26:
o No Class (Thanksgiving)

Tuesday, December 1
o Demo Day: Transmedia
Thursday, December 3
o Demo Day: Transmedia

Week 16: Giving, Getting Back, and Kiva
Tues, December 8
o Demo Day: Kiva

This class has no final exam.

Grading:
20% - Reading quizzes and in-class assignments
20% - Class and online participation
20% - Demo Days
40% - Projects

If you are concerned about your grade, you can request a meeting with me anytime during the semester.

Rulez:
1. Read all assigned readings prior to class.
2. In class, listen to and learn from everyone.
3. No late work accepted.
4. If you have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.
5. Publish work under your own name.
6. Starting August 27, no drinking out of non-reusable containers in class. Be creative with your thirst-quenching solutions.

first and last class of digital media production

back in late january, during the first day of class for digital media production, i wrote in chalk all of the tools and platforms we'd be using spring semester. under the names of the tools and platforms, i made two - and sometimes three - columns based on things like use vs don't use, know it vs don't know it, and read vs write. then i asked students to get out of their seats, approach the blackboard, and record, in chalk, their start-of-the-semester levels of knowledge and experience of each of these digital media platforms.


fifteen weeks later, on the last day of class last thursday, i re-wrote in chalk the names of the tools and platforms. i put an X through yelp and video because we ended up not covering them. for about an hour and a half, the students and i discussed each of the tools and shared our likes and dislikes. we collectively brainstormed and agreed upon appropriate questions and statements for each of the tools and platforms. for example, do you plan to keep using twitter? yes or no. each time we agreed upon a question, i asked the students to get out of their seats, approach the blackboard, and record, in chalk, their positions. when we were finished, the blackboard looked like this:


thanks, DMP, for an excellent and prolific semester.

5 ways my students use twitter

this semester, all of my students (12 students in digital media production; 17 in eating san francisco) are using twitter.

i require them to do two things on twitter. first, for each of them to follow everyone else in the class. second, once they have completed a class project (a video, a blog post, a flickr set), they must tweet about it and include a link to it. other than that, they are free to use twitter, or not use twitter, in any way they choose.

over the semester, my students have come up with some really creative and collaborative uses of twitter. i'm impressed.

here's 5 ways my students use twitter

1. to announce and link to a blog post about one's role and contributions to the campus newspaper.


2. to set up - and say thanks for - interviews with people for class projects.


3. to negotiate dinner reservation times for class field trip.


4. to announce and publicize events taking place on campus.


5. to share readings and resources relevant to last night's class discussion.


and


(my students also, from time to time, use twitter in completely inane ways; maybe one day i'll blahg about that.)

homework for tuesday's class

homework for tuesday's class in digital media production

tuesday's class will be a wikipedia workshop day. if you have a laptop, bring it to class. if you don't have one, try to borrow one from your roommate or friend.

also, prior to class, please:

1. create an account on wikipedia. you may use your name, your full name, or a pseudonym.

2. start an account on google docs. this requires having a google account.

3. watch common craft's google docs in plain english.

4. learn how to use google docs.

5. cut and paste the section or subsection of USF's wikipedia page you are working on to google docs. save it and be ready to edit and add to it in class on tuesday.

6. in class on tuesday, using zotero, wikipedia, and google docs, we will individually and collectively work on USF's wikipedia page.

a talk about the future

tomorrow i'll be giving a talk as part of the communication and the future conference at cal state east bay. if things go as planned, i hope to cover four things.

exhibit a: twitter assignment

exhibit b: cook a delicious meal assignment

exhibit c: a community garden on campus


exhibit d: jerusalem artichokes


update: a photograph of the audience:

zotero project

zotero project assignment for digital media production

1. visit, download, and familiarize yourself with zotero.

2. take some time with some of the site's learning tools, including the quick start guide and the video demo on the front page.

3. add to zotero the library/print resources you found from last week's assignment.

4. find and add to zotero between 5-10 online resources that will help you with your section of USF's wikipedia page.

5. discover at least one interesting feature of zotero and be ready to share it with the rest of class on thursday.

hint: take some time with zotero - it's more powerful and more useful than you may first think.

rule: if you have no work to demo, do not come to class.