week 1 / jan 13

Introductions

Who is Rob?

Course goals; the game mindset

Skills sharing; team building

Setting individual goals: For Friday review the offerings on lynda.umn.edu, familiarize yourself with the site and select a proposed course of study for yourself for technical skills; first-time web designers are recommended to take “Dreamweaver CS6 Essential Training.”Students already confident in Dreaweaver HTML and CSS are recommended to learn JavaScript or equivalent web program as their next step. Students who are not frequent internet users may want to start with “Web Technology Fundamentals” to reinforce the web basics taught in class.

Review of proposed lynda.umn.edu technical skills plans

Short video: Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

Digital Culture Discussion: Connected, but alone?

week 2 / jan 18


Rob’s How the Web Works

Sharing: game world experience

Your first web page / your coolest web page yet; individual help and instruction

Encouragement: Give it a couple of weeks; it all will become clearer!

on your own: work on your personal course home page

on your own:: begin your lynda.umn.edu study

week 3 / jan 25


Connecting to your UMD web hosting account

Rob’s Design History of the Web

Type, image, composition; elements of graphic design
Line; Shape; Texture; Value; Unity & Variety; Balance; Scale & Proportion; Rhythm; Emphasis; Negative space

Color and Kuler

Studio time on personal course home page; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on your personal course home page

on your own:: lynda.umn.edu study

week 4 / feb 1

Essay blog project introduced

Looking at web pages together; signs and signals in graphic design

Photoshop basics; preparing images for the web

Studio time on personal course home page; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on your personal course home page

on your own:: lynda.umn.edu study

week 5 / feb 8

Beta version of personal course home page due by end of week

Intro to content management systems; WordPress, Drupal, etc.

Digital Culture Discussion: Games

Digital Culture Discussion: Storytelling on Line; journalism, fiction, game

Taroko Gorge Exercise

Studio time on personal course home page; individual help and instruction

on your own: read chapters 1-6 of McGonigal, Reality is Broken

on your own:: write two blog entries on your class blog based on the reading

week 6 / feb 15

Quiz on Reality is Broken reading

Digital Culture Discussion: McGonigal Part One

Show and Tell: personal course home pages

Studio time on essay blog; individual help and instruction

on your own: read chapters 7-10 of McGonigal, Reality is Broken

on your own: write two blog entries on your class blog based on the reading

week 7 / feb 22

Quiz on Reality is Broken reading

Digital Culture Discussion: McGonigal Part Two

Studio time on essay blog; individual help and instruction

on your own: read chapters 11-Conclusion of McGonigal, Reality is Broken

on your own: write two blog entries on your class blog based on the reading

week 8 / feb 29

Quiz on Reality is Broken reading

Digital Culture Discussion: McGonigal Part Three

Introduce paper one

Introduce client site

Images in blog sites and digital storytelling

Studio time on essay blog; individual help and instruction

on your own: write two blog entries on your class blog using imagery

on your own: identify client for client site

on your own: research and writing on paper one

spring break / woo hoo! / mar 7

week 9 / mar 14

Essay blog due for grading

Rob on design process and client wrangling

Looking at web pages together; designing up the food chain

on your own: research and writing on paper one

on your own: contact client and begin client site design process

on your own: lynda.umn.edu study as needed

week 10 / mar 21

Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

on your own:: finish paper one

on your own: work on client site

on your own: lynda.umn.edu study

week 11 / mar 28

Paper one due

Branding / Identity / Logos / Logotypes; exercises

Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on client site

on your own: lynda.umn.edu study as needed

week 12 / apr 4

Introduce paper two

One-on-one conferences about paper one

Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on client site

on your own: research and writing on paper two

on your own: lynda.umn.edu study as needed

week 13 / apr 11

One-on-one conferences about paper one

Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on client site

on your own: research and writing on paper two

on your own: lynda.umn.edu study as needed

week 14 / apr 18

Review of Paper 2 topics

Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

on your own: work on client site

on your own: finish paper two

on your own:: lynda.umn.edu study as needed

week 15 / apr 25


Studio time on client site; individual help and instruction

Paper due apr 29 class time

on your own:: finish client site

week 16 / final exam / / tue may 3 8:00am