Here’s what we will focus on in class today:

• Answer any lingering questions about last week’s work.
• Consider an inspirational remix: Sorting 19th Century British Novelists Into Hogwarts
• Check out the blogroll in the right sidebar to see what your classmates are working on.
• Discuss how to track your sources and assets and comply with copyright laws:
  • Take advantage of your own creativity. Anything you make, you can use freely.
    Consider the approaches of The Christmas Snake or The elevators in my dorm are sealed off by two heavy doors or What Is Celiac Disease?.

  • Make a copy of the Project 3 Source List Template and track your sources there (or use your own system).
  • Read Copyright Fair Use and How it Works for Online Images, from Social Media Examiner, for an explanation of how and when you can use images that you find online.
  • Visit these tools to explore whether images you find online are copyright protected and whether your use is fair use:
    • Digital Slider, from the American Library Association.
    • Copyright Genie, from the American Library Association.
    • Fair Use Evaluator, from the American Library Association.
  • If you are unsure, you can look for copyright and media use guidelines online. For instance, NASA has posted guidelines on Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites, and the U.S. government has posted this explanation of Copyright and Other Rights Pertaining to U.S. Government Works.
  • If you are looking for images, here are some good starting points:
    • Finding Public Domain Images for Multimedia Projects, from EdTechTeacher. Note that some of the links on this page are out of date.
    • The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Reuse & Remix, from Open Culture.
    • Selected Internet Resources — Government Resources for
      Science Images and Video, from the Library of Congress.
    • Creative Commons Search.
• Talk about your class pitch for Thursday, March 27:
  • See the list of questions on p. 56 of Writer/Designer.
  • Watch and evaluate an example: Matt Wendling, Pitch (you will need to set up access to get to this video)

Writing and Homework

• Be sure to write a blog post for today that talks about what you have accomplished since your last post and why you did what you did.
• Be ready to give your pitch to the class next session. If you do have slides or a webpage you want to display in class (it’s completely optional), send me the link by 8 AM on Thursday, March 27.
• For Tuesday, April 1, be sure you have read Chapter 6. Most of the class time will be spent working on the project. By this point, you should be ready to work on mock-ups and storyboards in class, as described in the chapter.

For Thursday, March 20, you will focus on gathering sources for Project 3. At the end of your work for this session, you should have completed the project’s “Step 2. Do some preliminary research on your story.” You can look back at the description of Step 2 in the assignment for additional information and an example. Here are the tasks that I want you to complete for Thursday, March 20.

Reading

Read Chapter 4 of Writer/Designer. The chapter covers how to collect multimodal sources and assets, ethical issues to consider when collecting assets, and ways of citing multimodal texts depending on a project’s genre and rhetorical situation. We will talk about the issues of fair use and permissions more next week. You can hold any questions you have about those topics until Tuesday, 3/25.

Researching

Go to the library or go online and find three different (and credible) versions of the story you will explore. Evaluate the credibility of your sources with the information on pp. 58–60 in Writer/Designer. At least one of your resources needs to rely primarily on the linguistic mode of communication.

You will also need to find assets (see pp. 61–62) as you work on this project. Depending upon the story you are remixing and upon the form, genre, and tools you are using, you may need to find sound clips, video clips, photographs, cartoons, and so forth. As you conduct your research to locate three credible versions of the story you will remix (your sources), go ahead and collect any assets you find that you think you will use later.

I suggest you create a Google Doc named something like “Possible Assets” and just add links and a short annotation to that page as you find resources. Alternately, you might clip info to Evernote or use a bookmarking service like Diigo. Use whatever method you like, but save any cool things you find so you don’t have to search for them later. See the assignment on pp. 62–63 (“A Multimodal Annotated Source List, Part 1”) for the information to include in your annotations. NOTE: Finding assets is not a requirement for this week, but you will find it pays to keep track of possible assets that you find. Nothing is more frustrating than knowing that you saw something you could use and then not being able to find it again.

Writing

You need to write a blog post about the research you’ve done. Here’s what I will be looking for in the two parts of your blog post:

• What I Did
  Tell us what sources you found for your story. You need a minimum of three versions of your story, at least one of which should rely primarily on the linguistic mode of communication.
  If you have done extra work (like finding some useful assets), you can list or describe that information here too.
• Why I Did It
  Tell us why you chose the sources that you did for your story. Reflect on the credibility of your choices (see pp. 58–60) as you talk about why you selected the resources.

Again, some tips for your blog post

• Some of the WordPress themes are not displaying the HTML tables properly, so if you run into trouble just use headers for this week.
• Don’t stress about your posts. They don’t need to be perfect. They are public, so make sure you write things you are comfortable with others reading—but don’t spend hours writing them. I would expect you to spend no more than 15 to 20 minutes writing (30 as the absolute maximum if you have lots to say).
• If you’re not sure about something, make your best guess. Try your best, and you’ll be fine.
• Your choices are not permanent. If you realize later next week that you need to change one of your sources, you can adjust. People often need to revise their plans once they have begun work on a project, but your primary sources should be solid by Thursday, 3/27.

Sharing

Once you have written your blog post, add the link to your blog post for Thursday in the Project 3 discussion area. To help organize the posts, add the date and a few words on your topic with your link. For instance, I might post something like “For 3/20, I found three resources related to The Gettysburg Address.”

Choose the posts for 3/20 of at least 2 other people, and read their related blog posts. Add a response on G+ to their plans for Project 3. You can give them encouragement, share some ideas, ask questions, and so forth.

I want to make sure everyone gets a response, so please comment on the link of one person who hasn’t had any replies yet and one person who has had no more than 1 comment. You may read and share feedback with more than two people, of course. Participation and collaboration will help with this project.

Getting Help

I will be in sessions and presenting on Thursday, March 20, so I may not see any questions you have about this activity until late in the evening. Email me if you have a question, and I will respond when I can. Generally though, just do your best work. Guess if you’re not sure. You have until 11:55 PM on Saturday, 3/22 to get your blog posted. Be sure to email me your informal pitch by 11:55 PM on Sunday, 3/23.

Homework

• By 11:55 PM on Sunday, 3/23, email me the details on your topic. Consider your message an informal pitch. Tell me your topic, the form/genre you have chosen, and anything else you think I should know about your choice. I want enough information to “approve” your topic and plan for the project.
• Read Chapter 5 of Writer/Designer. Since you are working independently, you do not need to worry about the information in the reading on assembling and working with groups.
• We will also talk about your pitches, which you will give on Thursday, 3/27, so review “Step 3. Pitch your project” from the project assignment (and the related pages in the textbook).