User Education-Multimedia

James Elmborg

Office: 3070 Main Library
Phone: 319-335-5717
E-Mail: james-elmborg@uiowa.ed u
Class Hours: 3:00-4:15 Tues. and Thurs.
Office Hours: 1:00-3:00 Tues. and Thurs.
Location: 3083 Main Library

Graduate Assistant: Sydney Walden
Office: 3073 Main Library
E-Mail: sydney-walden@uiowa.edu
Office Hours: 2:00-3:00 Tues. and Thurs., 4:15-5:00 Thurs.
Help Sheets (including links to digital camera manuals)

Course Outline

Goals:
The course will combine three important goals. By the end of the course, you should be able to:

Produce high quality digital images, sound, and video for distribution on the internet
Organize and manage a complex web site with coherent directory structures and interlinking HTML pages
Understand and articulate a philosophy of the impact of digital media on the culture of teaching and learning
Use multimedia in the context of a library's instructional programs

The course outline reflects these three goals.

Texts:

Readings for the course will be available in the departmental reserve box on the hall outside faculty offices, 3rd floor, Main Library.

Buy Your Own Text: You should purchase a guide to doing multimedia/web design. There are many such books available. Pick one that is accessible to you.
Two books that have proven popular in the past are:
Williams and Tollett. The Non-Designer's Web Book
McFarland. Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual
Karlins. The Complete Idiot's guide to Marcromedia Dreamweaver MX

Assignments:

PowerPoint without Words--
For this assignment, you will compose a presentation using PowerPoint software. You must pre sent your work to the class without speaking. You may use any of the features of PowerPoint, but you can't talk, and only one slide in your presentation can contain text.

Microdocumentary--
For this assignment, you will work with a partner, and together you will need to identify a "world "with which the average class member is not familiar. You will make a movie that documents this world. Your fil m should help us understand this world, how it's organized and what things are valued there.

Photo Essay
Choose a subject that you would like to explore using a series of up to 20 photographs. Organize the photographs into an online exhibit, creating captions for your work if you think necessary. Experiment with various composition modes (linear, collage, etc.) until you find the best mode of deliver given your subject. Try to explore the possibilities inherent in the online environment to create juxtapositions, comparisons, and connections between the photos.

Course Portfolio--
During the course of the semester, you will learn a number of skills that build upon one another. You will learn to make complex web sites that employ various naviga tional strategies. You will learn to manipulate images and create audio and video files. You will learn to make Flash movies. Using all these stretegi es, you will create a web site that reflects what you have learned. Your web site will not necessarily include every technique or strategy you learned in the course. It should, however provide an accurate means for evaluating your level of achievement.

Grading:
The grades in the course will be determined by a distribution among the three major themes of the course. These are:

PowerPoint without Words- 15%

Microdocumentary-15%

Carnegie Photo Gallery- 15%

Course Portfolio- 30%

Final Essay- 15%

Class Participation, Daily Assignments- 10%

A Note On Grading--
You may be used to grading systems that quantify your work using points and percentages. In this class, grades are by necessity sometimes more qualitative than that. Media its elf is evaluated on different terms than text (a look at the local film review section of your paper will demonstrate that truth). Most of the project grades will be equally balanced between three components: Artistic Quality, Conceptual Quality, an d Technical Quality. For each assignment, you will be asked to produce an Artist's Statement. The puprose of this statement is to allow you to set the terms for the evaluation of your project. In it, you should explain what you were trying to achieve in your project and to evaluate your own happiness with the product. To some extent, human judgment will play a part in assessing media objects. You will receive clear explanations of grades, but t hese grades will not be quanitified as they may be in other courses.

Assignments that will count specifically toward your grade are in red text below.

Starting Documents:

What happens in learning clas srooms

Multimedia questions

Can We Build It? Can We Fix It?