Creating your Tag Cloud:

As an appendix to your essay, you will need to produce a Tag Cloud to visualise your essay.

Creating your Tag Cloud:

1. Copy and paste part or all of your essay into a separate word document on your computer.
2. Open a web browser and go to the Wordle website:  http://www.wordle.net/create
3. Copy and paste your text into the box
4. Click 'Go'

You should be able to see your tag cloud.

Editing your Tag Cloud:

1. Click Language' and select 'Remove common English Language'
2. Click 'Layout' and select 'Maximum Words...' change to '50'
3. Play around to edit the font, layout and colour of your tag cloud


Publish and SAVE your Tag Cloud

Add it to your essay

When you add it to your essay it needs to be an appendix at the back of the essay, before your referencing.

It is important you include the following information under the tag cloud in your essay.
- A tag cloud visualisation of "  " part of this essay. (Is it the whole essay, beginning, case study or conclusion?)
- created online using wordle.net

ASSIGNMENT TWO: 60% ESSAY: HOW DOES NEW MEDIA SHAPE SOCIETY?

Requirements: Assignment Two

A) 1300 word written essay
You are required to write an academic essay of 1300 words to critically reflect on your understanding and experience of new media. Your essay will focus on the question ‘How does new media shape society?’
You are required to include one detailed ‘case study’ of one ‘new media’ to support your argument. The new media you select to use as a case study is your choice, but you will need to check the relevance of it in Week 11 with tutor support.

You are allowed to use two case studies, only in the event of wanting to present a counter-argument of two cases.
You are expected to reference both primary and secondary sources and use a Harvard style of academic referencing.

B) ‘Tag Cloud’: visualisation of your essay
You are required to create a ‘Tag Cloud’ to visualise your essay. This will be created with tutor support and using ‘wordle’. You will be required to include this as an appendix to your written essay.


DEADLINES: Assignment Two

Friday 6th May at 3pm

You are required to hand in a printed copy with a tracking sheet to the assignments box in the Bredon building by 3.00pm on Friday 6th March 2011.

You are expected to read section 6 of the Media and Cultural Studies Student Handbook ‘Guidance for Study’ to help you plan, present and reference your written assignment. A printed copy is available from your tutor.

(5 days late grade=D) (5+ days late grade=0) Tutors are unable to alter these and cannot grant extensions.
If you need extra time, or cannot submit an assignment, you will have to apply for mitigating circumstances with evidence.
If you do not submit an assignment there will be no opportunity for re-assessment

You will get your grades returned by Friday 3rd June.
You are permitted to write 10% more than the targeted number of words, but do not write more than that as markers are unlikely to read or take into account anything beyond that additional 10%.

Please include a word count at the end of the report.
Appendices and References will not be included in the word count.

ONLINE LEARNING JOURNAL COMPLETION

Congratulations on completing your Online Learning Journals!

You should have all handed in a hard copy print of your Online Learning Journal at 3.00pm today (Monday 4th April) to the assignments box in Bredon with a tracking sheet. If you haven't already done so, please do this as soon as possible, so we have a recorded time and date of your hand in.

Your Online Learning Journals have also each been saved as a PDF document at 3.00pm today to record the finished journal.

You are not allowed to make any changes to your Online Learning Journals now.

Once you have been given your marks back by 29th April 2011 you will be allowed to continue using your Online Learning Journals to keep your notes and reflections.

ASSIGNMENT ONE: 40%: Online Learning Journal

ONLINE LEARNING JOURNAL

Requirements: Assignment One

A) Five Written ‘Posts’: 

You are required to write a minimum of five ‘posts’ between weeks 1 – 9. These ‘posts’ will be a minimum of 150 words each and be related to the module, suggestions of what to write about will be provided by the module leader and these ‘posts’ may include; 

reviews of key texts given as handouts in seminars,

reflections on practical tasks using new media platforms or exploring websites,

reflection on discussion or debate,

responses to questions set in the seminars. 

By week 10 you will have completed five written ‘posts’ (150 words each), which will become 750 written words in total in your Online Learning Journal.

B) Twenty Website ‘Links’:

You are required to save ‘links’ to all new media platforms, websites and online discussions that interest you and that are discussed in the seminars; these should be added each week and become a minimum of 20 links in total by week 10. These are added to Link Lists not inside posts.

