Final Project
Due Friday, 12/9, by midnight.
For your final project, you are going to tell a story across multiple categories of media. You’ve done writing, photography, audio, video and design. You’ve remixed and mashed up. You’ve done big projects and group projects. You’ve connected different stories. Now we’re going to bring it all together in a transmedia extravaganza.
Audio track clipped from Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium Is The Massage.
Your story has to involve at least four of the categories of media from the Assignment Bank. You can use the assignments for inspiration, but you should not consider yourself limited by them – do what makes sense for your story rather than trying to follow an assignment to the letter. The different media should work together and complement each other to tell the story. For example, part of the story might be told through an audio file, but there could be a series of photographs or animated GIFs that serve as an introduction. Maybe a Google Map would connect different parts of the story. You do not need to follow that example. The point is that it should play out across several different media. That’s what I mean by transmedia here: across various media.
Note: In the past some people have tried to make the case that video counts as audio and writing and photography and video, calling it four media in one. While I can see where that argument comes from, for the purposes of this assignment video is one medium.
You are welcome to collaborate on your final projects. Those who take this option will need to write their individual reflections on the project. You are welcome to build on what you’ve already done. Your story should in some way relate to the theme of the course, but how you do that is entirely up to you. It’s your world. Have fun with it.
How big should this be? How long of a story do you have to write? That’s hard to quantify. This is a major project, so treat it as such. Think about the work that went into your radio shows – it should be comparable to that. Think of the kind of effort that would go into doing about 40-45 stars worth of assignments. Your project should showcase what you have learned about storytelling with online media.
By next Friday, 11/18, at midnight, you need to post a progress report. You would be wise to post work in progress along the way and ask the group for input and feedback. You must regularly monitor the ds106 site and give input and feedback on people’s works in progress. I am not putting a number on how many comments you have to give, but you do have to help each other out. If you post everything at the last minute, you do so at your own peril.
By Friday, 12/2, post a second progress report. The same rules apply as above. The point of these reports is to keep you consistently and conscientiously working on the project, rather than procrastinating into trouble.
Post the project by 12/9. Your final project should be in a blog post. You will submit the URL of that to Canvas. It can link to other posts, if it makes sense to run it in multiple parts. All media – images, audio, video, etc. – must be embedded (not linked) in the post(s). The final project needs to be accompanied by a final weekly summary, in which you discuss and reflect upon the project. This could be the same post as the project, or a separate one, depending on what makes sense for your project.
There will be an additional (easy) assignment in the last week, details to come.
