2014-03-16

Once upon a time not so long ago… or this week, there is a new course in digital storytelling. You are now in it.

As a guide to these weekly assignments posts, they are meant to provide everything you need to do for this unit, especially important for registered students. They rather long, so we put them into sections that you should click a heading to expand. A general structure for what you will find in each is

Introductory Video / Inspiration Video This is where you are now. Everything else opens below for each heading. Don’t forget to open them all!

Overview of Week Overall summary of everything else that follows.

Things to Watch/Read/Listen Each week there will include videos, audio recordings, or web site/documents to review; these are things you will be asked to write about in your blog as a reflection.

Some notes on a suggested approach. I am not looking for you to write prosaic academic summaries but to find what small “nnuggets” are meaningful; as you watch/listen/read, use what best works for you to take notes. Maybe pen and paper, maybe an open document. When you are listening, and you hear something that gets your attention, arouses your curiosity, or makes you want to jump up and disagree… STOP. Note the time stamp in the audio/video, and make a note. Keep track of these “nuggets”, ideas, questions as you listen and read. Use this as a basis to write your summaries.

Things to Do These are specific assignments that are usually creating media or tasks you should do on your blog.

Specific things within a weekly post will be marked like to indicate a required task for GMU students

Each one should be written up as a separate post on your blog, and categorized appropriately. There are three main components expected in an assignment writeup– The Work Itself; Telling the Story Behind the Story; and Narrating the Process. See How to Write Up Assignments Like a Blogging Champ

Checklist Summary for Final Reflection Each week you are expected to write up a summary that includes a description and links to all the assigned work for the week. You will asked in essence to also grade yourself on the criteria for your work that week, and provide additional notes on the connections you make from the assignments to the more general concepts of communication or content creation, a well as assessing your level of participating for the week. This is a chance to get to the “So What” of storytelling (see below). For registered students, this is the basis for your weekly grade.

HEY WHERE’S MY INSPIRATION?

The weekly inspiration is meant to get your creative juices in gear for the week. There is no assignment, except to enjoy them (or criticize them).

This commercial for Google features Pixar Filmmaker Andrew Stanton; we will get a chance down the page to hear him explain his approach to storytelling in film.

Setting Up Your Digital Work Space

Setting Up Your Digital Work Space


cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Travis Isaacs

In this course, each student/participant publishes and writes about their work in a blog they manage. We have designed this site so it can subscribe to each blog and aggregate them (e.g. All GMU students, all open participants, everyone who is part of ds106).

If you are an open participant, you can use any blog platform you wish, and if this is your first time in DS106, register it with our site.

GMU students are required to create a blog at WordPress.com and email your blog’s URL to your instructor.

Now before you go start clicking… wait! Think about what this space means, more than just a box to drop your assignments or just a course blog. It belongs to you. You will get to pick a name and a unique URL (the name can be changed, but the URL is fixed), don’t just reach for “Bob’s DS106 Blog” or “Mary’s EDIT 572 Class”. A title ought to be a lead in to a story.

Consider thinking of a metaphor for a creative or reflective space. Maybe a journal, or a studio, or a laboratory, or a kitchen, or a garage, or an imaginary castle. This class is about putting creative, even imaginary ideas into place, to experiment with what you can design.

Or try a name that reflects a favorite story character, or movie, or fictional setting. I recommend avoiding putting your real name in the name, URL; try initials, or just a nickname, or a favorite pet/food/activity (heck I am a dog everywhere).

Setting Up a WordPress.com Blog (GMU Students)

This should be started ASAP because it is the place you will post the rest of your work for this course. You will find many answers for how to do X via the WordPress.com help center

If you have never used it before, create an account at WordPress.com (if you have used it, you can just log in and create a new blog). Click the Get Started button.

Right away you will have to select the URL for your blog (use the free wordpress.com option). Think carefully, as this name cannot be changed. My demo blog is http://ds106goestowork.wordpress.com. You will then have to confirm the account via a link in your email.

In addition to WordPress, make an Gravatar account using you GMU email address. This can associate an icon you choose to represent yourself when you comment on other student blogs (it will do this automatically if you enter the GMU email address when you post a blog comment).

