Bonus Assignment: Community-Building in TCS 191

Technocultural Studies 191 — Writing Across Media
Winter 2015

Optional Community-Building Assignments for TCS 191 Students

Most of the following eight research and publication projects would require that you create an online collection of personal responses to course readings and concepts, or a database of TCS-relevant resources. Once a project is completed and published on the web, it will represent a publication and showcase your ability to conduct and present research that will benefit you, your classmates, and future generations of TCS students. Plan to publish this project to a blog on an ongoing basis (so your classmates can benefit from your work during the quarter).

Written by a single author or by a collaborative, any one of these completed projects can be substituted for one of the assigned individual writing assignments (each worth 10% of your grade). Talk to Dr. Andy about publication platforms and tools to consider, as well as how open and community-editable you would like your project to be. In addition to earning credit for one of the individual assignments, students who do an especially helpful and responsible job on one of these projects will also see their participation grades raised.

1. The TCS 191 Class Notes Blog. Respond to readings and class discussion topics and activities in a twice-weekly blog. Define terms as necessary; research authors, events and other references that come up in class.
2. The TCS 191 Bonus Readings Blog. For each assigned author and topic, find additional resources and readings about class topics, and about or by assigned authors. These should be both print and especially online resources, annotated when possible.
3. The TCS Entertainment Calendar. Rather, just post your hosted and discovered events on Davis Wiki. Ignore this option.
4. Review the Offerings. After reviewing TCS-related events, attend a number of them, and write prose reviews of three or more that describe and gauge the value of these experiences. Poetry Night attendees and performers are particularly welcome (first and third Thursday nights at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery).
5. Web 2.0 Tools.Research, evaluate, and present the latest tools, hacks, approaches and resources that cutting-edge TCS students should know about and consider investigating as they continue to gather and process helpful and enriching information. Rather, we will share such tools and approaches incidentally. Ignore this option.
6. Cultural and Aesthetic Heroes. List, define and respond — that is, helpfully annotate — to the aesthetic heroes of you and your classmates (with help from information presented by your classmates gathered during at-home assignments and in-class exercises).
7. The TCS Glossary. List and briefly define the people, concepts and terms that come up in TCS classes and assigned readings. This should be shared in real time, as with option #9, below.
8. The TCS 191 Twitter Stream. Twitter is a powerful tool that is being increasingly used to help creative professionals make discoveries, and deepen and broaden online communities. Decide how you might lead and curate class discussions on TCS topics using Twitter. I own @tcs191, and am willing to share. Plan on five or more tweets a week.
9. The TCS 191 Image Collection. Using Flickr, Tumblr, or some other easy-upload online image depository, post images relevant to class readings and discussions. You can also post photographs taken in the classroom, especially those chronicling group projects and presentations. Thanks to Rachel Agana for beginning work on this task way back in 2011.