Goal
The goal of this course is to help you become producers
of certain new media and intellectual
consumers of new media in general. This goal is
facilitated by your reading, writing, class
participation, research, creation of new media, and by
our community of thinkers, of which
you are an important member.
Your Basic Responsibilities
I expect you to attend every class, to show up on time,
to read every word of the readings, and
to do all the assignments on time and with care and
intelligence. Completion of this course
entails completion of all work. Beyond that, of course, I
look forward to a lively exchange of
ideas in your projects and in our actual and virtual
discussions.
Work
Between reading books and articles, analyzing the 'Net,
learning new media programs,
creating new documents and studying for tests, you will
be working very hard in this class. In
addition to the minor assignments which you can expect
each class, listed below are the major
ones.
Designated Readers
Once during the semester, you will help lead a brief
discussion of an assigned reading. You
are expected to come to class prepared to engage your
classmates with questions and
comments about the assigned reading. You should read the
text very carefully and push your
classmates to think in new ways about it. You must also
hand in a one-page response to your
assigned text.
The New Media List
I will create an e-mail mailing list for the class so
that we can continue the classroom
conversation online.
Tests
There will be two tests and one final examination. There
also will be regular quizzes based on
the readings.
Projects
There also will be a number of projects, each
corresponding to a unit. The major ones are
listed in the syllabus.
Final Project
The final project will involve what you have learned in
each of the course units. I will tell you
more about this project later, but suffice it to say that
it will involve your creating a
sophisticated Web page.
Yes, I Give Extensions, But Only Prior to Due
Dates
Extensions must be requested prior to due dates; late
work will be severely penalized. You
should also inform me of legitimate medical excuses,
special learning needs, or schedule
conflicts of a religious nature.
Your Grade
Your grade will be based on your tests and projects (with
the final exam and final project
weighted heavily), your high-quality classroom and
virtual participation, and your fulfillment
of your other responsibilities, as outlined above and
below.
Plagiarism
Read the plagiarism handout carefully. The bottom line is
that you must take care not to use the
words or ideas of others without giving them proper
credit. Plagiarism is surprisingly easy to
detect; if you plagiarize, you'll fail this course and
could be expelled from St. Michael's.
Plagiarism is wrong, but learning about it need not be
fraught with anxiety; I am happy to
answer your questions about what is and is not
plagiarism.
Plagiarism will take on specific meaning in this class as
we access and download software,
graphics, text, and other items from the 'Net. I will
discuss this later in the semester. As a
quick rule of thumb...
1.you may copy anything from the Net for your own use.
2.If you turn it in to me, you must cite your sources.
3.And if you publish it (put it on your Web page, for
example), you must make sure
that it is not copyrighted or that you have written
permission (and made a copy of this
permission for me) from the copyright holder.
Alternatively, if it is clear that this is
not your creation, you may link to the Web site where you
obtained it.
I Don't Bite
I encourage you to stop by during my office hours if you
wish to discuss any aspect of the
course, including how it might be improved. Oftentimes,
the best learning takes place in a
professor's office.
Mac Formatted 3.5 floppies
You will need to purchase at least one 3.5 floppy disk
(Mac format) by the end of the first
week of class. Because Zip disk drives have failed in the
past, you will be storing your work
on floppies and on a common server. Because you won't be
using Zip disks, you'll need to
keep file sizes small. We'll talk about this in the first
weeks of the semester.
Readings, in order of appearance, and where
they may be found:
Auletta, Ken. "Annals of Communication: The
Reëducation of Michael Kinsley," New
Yorker, May 13, 1996 (handout).
Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age
of the Internet. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1995 (bookstore).
Weinmann, Elaine. Photoshop 5 for MacIntosh & Windows
: Visual Quickstart Guide (Visual
Quickstart Guide Series). Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 1998
(bookstore).
Stephens,
Mitchell."Expanding the Language of
Photographs."
Weinmann, Elaine. QuarkXPress For Macintosh.
Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 1996
(bookstore).
New Media Schedule
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