Week 2: Video Narratives and Storyboarding

Our first class session was a bit hectic, so I’m looking forward to next week, when we can slow down, get to know one another, and dive into our first readings and first assignment. If you haven’t done so already, please complete the following two tasks as soon as possible (don’t wait until Monday!):

Set up your Twitter account, if you don’t have one already. Choose a username you are willing to share publicly, upload a photo to your profile, and write a short bio for your account.
Leave a comment on the Week 1 post, introducing yourself to the class and answering the questions I posed in that post. When you add your comment, be sure to put the URL for your Twitter account in the “website” field.

Here’s a breakdown of how we’ll spend our time in class next week and what you need to do before we meet:

On Monday, we will begin discussing Howard Rheingold’s Net Smart, so please read pages 1–33 before you come to class. (If you’re reading the ebook version, it’s just the “Introduction.”) If you haven’t received your copy of Net Smart yet, you can download a PDF of the Introduction. When you have finished the reading assignment, add a comment to this post proposing a quote or argument from Rheingold’s introduction that you would like to discuss in class. (Please add your post no later than Sunday night so I can see them all before class.) In class, we will discuss the reading assignment, then I will introduce our first assignment, the Video Narrative.
On Wednesday, we will hold our first workshop session, which will be focused on developing storyboards for your video narratives. Please come to class with at least three different ideas for your video narrative, and be ready to share them with your classmates. (Trust me: this will make more sense after we discuss the assignment in class on Monday.) In addition, please read/watch these pieces on storyboarding:

If you have any questions about our plans for next week, please send me an email, or contact me on Twitter. Otherwise, I’ll see you in class on Monday!

Becca says:

January 26, 2013 at 6:59 pm

I would like to discuss the quote “The politics and psychology of privacy…now poses daily challenges for parents, students, and citizens” on page 11 in regards to the Find My IPhone application.

Ron Schuetz says:

January 27, 2013 at 10:50 am

I would like to discuss this quote as it pertains to the growing online world. Is this a valid assertion? Yes, we should be cautious, but is there a way to truly ensure factuality of I formation on the Internet?

“Probably the first advice I would give unequivocally, based on my own decades online, is that in a world where information is abundant and veracity is not guaranteed, while gatekeepers, authorities, and fact-checkers are scarce, each of us as individuals and all of us as a society have no choice but to learn how to think critically about what we pluck from the information flow, how much we are to believe what we find or are given, and whether we should even devote any mind share to it at all.”

Beth says:

January 27, 2013 at 1:03 pm

I’d like to discuss the quote “The tools I used to write this book …grew out of the dreams of people who specifically wanted to use computers to “augment human intellect” and link personal mind amplifiers into an “intergalactic network”.

I see the quote as an example of how today’s technology was influenced by the science fiction of the past.

Catherine says:

January 27, 2013 at 3:31 pm

I would like to discuss the quote from page 4: “… I learned about five literacies that are in the process of changing our world: attention, participation, collaboration, the critical consumption of information (aka “crap detection”) and network smarts.”

Jonathan says:

January 27, 2013 at 6:01 pm

If possible, I would like to discuss Rheingold’s conception of “social capital” and see if we can come to a more precise definition of what both the online community as well as individuals gain from attaining this.

“People who make even the most modest contributions such as correcting
a spelling error on Wikipedia or tagging a photo think of themselves differently
from those people who only passively consume the cultural material
broadcast by others. A participant is active. A consumer isn’t practicing,
even in a small way, the skill that is at the foundation of building social
capital online—for contributions are often signals to others that it would
benefit them to pay attention to and share with you” (Rheingold, 18).

Jordan says:

January 27, 2013 at 7:34 pm

I was first going to recommend reviewing the quote that Ron presented but there are so many good ideas I chose another that works well with it.

“Knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is, like it or not, an essential ingredient to personal success in the twenty-first century.”

It is so true, we must have limits but also be open enough for new ideas and innovations. Setting limits is an issue our generation has, we are all so information hungry and are constantly looking for more.

Brittany says:

January 28, 2013 at 10:31 am

The quote I would like to discuss is: “Literacy now means skill plus social competency in using that skill collaboratively” (4).

Now days everyone can read and write, but that is not enough to say that someone is literate. Today, literacy incorporates social skills as well, especially with social media. Whether you are a young adult or a business literacy through social media connects and without other users there would be no benefit of using this media. Therefore, because most everyone is using social media if you are not digitally literate your business or social life is lacking.