Welcome to the Digital Composition Blog. This will serve as a forum for Mr. Almon's Digi Comp students to post assignments, commentary and other materials relevant to Digi Comp curriculum. Onward!
Consider submitting your work to the ASTE (Alaska Society for Technology in Education) iDida contest. Movies, Digital Photography, Podcasts, and Original Music are all accepted and can be uploaded at the ASTE site at the following link:
The following article about Google's use of your personal information was published by the Atlantic Magazine and is a timely piece on digital ethics. Click the link. Read the article. Then respond to the following questions as a new post to your blog:
In your opinion, has Google crossed a line by taking the actions that are documented in this article? How might you change your behavior when using Google products in the future as a result of the changes?
Remember, detail counts! You need to refer to specific details from the article to give yourself the opportunity to get full credit.
Please respond to the following questions in a new post to your blog:
1. What does SOPA & PIPA threaten to do to everyday users of digital media?
2. How would these threats change your own behavior and usage of the internet and other digital media? Be specific about what you now do on the internet, and what you would not be able to do if SOPA passes congress.
3. Finally, what ethical concerns are bound up in this legislation?--think about the three areas of digital ethics in order to answer this question.
You've just watched three examples of high quality digital stories. You, too, are going to create a digital story using photographs (either your own or others) and background music. Like the three examples, you are attempting to tell a coherent, theme-based story, using photographs and music which align and make sense together. As you might expect, you want the photographs to tell the story and the music to provide the tone and emotion.
So, to get started, you need to write a response to the following questions in order to begin thinking about your digital story:
Copy and paste these three requirements to a new post on your blog and then provide thoughtful responses that reflect the depth of your thinking about this assignment.
What will the overall theme (main idea) of your story be? Include relevant people, places, ideas, and action that will transpire. In answering this question, you should also answer: What do I want my audience to take away from my digital story?
What are your ideas for background music? What emotion should the music covey to the listener/viewer? How will the tone of the music match your photos? Address how the music will align and compliment, not detract, from your digital story.
What will the chronology of your photographs be?
For instance, what will be included in the early photos, which start the story and establish the theme and background?
What will occur in the middle and contain most of the action and the moment of highest tension?
What will occur near the end in order to wind the action down and being a resolution to the story? (In all, address the three major movements or acts of your story, as they would play out on the screen.)
Telling a story in five frames involves using five images or pictures to tell a story, using only a title to guide your viewer/reader's interpretation of your story. Since you are limited to a simple title, it needs to be both significant and fitting to the story you are attempting to tell by purely visual means.
Today, I am asking you to go to the Flickr website and review some stories in 5 frames that have already been created, to gather ideas, and to see what kind of feedback each author gets (http://www.flickr.com/groups/visualstory/).
After you have looked over several selections on Flickr, you are required to pre-write before beginning to create your own photo story. To fulfill this assignment, you must look below at the 5 basic requirements for each "frame" or photo and write a response explaining what you will ideally include at each frame of your story. So, for the "1st Photo" you need to write a response discussing who your story will be about, and where and when it will happen. Then continue to address each of the following 4 photos and their required information: Be detailed; you will be graded on the level of your specificity.
Copy and Paste the information below to a new post on your blog, and then address the requirements of each photo, in writing, accordingly:
1st Photo: Addresses characters, location, and time 2nd Photo: Creates a situation with multiple possibilities of what might happen 3rd Photo: Further addresses the characters in action or a situation 4th Photo: Pushes the story forward and suggests probable outcomes 5th Photo: Contains a logical, but surprising end.
*Avoid simply using a chronological sequence of photos--this is uninteresting, predictable, and won't capture your audience's attention. Choose photos that allow your viewer to fill in the gaps and make their own meaning.
One essential part of writing well is to test your writing on a sample audience (your peers) and have them comment on your strengths and weaknesses. Conversely, it is also essential that your peers read your writing and give you feedback.
In order to accomplish this task, visit at least two of your peers' blogs, use the format below to comment on their descriptive/narrative pieces, and leave your feedback as a comment on their blog.
Bless-
First, read your peer's essay and give them positive feedback. Tell the writer what you like about their essay. It could be their word choice, tone, choice of descriptive language. No matter what you comment upon, give them some specific, yet positive commentary.
