Autobiographical Story
February 29, 2008
The goal for this project is to create a PowerPoint presentation that illustrates your autobiographical story. The key to this presentation is you. It’s your story, and you’re going to tell it to the class. The slides are there to emphasize the dramatic points of your story. The literary aspect you chose to include (irony, metaphor, or symbolism) should be enhanced by your PPT.
When you are presenting, we should see images and either single words or short phrases. Do not use bullet points. Make sure you don’t put the story into words on slides, as if we were going to read it. You’re going to be telling us the story — we shouldn’t be reading it at the same time! Instead, create slides that will punctuate or deepen the words you’re going to be saying out loud. If you want to, you may use notecards to remind yourself how the story goes.
You will have Friday 2/29/08 and Monday 3/3/08 to create your PowerPoint and practice the timings for your slides. Everyone will present their stories in class on Wednesday 3/5/08.
FaceSpace
February 26, 2008
First, register your current choice of social networking sites by voting on Moodle. The class percentages will be revealed at the end of this project.
Introduction
The goal of this project is to design a web site that’s better than Facebook or MySpace. Consider all of the different things we’ve discussed in this class about online privacy, safety, educational uses, and of course social needs. What will you include, take away, add, or change? Think about what the web sites out there today are able to do, and what you wish they did. How would you make them different or better?
Tuesday 2/26/08: Brainstorm
Who is the target audience of MySpace? What does this audience want in a social networking site?
What is your site’s name (and is it available as a Web address)? What’s your marketing angle or slogan?
What does MySpace currently offer, and what is it missing? What kinds of things will the site offer that are similar to MySpace, and what things that are different from MySpace?
What parts of MySpace are frustrating or difficult to use? How can you offer something better?
Why will people come to your site, or switch from MySpace to your site?
Email your answers to Mr. Chun.
Wednesday 2/27/08 or Thursday 2/28/08: Design Layout
Neatly draw the elements for the new site page on paper. What is the basic concept and look of the home page? Toolbars? Login? Profiles? Photos? Forums? Color schemes? Will there be advertising? Create the appearance of your web site so that everyone can see what it looks like.
Friday 2/29/08: Presentations
Everyone will show their site design and explain the different parts. You will have exactly one minute to talk, so make sure you know what you’re going to say! Be persuasive about how this site is different from and better than other social networking sites. Make sure you are sharp and to the point! Mr. Chun might ask you questions. Be ready to think on your feet and respond.
CYOA Project
February 20, 2008
In this project, you will be creating an interactive hypertext story.
These kinds of stories are sometimes known as Choose Your Own Adventure
(CYOA) because of the popular book series with that title. You will
create your story in PowerPoint. The plot of the story is up to you,
but there are several requirements designed to help you learn more
about the advanced features of PowerPoint.
Before you start, read the Wikipedia entry on CYOA,
particularly the section about Format. This will help you understand
the range of options that you have — there are many, many
possibilities!
Requirements
- Include
at least four slides with a decision (where clicking one choice or
another will lead to a different slide) and at least five reachable
endings. These choices should be activated by an Action Button (on the
Slide Show menu) or by a Hyperlink (on the Insert menu). - Have at least 20 slides total, but no more than 60 slides total.
- All
slides in your story should get their “look” (background, font, color,
etc) from a custom Slide Master. If you need multiple different
“looks”, you must create multiple Masters. Don’t go crazy. Make the look of
your presentation match the feeling of your story. - No text boxes, except those that exist on the Master. Inserting extra text boxes on slides is a bad habit!
- You
may not use any pictures, photographs, or clip art in your story.
Instead, use the Drawing Toolbar and AutoShapes to add visual elements
as appropriate. Every ending must have some kind of visual element. - At
least one of your endings should have an Action Button that hyperlinks
to a web page. Your choice of web page should make sense based on the
story and the ending! - All slides except decisions
or endings should have a Slide Transition, and should advance on mouse
click and also automatically advance after 45 seconds if the reader
does not click. This moves the reader through your story to the decision points. - Endings and decisions should neither advance on mouse click nor automatically.
