Previous Blackboard Items

This will be the home page of COMP 5230 for spring 2003. Please return for updates as the semester approaches

Compare Jakob Nielsen's "The End of Web Design" to David Siegel's passage from his book Creating Killer Web Sites to appreciate how Web design is a kind of conversation between the cultures of engineering and design.

Now, let's do Journal Entry #1: Where would you locate yourself in this conversation between the engineer and the designer? Where do your sympathies lie? What does the "other side" need to understand better? Where do you want to take this conversation?

Introducing the first project, the Personal Course Home Page.

I much prefer to give you tools rather than rules, but let's review the page Rules to Set You Free and think of them as "enabling restraints"

Our first exercise will be the Imagetext. Here's a sample Imagetext page. The exercise is fully described on the handout "Imagetext Exercise using Invisible Layout Tables."

To post your Imagetext exercise to the Web, you'll need information from my page on transferring HTML files at UMD.

Remember last week I asked you to find several personal home pages on the Web which you think are notable for either good or bad design ideas, and to bring in the URLs of those pages.

After each URL in your posting, rate each site with a five-star system (for example, ***** or **1/2) and write a short paragraph pointing out design features that you thought we might emulate in our own Personal Course Home Page Projects, or that we should remember as a negative example.

Be sure to include your name at the bottom.

Readings
Tonight, we'll be talking about Nielsen's Chapters 2 and the Gibson and Heim readings in the Tredn collection (assigned last week)

Next Week's Readings
Nielsen's Chapter 3 (page 98-160)
Sherry Turkle's "Who Am We" (Trend 236-250)

Folder Management Make a set of folders on your Zip disk that look like those on the right: A Couple of Tips: Make one new folder (right-click, choose New > Folder) Copy the new folder and paste it again and again (right-click, Paste), then click the name of each copied folder to change the name Make the "assets" folder once, copy it (right-click on it, then choose "Copy"), then paste it into each of the folders that need an "assets" folder This is all part of the Rules to Set Your Free Regime.

Turning in the First Project
By Sunday at 6 p.m., the Personal Course Home Page project is due to be posted and "turned in" in via the course discussion board. Next Wednesday, remember to bring a print out (black and white is fine) of the page to turn in physically.

Three Amigos
Some of you are stressed out about producing or posting the Imagetext exercise from last Wednesday. This exercise was a crash course in Dreamweaver, the equivalent to being thrown into Lake Superior and told to learn to swim. Luckily, you're not alone.

First, you can (and should) communicate with me if you're unable to complete one of these exercises. The whole point of making you responsible for posting these exercises is to make both of us aware of what you know and don't know. I'm here to help.

Second, you have your classmates. This evening we'll do our first "Three Amigos" activity in class, in which you'll simply get together with two classmates and share problems and solutions to particular challenges. Tonight, we'll be troubleshooting the Imagetext exercise. If you three amigos can't figure it out, wave me down.

In 10 minutes, everybody should be sorted out and have a better idea of what you'll need to do next time.

Banner Techniques Exercises (Beginning and Intermediate) - Photoshop
For the Banner and Intermediate Banner Exercises, you'll need this raw digital image. Right-click the image after it appears and choose "Save Image As." Save it in www/5230/exercises/assets (that is, the assets folder, inside your exercises folder, inside your "5230" folder, which is inside your "www" folder).

Readings and Discussion
Tonight, we'll be talking about Nielsen's Chapter 3 (Content Design) and Ann Turkle's essay "Who Am We" from the Trend collection

Introducing the Glocalization Site Project (#2)
With The Glocalization Site, you'll create a Web site that allows a global audience to experience some aspect of Duluth, Lake Superior, the Northshore or some similar locale. Because this global audience is possible only through the Internet, assume that they will never physically visit your locale. The only relationship your audience will ever have with your place is the online experience that you create, and the things you find to show and tell them. Luckily, you can "narrowcast" to a very particular audience with specific tastes and interests. More...

Three Amigos II
We'll re-convene the Three Amigos (get into groups of three with your neighbors) to ask and answer the question: What do you want to know how to do in Dreamweaver and Photoshop?

Readings and Discussion
This evening, we'll talk about Brenda Laurel's and Timothy Allen Jackson's essays in the Trend collection

Individual Conferences Next Week--no class meeting
Next week's class meeting is cancelled so we can do individual conferences in my office, Humanities 420. Please sign up for a time slot using the discussion board by clicking the link there for either Monday or Wednesday. If you can't make any of the times, please e-mail me to make other arrangments. Be sure to sign up only for times within the time spans listed on each day.

Introducing the New Media Writing Project
This project will ask you to begin a new media project by working in an old medium--writing. You'll write a three-to-five page essay or account that describes your individual history with a public experience. A "public experience" is something that a public experienced and remembers together: a television series, a local event, the career of a musical group, a forest fire, a news event, etc. The "public" may be a local (a town or region), national or global. You will write an argument, narrative or explanation about a topic you know and care about in a three-to-five page "paper." Then you'll repurpose and "remediate" that material to create a Web site that fulfills the same purposes except in a digital environment. More...