DEADLINES: Assignment One

Your Online Learning Journals are monitored regularly and you are expected to complete the weekly tasks given to you on time. 

All weekly tasks to write a ‘blog post’ should be completed on your blog at 5.00pm every Monday. This is monitored each week.

Both A and B requirements of Assignment One will contribute to the assessment

The deadline for your completed Online Learning Journal is: 

Monday 4^th April at 3pm

You must hand in a printed copy of your Online Learning Journal with a tracking sheet to the Assignments box in Breedon by 3.00pm on Monday 4^th April. 

The print out must be on A4 paper. It can be either black and white or colour and the text of the blog posts needs to be readable. 
The print out must be from the webpage, NOT by copying and pasting it into word.
The print out of the blog will not look attractive, it just must be readable text.

This print out will be an archive to ensure that you make no more changes to your Online Learning Journal after the deadline.

“(5 days late grade=D) (5+ days late grade=0) Tutors are unable to alter these and cannot grant extensions.

If you need extra time, or cannot submit an assignment, you will have to apply for mitigating circumstances with evidence.

If you do not submit an assignment there will be no opportunity for re-assessment”

You will get your grades returned by Friday 29^th April.

At week 10 your Online Learning Journals should include: 

Posts:

1. Old Media vs. New Media  

2. Your Glossary term with Harvard Referencing  

3. What effects has the Internet had on journalism? 

4. Critical Review of The Social Network and Facebook 

5. Virtual Identity (including an image of your avatar) 

6. Exploration of mobile media and public space 

Links:

Your twitter page

Your paper.li newspaper

The MECS1008 Blog

At least 20 links to what we have discussed in Weeks 1 - 9


For more information and to read the learning outcomes, grading criteria read the 'MECS1008 Online Learning Journal Assignment.ppt.pdf' document in Blackboard

Task 6: Mobile Media and Public Space

This is a creative writing post in which to write a reflection about topics discussed in week 9, or to design your own Flash or Smart Mob.

How are mobile technologies shaping modern culture?

Mobile privatisation: (Raymond Williams 1997)

What private actions do you perform in public by using mobile media?

Private mobilization: (Matt Hills 2009)

How do you use your wireless and mobile media day-to-day at home? How has wireless access changed the functionality of how we use our home?

Exploring your mobile technologies, everyday communications on campus:

As you sit in the canteen, cafe, library or elsewhere on campus, look around you and document how many people are on their phones – what do they seem to be using them for?

If you were to organise a flash or smart mob on campus at the University of Worcester what would you do and why? How would you go about organising it and what do you think the reactions might be?

This is one of your blog posts for your Online Learning Journal so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words. Check referencing, spelling and grammar. 

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 3.00pm Monday 4th April 2011.

Task 5: Identity

Post 5: Identity

Following explorations of Second Life and virtual identity in week 7 and 8, discuss the following three questions

1. What do you think it would take for a chimpanzee, a Martian or a computer to be considered a person?

2. What can you claim is intrinsic to your identity and not to somebody else's identity? Suppose you point to a child in an old class photograph and say "that is me", what is it that’s you?

3. In a virtual world we can have a number of different avatars. From your experience of creating one avatar can you claim that the avatar is you?

Please include an image of your Avatar and include a written statement about your ‘First Life’ profile and your ‘Second Life’ profile in an additional post.

This is one of your blog posts for your Online Learning Journal so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words. Check referencing, spelling and grammar. 

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 5.00pm Monday 27th March 2011.

Congratulations!

A massive congratulations to all of the students who presented their Online Learning Journals in class today. You all did a brilliant job of talking through your posts, your arguments, your understanding of new media and your glossary challenge, and sharing your reflective writing, images, videos and links.

The top tips for all the Online Learning Journals are:

• Check you are referencing properly - is every quote, link and image referenced using a Harvard system? For quotes it is not good enough to just put a website link, you must include who said it and when they said it, the link and what date you accessed the link.
• Split your links into categories, to be able to clearly see the theme of the links, for example use the topics you are linking to, like old vs new or online journalism or categorise by type of link, like web 2.0, discussions, glossary, books, videos...
• Add images, if you want to make your blog look more colourful or if you would find it useful to visualise what you are writing about you can include images. This isn't part of the assessment, its up to you how you want the aesthetic to be. If you include any images, you must reference where you found them from.
• In your posts; make sure you are writing, discussing and arguing in a critical way, by raising problems and questions that we have discussed in class or others that you think of. Although you are encouraged to personally reflect on the new media you use to be able to write your Online Learning Journals make sure the language you use is not too informal, remember this is a University assignment.
• Allways proof-read and spell check (using ABC button) your posts before publishing.