- All
slides that require the reader to make a decision should have their
Slide Transition set so that it will not advance on mouse click. The
Hyperlink or Action Button should be the only way to get to a different
slide.
Due Date
Your file must be dropped off by the end of the day on Wednesday, 2/27/08.
Tips
- It is possible to change the color of hyperlinked text, but it is not possible to remove the underline from the link.
- If you don’t want to include bullet points in your text, edit the Slide Master to remove them. You should also display the rulers and adjust the indentation in order to make things look neat.
- Use a diagram or map to stay organized. You can look at this map of Third Planet from Altair as an example of a very complex story. Another example is this hand-drawn map of Night of a Thousand Boyfriends. Yours won’t necessarily be this complicated, but the idea of using a diagram can still be helpful.
Wikipedia Article
February 20, 2008
In Tuesday’s Moodle discussion, many of you mentioned that you’d like
to know more about how trustworthy and accurate the information on
Wikipedia is. Today, we’ll start to investigate
that.
Go to Wikipedia
and look up an article about a topic that interests you — it can be
something from one of your classes, or something from popular culture.
Throughout the article, you will see references that look like [1] or [5] . Click these to see links to
supporting information. At the top of the page, you will see a tab
labeled discussion. Click it to see the “talk page”
for that article. Also at the top of the page, you will see a tab
labeled history.
Click it to see a list of the revisions (changes and updates) that have
been made to the article. You need to find an article that is
developed enough to have each of these things: references, discussion,
and history.
Questions
1. What is the topic and URL of your article?
2. When was your article first written? When was it last updated?
3. Do you personally notice any problems or inaccuracies with this article? Anything missing?
4. What possible problems with the article are mentioned on its talk page? How do you think they should be resolved?
5. How would you rate the quality of the links you found in the references section?
6. Do you think Wikipedia is a trustworthy source of information? Why or why not? (1 paragraph)
The
assignment is also posted in Moodle, and you’ll
submit your work there.
Creative Commons
February 15, 2008
Review the presentation from Wednesday, and you’ll find today’s assignment on the last slide.
Essay Conclusion
February 15, 2008
Today, we’ll be finishing this essay. Before you start, there’s a survey on Moodle to see how everyone is feeling. It might be nice for you to check in there and see how far we’ve come from our original discussions.
The last paragraph of your essay is the conclusion. That’s what you’ll be writing today. This can be the hardest part, but if you look back to your introduction and your outline, it should start to make sense. The reason we have a conclusion is to bring together the different things you wrote about, and show how they all support each other and your original thesis.
You might want more information about the 5-paragraph essay. This reading is optional, but can help you if you’re stuck on your conclusion. Once you are finished (and spell-checked), have your collaboration partner read your essay and offer any final comments or advice. Be sure that it’s shared with Mr. Chun, and you’re done with the essay!
Designing a Utopia
February 15, 2008
This project will serve as the visual portion of your “Brave New World” project for Ms. Morrison’s class, and as our first 3d animation project for AOIT.
As stated in the original project description, this will explain more of the physical characteristics of your utopia. And what better tool for that than Maya? Here are some questions to think about, from a conceptual design perspective:
- Where do people live?
- Where do people do different types of businesses / jobs?
- Where do people get convicted of crimes, if that’s part of your utopia?
- Is there an ocean? Where?
- Where do people get medical treatment?
As a visual answer to these types of questions, you have the choice of modeling anything from one building up to an entire city-state. After creating the model, you will set up a short (10-15 second) animated camera movement — a “fly-through” — to show off your creation. You will turn in a “screen blast”, which is a movie capture from the animated camera’s perspective. Also required is an explanatory statement so that a viewer can understand what physical part of your utopia they are seeing, and why you chose this particular aspect to highlight with a model. If you have multiple people in your group, each person must create a different model to illustrate different aspects of your utopia. Groups with multiple people may join their movies together, so that they represent multiple scenes from your utopia, or you may keep them separate. Your movie is due March 7 at 3:10pm. Technical notes on Maya follow.