Image Maps
We'll learn how to make image maps in Dreamweaver. You'll be using your Imagetext page in this exercise.

Turning in the Glocalization Project next week
Note that the Glocalization Project is now due on Monday, March 10 rather than on the 9th. You'll turn in this project by doing the following:

1. Posting the Web site to the folder "www/5230/glocal" Monday, 3/10 at 6 p.m.
2. By the same time, post a message to the Webx discussion "Glocalization URLs" with your name and the complete URL (including "http://...") of your site: for example: Craig Stroupe, http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/5230/glocal
3. Place a link on your Personal Course Home Page to your Glocalization Project
4. On Wednesday, 3/12 in class, turn in an "annotated" printout (black-and-white okay) of the entire Glocalization site in class. By "annotated" I mean that you should hand-write some brief comments on the printout, pointing to and commenting on particular features that you want me to pay attention to or understand. Include items that you are especially pleased with, that you had trouble with, or that raise unanswered questions for you.

New Media Writing Essay due next Wednesday.

Readings and Discussion Tonight
Tonight, we'll be talking about the Margaret Morse and Howard Rheingold readings in the Trend collection.

Readings and Discussion Next Week
For next Wednesday, Read Pierre Levy's "Collective Intelligence" on pages 253-58 in Trend (only 5 pages!)

Two Project Assignments
We'll also ask and answer questions about two of the last three projects in the semester, the Analytical Essay I and the Client Project.

New Browser Windows (Child Windows) in Javascript
Tonight, we'll be learning about the powers of Javascript by creating a link to a "child window" from our Personal Course Home Pages. Look on your home page to find some picture or verbal phrase that you want to provide some extra information about without linking to an entirely new page. See pages 420-421 in Towers Dreamweaver 4. There is, however, a secret that Towers doesn't tell you.

Next Week Spring Break, the Week After Cancelled for Conferences
The week after Spring Break we'll cancel our classmeeting to hold individual conferences on either Monday (starting from 11-12:15) or Wednesday (starting from 2:30-4:15, 6:00-7:45). In these 15-minute conferences, we'll discuss your Glocalization Projects, and your plans for reconceiving your New Media Writing essay into a Web-based hypertext.

Guest Speaker Next Class Meeting (April 2)
Steve Kineey from Minnesota Power (ALLETE) will be visiting class on Wednesday, April 2 to talk informally about his experiences writing, editing and supervising the production of the Allete web site. Since I didn't want Steve to have to prepare a speech or presentation, I assured him that you all would have lots of questions to keep the ball bouncing! Here's a brief bio of Steve.

Journal Entry 2: Believing, Doubting and Thinking (Pierre Levy)
For the Analytical Essay Project, you'll be using sources from the Trend book that you may agree or disagree with (or feel disengaged from).

1. In his book Writing Without Teachers, Peter Elbow considers the role of (dis)belief in the "intellectual enterprise," which I summarize on the page The Believing and Doubting Games.

2. Let's try this our using our reading for this evening, Pierre Levy's "Collective Intelligence" on page 253. Find an sentence/idea/passage from Levy that you find yourself resisting or doubting. Then find another sentence/idea/passage to which you feel yourself responding positively or believing. In the Webx discussion "Journal 2: Levy (3/12)," write a short paragraph about each item (2 short paragraphs altogether) using Elbow's analysis of the believing and doubting games:

• one paragraph in which you quote or paraphrase the passage, cite the page number, and then think through your own resistence to this idea from Levy. How does it help you "locate" yourself, to suggest where you're coming from or where you're going (culturally, politically, ideologically, etc.)? Why are you invested emotionally or intellectually in doubting this idea?
• one paragraph in which you quote or paraphrase (and cite the page number of) the passage you found yourself responding to or liking: again, how does this situate you among the issues. Where does the sense of emotional investment come from that you feel toward this idea?

3. Finally, read over some of the postings by your classmates and respond to one, comparing your response to his/hers and pointing out the connections or contrasts. Be engaged but not aggressive, positive but not blandly "nice."

Ambiguity and Commitment
Recognizing the situated and ambiguous nature of ideas doesn't necessarily result in a wishy-washy relativism. The critic Fredric Jameson gives an example of intellectual subtlety and passionate commitment in his distinction of Dialectical Thinking & Moral Positions.

Forms
This evening, we'll learn about creating forms in Dreamweaver. See the in-class handout.

Next Week and a Week From Monday

• Your Analytical Essay I will be due next week at the beginning of class
• A week from Monday (4/14), the Web-site version of your New Media Writing Project should be posted to the Web by 6:00 p.m.

Guest Speaker Tonight: Steve Kinney
Steve Kinney from Minnesota Power (ALLETE) will be visiting class on Wednesday, April 2 to talk informally about his experiences writing, editing and supervising the production of the Allete web site. Since I didn't want Steve to have to prepare a speech or presentation, I assured him that you all would have lots of questions to keep the ball bouncing! Here's a brief bio of Steve.

Writing Dialectical Paragraphs
In preparation for completing the Analytical Essay I assignment, we'll work with some "Dialectical Paragraphs" from previous student work.