As a reward to the wonderful students who presented today there is no homework this week.

For those who missed today's (week 6) lecture you need to read through this mecs1008 blog to catch up on what you have missed. And all students who have missed giving a presentation will have to at a later date as it is part of the Online Learning Journal assignment.

Next 2 Weeks:
Week 7: Tuesday 15th March:  PL1002 from 2.15-5.15 : Online Identity and creating your avatar in Second Life
Week 8: Tuesday 22nd March: PL1002 from 2.15-5.15 : Online Identity and event in Second Life

Please try to not miss these sessions as they are directly related to your essay assignment and it will not be possible to repeat these sessions or to do the work in your own time.

Task 4: Write a critical review

Write a critical review of David Fincher’s film The Social Network and/or the social media Facebook.

http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com

This is a critical review, so think about the issues related to this film and/or Facebook.

This can be one of your blog posts for your ‘Online Learning Journal’ so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words and be referenced and spelt correctly.

Some of the issues and questions we discussed in the class included:

Why is Facebook so popular and how has it ‘revolutionized’ the way we interact online?

Is our use of Facebook Narcissistic?

What are the Public Privacy issues?

Hacking and violation of laws

User-generated media

Performing online and social structures: relationship status, status updates, profile pictures

Is publishing an online post/status/comment irreversible or more problematic than saying the same thing out loud?

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 5.00pm Monday 7th March 2011.

Online Learning Journal Checklist

Use this checklist to make sure you have completed all of the instructions for the Online Learning Journal.

1.    The blogspot address of my Online Learning Journal is my student number. Tip

2.    I have invited or re-invited Rebecca to be a reader of my blog if I have changed the blogspot address. Tip

3.    I have the correct time-zone set up on my Online Learning Journal. Tip

4.    I have completed the blog post tasks. Details

5.    I have at least 10 links to external websites listed. Details

6.    I have included appropriate references of all quotes, images and website links throughout my blog

7.    I have checked the spelling and grammar of my posts.

8.    I have checked that all of my posts are over 150 words

You are expected to have completed this checklist by Week 6:

Monday 7^th March at 5.00pm

Online Learning Journal at Week 6

At week 6 your Online Learning Journals should include:

4 POSTS: Related to weekly discussions:

     1. Old Media vs. New Media
     2. Your Glossary term in the correct format and with Harvard Referencing
     3. What effect has the Internet had on journalism?
     4. A critical review of The Social Network film and/or Facebook as a social media.

It is essential that all students have completed the New Media Glossary Challenge and emailed me a copy in the correct format.

It is essential that at week 6 you have a minimum of 3 posts. (Most students should have 4 posts at week 6, unless they have spoken to me about missing one of the posts and I have agreed that this is acceptable.)

10 LINKS: Related to your own research and to what has been discussed:

These should include:
     1.    Your own twitter page
     2.    Your paper.li newspaper, set up from your twitter feeds using http://paper.li/
     3.    The MECS1008 blog: http://mecs1008.blogspot.com/
     3.    At least 7 other links to what we have discussed in Weeks 1 - 5

You will be presenting your Online Learning Journals on Tuesday 8th March 2011

Online Learning Journal Requirements

Your Online Learning Journal is your first assignment in the Introduction to New Media module and will be assessed at week 10. This assignment is 40% of your module.

The minimum requirements of this first assignment are: 

A) Five Written ‘Posts’:

You are required to write at least five ‘posts’ between weeks 1 – 9. These ‘posts’ will be a minimum of 150 words each and be related to the module, suggestions of what to write about will be provided by the module leader and these ‘posts’ may include;

—  reviews of key texts given as handouts in seminars,

—  reflections on practical tasks using new media platforms or exploring websites,

—  reflection on discussion or debate,

—  responses to questions set in the seminars.

By week 10 you will have completed five written ‘posts’ (150 words each), which will become 750 written words in total in your Online Learning Journal.

