The projects you will create in this course are designed both to deepen your understanding of gender, race, and labor in the digital world and to let you explore possible themes and techniques that you might pursue next year in DCC 208 and your capstone project. You will have only three weeks to complete each one, along with all the other requirements for this and your other classes, so I do not expect to see a high level of technical polish. What I do expect to see is your creative, thoughtful engagement with the topics we read about and discuss in class. As a new faculty member with DCC, I am looking forward to this opportunity to discover your work – show me what DCC can do!
For each of the four projects you will create, you will take part in a workshop where you will discuss your peers’ creations. We’ll use a standard set of questions to help structure the feedback you give.
After the workshops, you will have two days to make any changes you’d like, before you post your final project on our website. Along with your final project, you’ll write a short reflection (400-500 words unless otherwise directed in the specific project instructions) explaining what you did, why you did it, and what you learned from the process.
Project due dates:
Unit 1 (Play, Privilege, and Power): Make a critical game
Workshop version: 18 February 2015
Final version with reflection on process: 20 February 2015
Unit 2 (Social Media and Social Justice): Hack your digital social sphere
Workshop version: 11 March 2015
Final version with reflection on process: 16 March 2015
Unit 3 (#hashtagsmatter: Digital Activism): Curate the data from an activist hashtag
Workshop version: April 15, 2015
Final version with reflection on process: April 17, 2015
Unit 4 (Imagining Transformations): Speculate a technology
Workshop version: May 6, 2015
Final version with reflection on process: May 8, 2015
Each project is worth 50 points of the total 500 in the class. In order of importance, your grade for each project will be determined by:
1. Thoughtful engagement with course concepts and assignment. Are you following the assignment directions? How vividly can I see the influence of readings and discussions in your work?
2. Nuance and complexity of ideas explored. How deeply are you reckoning with the challenges and contradictions that surround race, gender, and labor in the digital world?
3. Evidence of effort exerted. Have you put substantial time and energy into this work, researching beyond class material and seeking help with conceptual and technical difficulties as they arose?
4. Originality and imagination. How fresh and exciting are the concept and execution? Is there scope for further development beyond this class?
5. Technical proficiency. How effectively are you making use of the methods you have chosen? This doesn’t necessarily mean that your project will be technically elaborate, but that you understand the affordances of the method you are using and are taking advantage of them.
In addition to these general expectations, there will be specific requirements for each individual project.