These are some customizations you should do inside the dashboard admin area of your WordPress.com site:



General Settings screen

General — Settings: While your blog URL is fixed, you can always change the title and tagline. It’s important to set your local time zone as this defines the time date stamps on your posts. Having an icon is optional.



Theme Selector

Appearances — Themes The default WordPress Template is fine, but it’s worth exploring the other theme options available. Be sure to click the “free” filter on the top right. You can switch themes at any time because WordPress keeps your content stored separate the part that controls its display. Find a theme that fits the metaphor for your site or a style that speaks to you.

How categories should look

Posts — Categories Create Categories for organizing your blog posts. See this short screencast for help in creating Categories. You are welcome to name then as you see fit, and add your own, but these are categories I would like to see every student blog- note that there are four categories set to have “Assignments” as a parent:

Best Work

Thoughts

Assignments

Visual

Design

Audio

Video

Project

Weekly Summaries

Also, you might want edit the name of the “Uncategorized” category used as default if you do not specify one.

Pages — All Pages Pages are stand along content, not part of the blog chronology. The site creates a default “About” page. Edit that page to put a little information about the site (which you may not have much to say right now, this is to practice editing). Try creating a new page called “My Tools” or equivalent, keep a running list of the software and web site tools you use in this course (return to edit this as you go).

Example Menu Structure

Appearance — Menus Create and edit navigation menu – you can add the post categories, and the two pages you created/edited above to the menu, as well as a menu to goes to another URL (link). On the right you can drag to re-order and indent to make a sub menu.

Posts — New (or from the top menu +New -> Post). Okay! Try writing a welcome to me blog post. Write about how the experience of setting it up went, if it feels like it represents something interesting. Make sure you use one of the categories you created from the box in lower right to associate it with the ones you set up. Try adding an image to your post as well.

Exploring the Shape of Stories

Exploring the Shape of Stories

Just to start thinking broadly about the ways storytelling can be done in a new way published on the web, scan the pioneering efforts of the New York Times to change the idea about what an article could look like on the web. Pay attention to what the media add to (or subtract from) the story. How well do they do to capture your initial interest?

Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

A Game of Shark and Minnows

Under One Roof

Next, review the video below from author Kurt Vonnegut where he describes the structure of stories. It’s a great overview about the shape of stories. And take note of Vonnegut’s style of telling a story about storytelling- how he plays with your expectations, his use of pause, inflection…

After watching this video, start a new blog post and explain a story that you’re familiar with in terms of Vonnegut’s approach.

Pick a movie, TV show, book, poem, song, etc. The idea is to outline the shape of that story in a visual and descriptive form an identify the key parts of where the story shape changes. Create some kind of media (a diagram, sketch on paper). Be creative!

Here’s a bonus infographic where graphic designer Maya Eilam applied Vonnegut’s ideas to a number of familiar stories.

Next, choose one rules from the list of 22 Rules of Storytelling Pixar Uses to Create Compelling Stories.

Using the same story you charted a the Vonnegut shape, add to your blog post an identified example from that story that aligns with the rule.

You can find many “formulas” for creating stories, but one of the best approaches is the Story Spine by Kenn Adams. As he explains, it’s not the entire store, but the structure of it that holds it together, like the spine in your back. His post includes the spine applied to two popular movies.

Use the same example you chose for the Kurt Vonnegut story shape, and set in the story spine format.

What Makes Stories Work?

What Makes Stories Work?

Listen to how a premiere thinker and creator of audio stories via This American Life, Ira Glass, describes what is important in the kind of storytelling practice he does:

Primary is that there are two levels at work:

The anecdote a series of events “This happened then this”. Note the style Glass tells what he says is a boring story (use of inflection, timing)

A question it raises that says something about the world we live in or that provides a moment of reflection. Sometimes it is called the “So What?” of the story. This plays into what Glass calls “the bait”- the hint of whats to come at the outset without giving it away.

When you listen to this video, make notes of what you think are important ideas (this will be useful for the week’s writing assignments).

