Digital Photography

A lightning bolt strikes behind a combine trying to finish wheat harvest

For this assignment we are going to explore digital photography using whatever digital camera you have available. Hopefully, you at least have a smart phone equipped with a camera which will do just fine, but if you have something nicer you may also use that. I want you to do some reading and reflection on digital photography.

  1. Experiment with this online DSLR simulator to see what the controls are like on a digital SLR camera.
  2. Recommended Reading Assignments:
  3. Look at some great photographs in the Masters of Photography website to see all of the great masters:
  4. Make some photographs using some of the photography tips you have been reading about. After spending time reading about photography and experimenting with some of the techniques you have learned about. Write a reflection essay about the experience. Include your photographs you are discussing. Which photographic techniques did you try? Be specific. Mention the reference articles or chapters that you read about and tried. Include the photographs in the essay. Did it work well for you or not? Why or why not? (Submit on Canvas as a MS Word .docx file).
  5. Familiarize yourself with photo editing software such as Photoshop, Pixlr or Gimp.
    • You might have to watch some online videos or read some articles that are beginner tutorials for digital photo editing software. Scott Kelby has some fun tutorials on Photoshop you can watch. If you don’t have access to Photoshop, you will need another digital photo editor. Two popular ones that are free are Gimp and Pixlr. Gimp is widely used but it has a steep learning curve. Pixlr is like a no-frills Photoshop, but it is free and works in most web browsers so you don’t even have to download anything to use it. You should be able to do the same basic photo edits in any of the editing programs.
    • Adobe and others have some great mobile apps you can try. Some Photoshop-like editing is becoming trivial on some mobile apps. You are welcome to try these as well.
    • There is no requirement to use any particular type of camera or software, only that you experiment with manipulating digital images outside of the camera.
    • Create a composite (more than one source photo in the same picture) image. (Upload it to Canvas as a .jpg file).

 

 

Digital Storytelling

steveAustin

So how are we all getting along these days on Planet Earth?  This week I would like for you to view the classic video created by our very own K-State professor, Michael Wesch, The Machine is Us/ing Us. Published in 2007, this video now has over 12 million views. Of course the digital interfaces shown and some of the technology discussed seems out of date, but the key principle is still relevant; digital texts are different than printed texts in large part thanks to the hyperlinks and multimedia.

Digital texts have become the new “normal” way of communicating for most people. We are nearly a quarter of a century into the 21st century yet our educational institutions are still firmly planted in the old ways  Sure we use computers, but mostly to do the sort of work that would be completely familiar to our parents and grandparents. We still write a “paper” or read an article from a periodical or  journal. College students did these things before computers. I can remember in the 8th grade, I made a slideshow presentation about our community using a shoebox and a roll of paper on which I drew pictures while I played a prerecorded soundtrack that I recorded with a tape recorder. I basically made a PowerPoint presentation using the tools I had available to me.

The things we are doing now have sped up, but are mostly the same. |

Think about this: how have we as readers and consumers of digital new media texts been affected? What about the content creators and storytellers? How have our lives been changed (have they changed?) now that we can just as easily create and share information as we can find and consume it?

  • I would also like for you to view this video of Kurt Vonnegut and start thinking about the Shapes of Stories.

  • After viewing the Vonnegut video, choose a favorite story that you are familiar with. Ideally, try to think of one that fits with our theme of survival. Vonnegut’s example of Cinderella fits the survival theme, but don’t use his, find your own example. It could be a classic tale that everyone knows or it could simply be a book you have read or a film/movie/show you have seen at some point. Apply the “shapes of stories” described by Vonnegut to your new story. What shape would it be? What techniques are used in the story to gain and hold your attention? Is it a traditional text-based story or is it in another format? Every media format has its own language. It is our job as students of digital literacy to consider what those languages consist of and begin exploring some of those techniques that might be of use to us in the future. Start thinking about storytelling and story structure and how they work in the digital realm. Write up your thoughts in a blog post and title it with something like “Story Analysis”. Share an excerpt of what you wrote with the rest of the class in your Island Space on Miro.com.
  •  If you have not already done so, introduce yourself on Teams to the other classmates and find out something new about 2-3 others. What are your common interests? Learning and/or career goals? What do you like the best about online learning? What do you like the least? Use the #General Teams channel for this type of conversation.
  • Brainstorming – Think about stories, books, films, music and any other forms of media that relate to our theme of “The 20th Century.” Post your ideas in the Week 3 – Brainstorming thread. Draw from these ideas to complete this week’s assignments from the DS106 Assignment Bank.
  • Summarize a Movie with Animated Gifs
  • Create a 30-45 second radio commercial for a product from the 80’s. Add in some background music and/or sound effects to make it sound like a real radio commercial.
  • Summarize the week. Create a summary post of all activities for the week and post it to the Week 3 assignment on Canvas. Please submit your summary by next Monday evening at 11:59 pm. The weekly summary needs to be a recap of the week’s work that you completed. Use the weekly summary to refer back (link) to each of the other posts you have written and any assignments you have worked on during the week. It should include descriptions of all of the assignments and activities that you have completed.

