[Chad]

Welcome to digital media in the humanities (aka. Multimedia!). This course was taught to me by Dr. Sinclair, and was a very informational class.

Overview
The big project in this class is creating a web site. You don't need to know how to make websites prior to the class as you will be taught, but by now I'm sure everyone has made at least one website in their highschool classes so it isn't too difficult.

Readings
Yes, there are readings, such as Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" and other large readings from big thinkers in the field of digital media.

Essays & Projects
No essays in this class, at least not when I took it. Breakdown:

• Topic Proposal Web Page (20%): a simple web page with your proposed topic
• Site and Page Design (20%): an interface design for the project
• Final Project (60%): the complete Web project.

There are small quizzes that take place throughout the course. They quiz you on the course material as well as computing history, etc. If you do your readings you should be able to answer them easily. You do them online, so if you need help you can always do research on Google to find an answer if necessary.

Final Project
You will be graded on the following criteria:

• ideas and expression
  • topic (is it significant to the development of multimedia?)
  • coherence (does everything in your work tie in well with your topic?)
  • relevance (do you discuss relevant issues?)
  • argumentation (are you convincing?)
  • choice of examples and illustrations (including multimedia)
  • use of other scholarship and references
  • quality of your writing (including spelling, grammar, expression, etc.)
• design
  • general appearance
  • page layout
  • site structure
• technique
  • your use of CSS and templates
  • the validity of your HTML code
• improvement from previous assignments

Tutorials
There are tutorials for this class, and in them you will learn how to do proper web design in Dreamweaver.

Hello I switched into this course.

So do we have time in class to make the website or is it an at-home type thing?

Also do you use stuff like photoshop? Should i d/l it to my personal comp? should all images be our own? Do you have to use dreamweaver or can you just type your own html?

lol sorry for all these questions!

Update: This course has changed drastically since I took it. It is being run by a new professor who has rewritten all the projects. It is even easier than before, from what I hear, and you just have to create a wiki and some other small things... with NO web design.

I heard something along the lines of them making a powerpoint

There are now 4 projects:

1) A proposal and slide storyboards
2) A slideshow
3) A website
4) A wiki

You use the same topic for the first three, then the wiki is a group project.

But apparently there's a very high chance this course is going to change again next year.

Yeah this course seems kinda easy so far, my highschool art and design courses were more challenging... our class average is 90 and we only have two more assignments left. In lectures... we learn stuff like primary colours O.o stuff from kindergarten!

a lot has changed since I took the 1A class. New program structure with a new prof!

This was my bird course. I had dr Shyba for this course. Don't buy the courseware.. or find some ppl and pitch in to buy one book.


Anyways topics covered in lecture somewhat were unrelated to each other and we honestly spent time watching youtube videos on game openings. (waste of time!)

In tutorials, we spent time in computer labs working on various assignments. I have taken design/art courses in highschool and so things were pretty smooth for me however a lot of people who were completely new struggled with some of the work. The TA I had, kept this mind and thus had lower standards.

Exam was easy. Review the online slides once and you are set. The long answer portion was drawing pictures and creating a map to a website and powerpoint presentation based on given criteria.

Assignments:
- Storyboard for powerpoint presentation (paper assignment)
- Powerpoint Presentation (compuer assignment)
- Splash page for website (computer assignment)
- Website Outline (paper assignment)
- Website (computer assignment)

All assignments are based on a topic you choose. By the end of course, i was sick of my topic.

Originally Posted by sinthusized

All assignments are based on a topic you choose. By the end of course, i was sick of my topic.

And if you want to change topics for the website, for example, you have to redo every project before it on your new topic - no one ended up changing their topic!

My exam is in a couple of days for this course. I took it with Dr Sinclair.

There was no wiki or storyboard or anything...we did a topic proposal, a web design proposal, and a final project which was essentially a web essay (the topic was 'the evolution of multimedia). It combined the essay and web design.

The breakdown was:
Topic Proposal 10%
Design Proposal 10&
Final Project (Web Essay) 15%
Quizzes 15%
Checkpoints 10%
Exam 40%

The checkpoints were sketchy though, it seemed like they were unplanned until too late and Dr Sinclair ended up leaving it up to TAs how they would assign the 10%. Our TA did a pass/fail assignment in tutorial which just required a reconstruction of a website design we'd done the other day.

Actually, the checkpoints got screwed up because of the strike. He decided to leave it up to us to decide how to distribute the marks because we know what our tutorials are good at. It ended up being less work in the end, anyway!

im not sure if i shud take this course in 1st year as an elective. is this course easy and hows the workload?

Originally Posted by MIpolice

im not sure if i shud take this course in 1st year as an elective. is this course easy and hows the workload?

Check out the course outline: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=2858 3

This class is beyond a joke. By far my easiest - and highest mark - out of all my classes. I recommend you to take it, its VERY easy and easy to get a high mark.

Honestly I give this a course 10/10 on the easiness (only if you do all your work!)

Some tips:
Do your quizzes in partners or a group, so much easier.
Find the right partner for the final assignment, make sure he/she fits good with you.
Go to all tutorials, they are worth marks !

taking this class right now hope its a bird!