Address-
In this section you need to ask questions about parts of the essay you don't necessarily understand. Or, you may choose to ask questions, which push the author to take a new direction, if you think it's appropriate. Begin your questions with, "I am wondering if...." This will encourage constructive questions, which are not condescending.
Press-
Now it is time to press the author to make improvements and to push them to develop their idea further. This is where you should be critical of some part of the author's writing and give him or her suggestions to improve or fix it.
In this section it will help to (ask the writer directly) what they want you to press upon. They may be aware of some weakness in their writing, which you can look explicitly at, and help them improve.
After you have finished the descriptive writing piece, based on the photograph you selected, complete the following (part II) exercise based on the same photograph:
Now that you have described the composition of the photograph in detail, using the five senses and imagery, I would like you to tell a story based on the elements of the photograph. You can think in terms of a movie. For instance, if this photograph was representative of a scene, what might have happened just before it was frozen? And what might happen if the photograph were put back into motion?
Or in other words:
"What happened before the frozen photo, and what is going to happen after you press play?"
Overall, it is your job to create a story that is representative of the photo by filling in the gaps, using plenty of detail from your descriptive piece.
Include this short story in the same post as your descriptive piece, and use the title: Photo Narrative as the heading for your story. This narrative piece should also be between 200 and 500 words.
In the new media environment, writers have become very good at using images, whether photographs or drawings--with text--to tell a coherent story. This did not happen before social networking and other web 2.0 applications were widespread.
If we assume the above statement to be true, it is imperative that you, as a digital citizen, become competent using text and images to tell a story. This is the essence of what we will be doing, in multiple forms, for the next few weeks.
So, to the task at hand:
Today, you will start this unit with a new post on your blog.
ASSIGNMENT
First, search the internet for a photograph or image you would like to write about. It is often helpful to choose pictures that contain human subjects, or scenes which are visually engaging, so that writing is a natural act in response to the image. The two example images below are winning photo essay submissions from a national contest. They were used to write a descriptive response, which is what you are being invited to do today on your blog.
The general characteristics of descriptive writing include:
elaborate use of sensory language
rich, vivid, and lively detail
figurative language such as simile, hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and personification
showing, rather than telling through the use of active verbs and precise modifiers
Example Photos Used for Descriptive Writing
Human image with an engaging, surrounding environment.
Concealed identity, relationship, beach scene.
Now,
Choose a photograph of your own, upload it to blogger by 1. saving it to your desktop, 2. then hitting the "add image" button (to the right of the spell check button above.)
Under your image compose a short descriptive response (200-500 words), focusing on describing the scene in the photo. You should describe what you see, using the five senses, so that your readers can vividly see the connection between your text and the picture you included. You need to recreate the photo in words using plentiful sensory imagery.
You have the entire class period to compose your essay. You will be using the same photograph to complete another writing assignment later this week, so put effort in to choosing a photo and describing it in detail.
For your second blog entry of the year, you will be composing your personal code of ethics. This code should be a set of rules which guide your use of digital technology in school, home, and social environments. Your code of ethics should cover all three major areas of ethics we discussed: Privacy, Property, & Appropriate Use. Ultimately, this code of ethics should be a no-nonsense guide to using digital technology properly. (Please see requirements below.)
REQUIRED:
Title your post "Digital Code of Ethics"
Include between 10 and 15 guidelines
Begin each guideline in a parallel fashion i.e.) I will, I will not, etc.
Guidelines must be grammatically and mechanically sound, as well as easily readable
Guidelines should cover all three major categories of ethics
First, copy and paste the link to your blog in the Moodle forum "blog addresses." I need all of your blog sites in order to set up a feed so I can grade your writing. Please accomplish this first. Then,
After you have established and formatted your blog, please respond to the following writing prompt as a new entry on your blog:
Choose one of the following statements and complete it in a written piece that introduces yourself:
I believe...
I am someone who...
I come from...
I used to be...Now I am...
You will be graded on the 6+1 Writing Traits rubric which is linked on Moodle. Please review the rubric before writing so that you are aware of what is expected of your response. At minimum you need to respond with text; if you would like to use images, you are welcome to add them.