    You don’t need to rewrite what you’ve written elsewhere, but do summarize those other posts and provide a hyperlink back to them as well. There is a link button in the editor to easily make hyperlinks.

  • Still Confused? Please contact Professor Genereux right away. Teams messaging is preferred. E-mail (billgx@ksu.edu) is also acceptable.

Module 1 – Surviving Digital Literacy

Welcome to DigMe 256 Digital Literacy

gilliganCastaways

Can you imagine what it would be like to be shipwrecked alone on a deserted island? Or adrift at sea? What about surviving a plane crash on a mountain top? Do you ever think about those poor people in war-torn countries huddling underground just to make it? These scenarios have been the subject of many stories and films; sometimes they are true and sometimes they are fiction. But they point to one truth, the resilience of the human spirit.

Hello, I’m Professor Bill Genereux, the instructor for this course. You can find me many places online by searching for the name billgx. This digital literacy course will be built around the theme of “Survival” and all that it entails. Stories of surviving, both factual and fictitious, abound. Throughout the semester, be thinking of the stories that you are familiar with or that you encounter along the way and use them to inform your work.

Getting started in the course involves some hard work. Surviving always does. While it will be challenging, it lays the groundwork for everything we will be doing together throughout the semester. We will be learning to use many different digital and online tools to communicate, tell our stories and share our ideas.

The key to success in this course is to do the work assigned and document it by writing up a summary of what you accomplished. These summaries will typically be due each week on Monday evenings at 11:59 PM.

For the first week’s assignments, complete the following activities then write a weekly summary and submit it to Canvas by the due date of Monday, August 29, 11:59 pm.

  • Any website option will do, so long as you can write and post information to the world wide web that I can view in my browser.
  • Create a personal website For years, we have recommended using Wordpress.com for web publishing beginners. However, this is a recommendation only; the only course requirement is that you publish your work to the world wide web. We must be able to view your work in a standard web browser online! The video about Geocities shown below provides an introduction to the “do-it-yourself” ethos that existed in the early days of the Internet. We encourage this DIY attitude in the Digital Literacy course. Check out the first 3 minutes or so of the video to see what the Internet was like in the early days. While it looks antiquated to our modern eyes, Geocities was truly one of the first great user-created content websites.

    Here are some options for making a website for this class:

    • Option 1: sign up for a free WordPress.com website
    • Option 2: sign up for another web service like Wix.com.
    • Option 3: If you already have your own website, fantastic! You may use that for this class.
  • Communication. Please use MS Teams for communicating with the professor and others in the course. Click here to access the Digital Class Teams group. You can install the Teams app on your phone or computer or you can access it in a web browser.
    • Introduce yourself to others in the class on Teams. It’s ok to use a nickname or real name, whatever you prefer.
  • Submit the URL of your website/blog to K-State Online/Canvas. 
  • Set up some Digital Media Accounts
    This is an online class and we will use freely available online resources to do our work. You should not have to pay for any of these services but the accounts you use need to be publicly visible so we can share our work and see the work of others. If desired, you may create new accounts to be used only for this course and you are never required to reveal your name anywhere online.

    • Teams mentioned earlier. It will be used for non-public communication in this class. Use this link to begin: Microsoft Teams DigLit Group.
    • Soundcloud (audio publishing) http://soundcloud.com/
      Set up an account if you don’t already have one.
    • Youtube (video sharing)  If you have a Gmail account, you are already set with this because Google owns YouTube. If not, create a YouTube account.
    • Vimeo (optional video sharing) http://vimeo.com
      Alternatively, if you don’t want to (or can’t) use a YouTube account, feel free to use Vimeo for publishing your videos.
  • Introduce yourself to the class, and welcome others.
    Now that you have all your accounts, it’s time to use them to introduce yourself to the class, and welcome the others as well. Use Teams to introduce yourself to the others in the online learning community; be creative. 
  • Write a summary post on your website/blog every week. This week, write a post that shares your reflections on what your completed during the first week. These posts are REALLY important. We use them to grade your work every week, so you need to include reference links to any other posts you have made during the week for assignments, other media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why? Please be sure to include your handle(s) in your weekly summary blog post for the various websites & social media that you’ll be using this semester. When your summary is completed, submit a link to it for Surviving Digital Literacy on K-State Canvas.