Title Due Value Description
Blogging Fri, 2010-12-10 12:00 200

Blogging will be a major part of your work this semester. Accordingly, it comprises 20% of your final grade. You should plan to write about one entry per week, on average, but the schedule is intentionally left open so that you can blog when inspiration strikes, with less worry about fitting into a schedule.

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Virtual World Building Thu, 2010-09-23 09:30 100

This assignments asks you to investigate virtual world building by thinking critically about the arguments made by such spaces and their underlying platforms. By successfully completing this assignment, you will gain a working knowledge of some world building software. You will also gain experience analyzing a built world and/or world building software platform.

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ARGHive Wed, 2010-11-03 09:30 100

This project is the first of two major, collaborative projects that comprise the remainder of the semester. The ARG archive (ARGHive) is a an attempt to mitigate one of the major problems facing the study of Alternate Reality Games: access to the texts and artifacts themselves. Some attempts at preserving ARG data do already exist (one uses the same pun, in fact), but there is still much of ARG history that remains in accessible or too loosely scattered for future researchers to study. We're going to do something about that.

Working in a group of peers, you're going to identify two ARGs to work on: 1) an older, "classic," campaign and 2) an emerging, currently running campaign. After using Zotero to gather your data on these two campaigns, you will publish these artifacts into an online exhibit within our Omeka installation, and present your findings to the class.

Timeline

10/5 Assignment introduced; groups assigned; start looking for campaigns to follow
10/7 Come up with three campaigns you're interested in
10/7 - 10/28 Research your classic ARG; follow (play) your current ARG, taking notes along the way
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ARG Thu, 2010-12-02 09:30 150

This assignment will entail designing and running a real, live ARG. The scope and organization of this project will be determined collaboratively, and your grade will be determined in part by means of a short self-evaluation and reflection report, due on the final day of class (December 2). Essentially, this is a group project where you will be working in a group of 23, so I will evaluate the project as a whole as well as for each individual. In addition, you will organize into working groups (or committees) to accomplish the various tasks necessary for getting this done in such as short amount of time. I will also evaluate each working group.

The project is worth 150 "points" (or 15 percent), with 50 points at each level: class, working group, individual.

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Final Mon, 2010-12-06 08:30 150

The final project for this class is an essay in which you explore a specific point related to the topics and texts from this class. This might include a close reading of an ARG experience or an analysis of critical themes in virtual reality. Given the variety of things we've covered, you should have plenty of topics to choose from. The key criterion for which your work will be evaluated (besides basic clarity of expression) will be the level of insight and engagement you offer.

The paper should be 5 - 7 pages long (or about 1500 words) and you should write it in formal, academic prose. This means it should be free of grammar and spelling errors, and it should reflect a mature level of writing and thought. Avoid slang expressions, casual formulations, and slang. Images should be fully documented, and any sources should have complete, MLA-style citations.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss your paper topic, either electronically or in person, so please take advantage of the time you have now to prepare a good quality product. Specifically, I expect each of you to have a well-developed thesis and outline by Dec 2, the last day of class. The paper itself is due on the morning of December 7, when will meet one last time to discuss how the papers turned out.

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Participation Thu, 2011-12-08 08:30 150

Your participation grade is a cumulative assessment of your efforts in the class this semester. When assigning this grade, I consider whether you engaged in class discussion, posted comments on the blog, or utilized twitter or other media to further our conversations or intellectual goals. Please note: engagement in class discussion does not necessarily mean dominating the conversation with your responses. Simply being present (both physically and mentally) is the base line of participation.

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Quizzes Tue, 2010-12-07 08:30 150
Total Fri, 2010-12-31 (All day)

This node is actually just a placeholder. To see your actual, final grades, check under My Grades.

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