Then I'll ask you to visit The Weather Channel's Web site to begin putting together a similar dialectical encounter between specific features of that site and the ideas of "the body vs. virtuality," including Pierre Levy's ideas of "anthropological space" presented in his essay "Collective Intelligence" (Trend 253).

For instance, can you find specific details and elements of The Weather Channel site that "call up" the virtual visitor's identity:

• on "earth," represented by our name and placing us "within an ancestral line" (256)
• in "territorial space," expressed in an "address, which serves to represent us within the territory of residents and taxpayers" (256)
• in "commodity space," represented by our role or status in the economy, and typically indicated by our profession (position in the commodity space)" (257)

Send a message to the Webx discussion "The Weather Channel and The Body (Journal #3, 4/2)," recording your observation of some details from the site and commenting, dialectically, on how these details call up our bodily identities in one of Levy's "anthropological" spaces.

Rob Wittig, e-lit author and researcher, will speak at the Tweed Museum's Lecture Gallery on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 a.m. Visit Wittig's site to see examples of his work. His talk is entitled, "Creation at the Crossroads of Literature, Design and New Media."

Conference Sign up - no class next week
Sign up for a conference either on Wednesday, April 16 or Thursday, April 17 via the Webx Discussion.

Adding a Search Engine to Your Site
We'll learn to put a search engine on your site (atomz.com). From the Atomz home page choose, "Products" "Atomz search" and then "trial account" and follow the directions from there.

Home Town Blues (New Media Writing Group Exercise)

Tonight, I'm handing you an article I wrote way-back-when, which was published in Florida State University's student newspaper, The Flambeau. I'd like to ask you to work in groups to help me reconceive of this linear article (which is really like your Public Event/Personal History essays) into a Web-based hypertext. This will give us some collective and collaborative practice in what you're doing individually in your New Media Writing Projects.

Read over the following steps completely before we begin the process so you'll know what we're doing:

On Your Own:

1. Read my article as a print text.
2. Look for and mark the text for discrete chunks that may make separate screens or "lexias"

With a group of three or four

3. As a group, choose one chunk to focus on
4. Open up the electronic version of the article and copy the chunk of text you've chosen onto a blank HTML page. (If you're viewing this page with Internet Explorer, you'll need to right-click on this link to choose to open it with Word.)
5. Look for ways the text could be subdivided with white space, headings, sidebars, etc.
6. How should the text be edited: shortened? supplemented? reorganized? What considerations go into editing a text for the screen?
7. Do a Google search for some kind of image to put with the text (maybe not the most obvious one, but something that draws out and underlines some detail, some idea, even something between then lines). Download the image and place it on the page with the text
8. Think about a title for the page. What words would you use to link to this page from other pages in this hypertext? (Something clever? literal? engaging? clear? suggestive? descriptive? intriguing?). Put this link anchor label in the "Title" box at the top of the Dreamweaver workspace.
9. Work with your group to put it all together and post it to somebody's "exercises" folder with the name of everyone who worked on it at the bottom.
10. Post the URL of your page to Hometown Screens with the names of your group members in the first line of the message so it will appear in the title
11. Once you've posted, we'll go around to each of the groups to look at what you came up with and let you take us through through the page, explaining what what you did and why you did it. Did your group have any creative disagreements about the choices you faced?

4/23/03

Introducing the Analytical Essay II (Synthesis of a Debate)

Client Project Proposals, Workshop Next Week
This evening we'll distribute copies of our Client Project Proposals in preparation for in-class workshops over the next two weeks. We will do Projects 1-12 next week (4/30) and Projects 12-23 the week after (5/7). You'll find URLs to the projects in the Webx discussion "Client URLs" after 6 p.m. on Monday, 4/28.

Client Project BETA version due Monday
A BETA version of your Client Project Web site is due to be posted to your "www" folder by next Monday, 4/28 at 6 p.m. Post your number (from chart above), name and complete URL of the project to the Webx discussion "Client URLs."

Preparing for Workshop on Wednesday
Between 6 p.m. on Monday and 6 p.m. on Wednesday 4/30, all of you should visit projects 1-12 and prepare responses according to the directions on the workshopping page. Be ready to discuss your reactions and suggestions to all 12 next week. We'll do 13-23 the following week.

Community Building on Your Client's Site
One of the few purposes common to all your Client Project sites will be the goal of building community. This evening, I'll give you some notes and we'll do some activities from Amy Jo Kim's book Community Building on the Web.

A. Loyalty

• no longer based on location
• nor on "brand"
• relationships: with those in client's organization, with other customers or members of audience

B. Ethos (Created sense of identity)

• backstory
• tag lines
• icons, symbols, colors, fonts

C. Channels: relationships in as many forms as possible

• Web site
• face to face
• phyiscal places
• e-mail list
• threaded discussion
• print (e.g., newsletter)
• t-shirts

Tag Lines
Some examples:

• "Your Personal Trading Community" - eBay
• "Come for the games, stay for the party" - Mplayer
• "Real solutions for Women" - iVillage
• "A Great University by a Great Lake" - UMD
• "News for Nerds: Staff that Matters" - Slashdot

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