Cameras
To see a list of all cameras (and other objects in the scene):
Window > Outliner
To create a new camera (for animation):
Create > Cameras > Camera
To look through a particular camera, first select it, then:
Panels > Look Through Selected
Or, if you want to select a camera by name:
Panels > Perspective > camera_name
Animation
Ctrl+Space = show/hide timeline (bottom of the screen)
s = set keyframe (an object, such as the camera, must be selected first)
Unlike Flash, each object in the scene can have its own keyframes. Select an object, press the s key to set a keyframe, then move the time slider up and move the object in the scene. Press s again to set that keyframe. Remember that the object or camera has to be selected, and that moving it does nothing until you press s to set the keyframe.
Output
Playblast = screen capture into a movie file
Right click on the timeline > Playblast
Essay Introduction
February 12, 2008
Today we’ll be writing the introduction to the essay you outlined on Monday.
1. Create a new Google Doc, titled “Frontline Essay”, and put your name and period number on it.
2. Share your Doc with Mr. Chun as a collaborator. (If you do not do this, you will not get credit for today’s work.)
3. Write the first paragraph of your essay. Remember, this paragraph needs to include your thesis statement, a response to the topic question you used yesterday. This introduction paragraph should also give an overview of the points you are going to make in the essay. Use your outline to help you with this.
Essay Outline
February 11, 2008
Before we start writing an essay, we need to get organized. Prewriting and an outline are two of the things that help this organization. The prewriting was done in our online forums in Moodle. The outline, we’ll do today. But first, what are we writing about?
Here are some possible topic questions for your essay — pick one:
- How can parents help their kids stay safe online (and not worry all the time)?
- How can schools make sure students are safe online?
- What do teenagers need to know about being safe on popular social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc)?
You can also create your own topic question related to the Frontline documentary we watched, Growing Up Online.
Notice that a topic question, as you try to answer it, leads to more questions and ideas. Since we’re trying to write an essay, the goal is to think of all the things we need to explain in a good answer to the topic question. The outline should start with your main topic question, followed by three points or ways of answering that question. Under each of those three points in your outline, add ideas and facts that support the point. You may want to revisit our discussions in Moodle to help you think about things. Here is an example of what your outline should look like:
Topic Question
Point 1
Facts / Concepts / Quotes
Point 2
Facts / Concepts / Quotes
Point 3
Facts / Concepts / Quotes
When you’re finished, email your outline to Mr. Chun.
Music Presentation
February 6, 2008
The goal of this assignment is to learn about some of the features in PowerPoint that are designed to make it easy to create consistent layouts for your slides, and create a presentation with a coherent visual style. The topic of this presentation will be a band or music group / producer that you enjoy.
Required Elements
- A title slide with the name of the band
- A slide giving an overview of all band members and their instrument or role in the group
- A slide for each individual member, including a photo and some facts about them
- A slide giving an overview of the band’s discography
- A slide for each album they have released, including the cover
- A slide listing the name and URL of at least one fan site
Required Style
- Each consecutive slide must use a different slide layout.
- An animation scheme must be applied to the entire presentation.
- A custom animation applied to at least one element on each slide.
Required Citations
- You must list the source (URL) for all facts and images on the same slide that they appear.
- Use a smaller font for citations so they don’t visually compete with other elements.
Optional (Extra Credit) Items
- A slide explaining any controversies about or within the band.
- An action button on the slide for the fan site that can be clicked to open the URL.
Tips
- The words in italics are vocabulary words for PowerPoint — make sure you know them!
- You can print out a reference card if you like
- On the “Help” menu, you can click “Show Office Assistant” to get that annoying little paperclip guy, who actually can answer some of your questions.
- You might also later want to click “Help” and then “Hide Office Assistant” if he starts to get a little too helpful.
- Rock on.
Deadline
- This project is due at the end of the block period (3:10pm) on Wednesday, February 13, 2007.
- Drop off your file, named like this: 5_lastname_firstname_music.ppt