For another perspective, watch the Ted Talk by Pixar filmmaker Andrew Stanton on The Clues to a Great Story (note, there is an F-bomb in the opening 3 minute)

As you listen, keep track of elements that strike you as worthy clues.

Your Starting Perspective on What is Story

Your Starting Perspective on What is Story

What do you associate with the word storytelling? What is the visual that comes to mind? What experiences or memories does it conjure? Does it have any place in your life now?

Before you do anything this unit, use this as an opportunity to put down in words what your current concept is. There is no right or wrong answer here- this is to set up your current concept of what story means.

Do not go look anything up online — I am looking for your ideas not definitions. Write a blog post to represent a starting point that says what storytelling means to you. Write it more like a free association exercise than an academic treatise. What comes to mind visually when you think of the word? Think about what the word brings to mind: images, places, people, sounds. Who do you recall as telling you memorable stories> How would you describe the idea of storytelling to someone else?

Then, expand on what it might mean to introduce the word “digital”? What changes, is different, or is the same? What do you see or think of when we say “digital storytelling”?

Finally, add the ideas you got from listening to this week’s videos by Ira Glass and Andrew Stanton- what, if any, might influence your thoughts on the implication of storytelling for the types of communication you do.

Write up your responses to both these questions as a single post in your “Thoughts and Ideas” category in your blog. You will return to this later.

Storified and Non Storified Content

Storified and Non Storified Content

Watch this “TouchCast” video about Storytelling and Design– it illustrates the difference of a story focus in video form. Both are well produced commercials for technology firms, but approach the delivery in slightly different ways.

How much difference does this make? As you interact with media in your every day activities– shows, advertising, online content– start asking yourself if you are seeing a storified approach (which may not always be called for). Look for things that do not seem to be explained well, or that do not kind much interest for you to become engaged with it.

This might be an instruction manual, a recipe, a web site, a video that explains poorly complicated task, an article. This will be an ongoing activity to find an example you can use for your final project, where you will create media to add storytelling elements to it. Do not worry if you cannot find a great example, just start the process of thinking about it, and observing the world around you. This also needs to be something that others can see on the web, or for which you can post a photo/video to your blog, so for GMU students you should look for things outside the scope of your job.

This is deliberately difficult, and you will return to this topic in the next weeks as a way to brainstorm the topic for your final project. I have some examples in mind, that will be shared next week, but your first task is to struggle with this assignment. You are not graded on achieving some bar, but how you try to reach that bar.

Write a blog post summarizing what you found that might or might not work. Explain why you chose it. You do not need to have a perfect example, but show that you are seeking something to work with.

Checklist for Weekly Summary

Checklist for Weekly Summary

For GMU students, these are items your work for the week will be graded (and should match to the items highlighted in the sections above. Your Weekly summary post should provide a brief summary of what you did, and a hyperlink to it. I am looking as well for your own self assessment on your progress this week; how would you grade yourself?

Do not write it like what you expect a teacher might expect, write how you might explain your work this week to a close friend or family member.

Create a blog at WordPress.com and email your blog’s URL to your instructor. Experiment with a different theme, add post categories, edit the About page, start a new page to track the new tools you discover, add navigation menus, and write a first “welcome to my site” blog post.

Write a blog post with your ideas on the shape of stories (do not forget to use interesting titles!). Include an diagram and discussion of a story you drew a shape after the style of Kurt Vonnegut. Add an example from that story that aligns with one of the 22 Pixar Rules. Identify the elements of the story that match the the Story Spine format. Describe what you discovered in this process of exploring the shape of stories.

Write a blog post about your own perception of what storytelling means to you. Expand on what it might mean to introduce the word “digital”? Add any insights ideas you got from listening to this week’s videos by Ira Glass and Andrew Stanton- what, if any, might influence your thoughts on the implication of storytelling for the types of communication you do?

Write a blog post summarizing what you found as a possible candidate for “storifiying”. Explain why you chose it. You do not need to have a perfect example, but show that you are seeking something to work with.

Your final summary blog posts should then be linked to the 4 required posts for the week, and also give some sense of how you feel about the first week of the course.

So, does DS106 have your attention now?

Good!

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