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One more workshop + group studio (collaboratory edition)

Texts to have read / found / reviewed

  • Writer/Designer chapter 8, on "Putting Your Project to Work," documentation, and the "multimodal afterlife"
  • Whatever materials or tutorials you need for your individual tasks toward your group project

Work to have done

  • Progress toward your group project: check off items on the tasklist.
  • Email Ben with any requests for minilessons or tool-specific advice

Intro to Final Portfolio (10-15 min)

The final portfolio will consist of a single document – ultimately, a WordPress post, but you can draft it elsewhere for better version control if you wish – containing the following:

  1. a prose reflection of roughly 800-1200 words, reflecting on the course and framing the portfolio’s contents in terms of your learning and goals (see reverse for guidelines);
  2. representative thumbnail images, hyperlinked to final versions of your four unit projects, i.e. Visual, Audio, html+css Markup, and Collaborative;
  3. links to GitHub repositories for at least three of those pieces, showing their revision histories;
  4. and a link to at least one specific prior draft, demonstrating your revision skills.

These links and thumbnails can certainly be embedded within the reflection, and in fact that might make the most sense, but there are other options possible.

By linked thumbnails, I mean something like these:

thumbnail for visual unit assignment: handout with prominent title and sidebar image of moveable type

thumbnail for audio unit assignment: screen capture from audacity project file

thumbnail for html+css markup unit assignment: screen capture of website

You can use WordPress's built-in "Add Media" button to upload the images – and provide alt-text and a custom URL to link to, at the same time.

Let's look at the handout for more on what the reflection should entail.

Work in Progress Presentation (WIPP), 20 min

You know the drill now:

  • Presenters will update us on the project goals and overall work plan, then share some designed composition-in-progress they'd like feedback on.
  • The rest of us will then offer responses that describe features or aspects of the composition, evaluate their effectiveness in terms of the goals, and suggest possible ways to improve their effectiveness.

We have only one group left to present, and that's our interactive data visualization, taking 5 minutes or so to present, and 10-15 for discussion.

Group Time, 30 min

Do what's needful for your projects, bearing in mind that I'd like each group to again please write me a quick email updating me on today's progress, and your updated task goals for before next class. CC everyone in the group, so you have a record.

Note: if you're using an issue / task queue, whether on GitHub or elsewhere, you can also send an email pointing me to that.

Some tips and EXTs:
  1. If you haven't yet, have a look at the checklist and sets of questions in Writer/Designer chapter 7 (110-112) for some revision considerations. Some are matters of final polish, but some are essentials. Discuss with your groupmates which is which.
  2. Look back at the goals you set for yourselves, both in the group contract and in the criteria-gathering google doc. Knowing what you know now, and what you have now, what do you need to do to meet your team's baseline criteria for success by Tuesday? Which aspirational criteria are achievable by Thursday?

I'll float; call me over as needed.

Before you leave: announcements and scheduling

We have two more days of class, and then a week after that until the final portfolio deadline; I would like to have one more chance for you all to share your collaborative projects, in their final form. We could do that all on Thursday, if need be, or we can divide it between Thursday and Tuesday. Who would be ready, when?

On Friday, from 10am-2pm, there will be a Digital Media Showcase in CL 501. Come and be inspired!

For next time

Inputs

  • Look back over the criteria-gathering google doc, and think about all the digital design skills we've been working on. How might you bring these to bear on your collaborative project? Can you solve a design problem with CSS? Can you emphasize your top priorities through contrast?

Outputs

  • Keep working on that group to-do list!
  • I would expect that by Tuesday (if not already), you should have at least a rough cut, i.e. all your materials in the final platform and looking like the real thing. Then you'll be ready to refine – or publicize, depending on the group.
  • Consider which earlier projects, if any, you'll want to revise for the final portfolio.
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