B) Twenty Website ‘Links’:

You are required to save ‘links’ to all new media platforms, websites and online discussions that interest you and that are discussed in the seminars; these should be added each week and become a minimum of 20 links in total by week 10.

Online Learning Journal Deadlines

Your Online Learning Journals are monitored regularly and you are expected to complete the weekly tasks given to you on time.

Each weekly task is given to you in class, added to the blackboard and to the http://mecs1008.blogspot.com blog.

The deadline for your completed weekly tasks is:

5.00pm every Monday

This is monitored each week.

Both A and B requirements of Module Assignment One will contribute to the module assessment, which is 40%.

The deadline for your completed blog is:

Monday 3^rd April at 3pm

• At this time a screen-shot image will be captured of all of your blogs to ensure any last minute changes will not be considered in the assessment
• “(5 days late grade=D) (5+ days late grade=0) Tutors are unable to alter these and cannot grant extensions.
• If you need extra time, or cannot submit an assignment, you will have to apply for mitigating circumstances with evidence.
• If you do not submit an assignment there will be no opportunity for re-assessment
• You will get your grades returned by Friday 29^th April.

Tweet Tweet...

In the seminar today you will all set up a Twitter Account by following the step-by-step guide online: http://twitter.com/

• Create your own Twitter page and start ‘tweeting’ !

• Find and follow people who interest you: musicians, artists, comedians, politicians, celebs, friends, organisaitons, shops… Follow at least 15 people.

• Read about todays current ‘trends’ / ‘trending topics’

• Write your own 'Tweet' or 'Re-Tweet' someone else's tweet

• Create your own digital newspaper from your ‘twitter feeds’ using paper.li: http://paper.li/

• Add links to your twitter page and your digital newspaper on your blog: go to: Design - click on one of your link-list gadgets and add the links - Save.

Deadline: Tuesday 22nd February (in class) or you can complete this from home by Monday 28th February 5.00pm

Task 3: What effect has the internet had on journalism?

Louisville News reporting has come a long way since this 1937 photograph of the offices of the Louisville Courier Journal. Photograph: Margaret Bourke-White/Getty. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism?INTCMP=SRCH

What effect has the internet had on journalism?

Read the following article by Aleks Krotoski. Published in The Observer, Sunday 20th February 2011:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism?INTCMP=SRCH

Using this article as a starting point write a short essay on 'What effect has the Internet had on Jounalism?' You can use the discussion in class and your new Twitter-feed newspapers in your essay or address any of the following questions:

1. How has the most revolutionary innovation of our time - the internet - transformed how we find, understand and share information, news, music and videos?

2. How has digital distribution changed the role of the producer and the role of the consumer?

3. What responsibilities do we, as active audiences have in a world of digital distribution?

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 5.00pm Monday 28th February 2011.

Task 2: New Media Glossary challenge!

The challenge is to each find 3 facts, quotes or definitions about one key term (this term will be given to you)

Rules: You must:

• Use three different sources: Book, E-Book, Journal, Website...

• Gather all info: How and Where did you find it?

• And use Harvard Referencing to include: author, date of publication, publisher, page number, website url…

• Check it is a ‘reliable source’, do you know who wrote it / said it and where and when they wrote it?

 

Present: 8th February 2011

• You have 50 minutes to find 1 fact/quote/definition and bring it back to the class.

• You will present this to the class, including where you found it from.

• There will be a prize for the most interesting!!

Blog: Update by 14th February

• Add all 3 to your blog by Monday 14th February.

• DONT FORGET to include referencing!

Deadlines:

Added to blog: 5pm Monday 14th February

Edited into a word document and emailed to me: Monday 21st February

Task 1: ‘Old’ Media vs ‘New’ Media

http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/2961226120/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Set Task 1: Write a blog post on the topic: ‘Old’ Media vs ‘New’ Media

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of New Media through an example of a new media that you use that has replaced an old media you used or still use.

Select an old media and a new media that have been discussed in today’s lecture.

This must be a minimum of 150 words and must be submitted (‘posted’) on your Online Learning Journal before the deadline.

Deadline: 12.00pm: Tuesday 8^th February.

This will be one of your 5 minimum contributions to your blog. It must be submitted on the blog by 12.00pm (noon) on Tuesday 8^th February.

Objectives of this task:

• To start using the Online Learning Journal.
• Identify what new media is and how this differs to old media.
• Reflect critically upon your own experience of new media.