8/27/18-8/31/18
All work is due by midnight on Friday, 8/31/18
Welcome to ds106! This first week is dedicated to getting set up: set up your domain and Web hosting; install your WordPress site; and create other social media accounts such as Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube, etc. Complete introductions via posts, twitter, video, audio, etc. The sooner you get started, the better. If you run into trouble after looking through the supporting links, the Digital Knowledge Center in the Hurley Convergence Center is a great place to go for help.
Here is a detailed list of what to do this week:
- Review the Syllabus
You should carefully read through the syllabus. This course is different from most. The syllabus will help you understand the work and activities of the course. If you have any questions on the content, send them to me via Twitter or email.
- Set Up Your Accounts
Domain Sign up for your own domain name and web site (free through UMW’s Domain of One’s Own project). Detailed instructions can be found here. Don’t skip the verification step! If you already have a domain through Domain of One’s Own, then you are one step ahead.
Google / Youtube (video sharing) http://www.google.com/accounts/
If you have a Gmail account, you are already set with this. If not create a Google account. This is what will allow you to join any synchronous video discussions we have (in Google Hangout) and gives you access to YouTube.
Twitter http://twitter.comTwitter will be one of the main channels for communication in ds106. If you already have an account for personal purposes, you are welcome to use it or create a new account for communication related to this class. Make sure you customize your profile! Send your first message of greeting and be sure to use #ds106 hashtag in your tweets. Learn how to search on the #ds106 hashtag.
Soundcloud (audio publishing) http://soundcloud.com/ This account is where you will share audio you create for the class.
Instagram http://instagram.com for photo sharing
Slack We will use Slack for some group communication, especially in the early weeks. Join ds106.slack.com
Note: All of the social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and SoundCloud) that you create for this class MUST be public so we can all see each other’s work. If you already have accounts on these services that you don’t want to make public, you’re welcome to set up separate ones just for this class.
- Install WordPress
You’ll be using this install of WordPress to share your work every week, all semester. So you’ll want to get this installed and get comfortable with it ASAP. You should install it either at the root of your domain (www.yourdomain.com) or on a subdomain (ds106.yourdomain.com, for example). If you already have WordPress installed on your UMW Domain from another course, you can use your existing site (and just tag or categorize your ds106 work accordingly) or choose to create a new WordPress site in a separate subdomain.
We have three online guides that I recommend you review as you tackle this task:
Brief Introduction to cPanel: This guide will help you learn to navigate cPanel (the control panel for Web hosting on Domain of One’s Own).
Creating Subdomains and Subdirectories (optional): If you want to install WordPress somewhere other than at the root of your domain, check out this guide.
Installing WordPress: Learn how to get WordPress installed on DoOO.
WordPress Basics: Orient yourself to the WordPress environment.
Find out what a subdomain is and how to set up a subdomain on our documentation site.
NOTE: Do not use wordpress.com. You have to set up your own domain, or use a domain you already have (see Step 2, above), and you have to install WordPress on it (this step).
- Register Your Blog at the Main ds106 Web Site
Once your blog is available on the web (it should be almost immediate) register yourself and your new blog on the DS106 site. You MUST do this in order for everyone to see the posts you’ll be writing for the class. NOTE: As part of the registration process, you will need to use your Twitter user ID, so be sure to have one.
- Make some Multimodal Introductions
Now that you have all your accounts and everything set up, it’s time to use them to introduce yourself to the class. Use Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Instagram to introduce yourself to the community, be creative, be legendary. Once you’ve done that you need to embed them all into a WordPress blog post and tag it ds106introductions. Here are some tips for embedding media in WordPress.
Are you exhausted yet? There a lot more still. If you wait until the weekend to do your all work you will be crushed!
- The legendary ds106
We’re using a theme of legend, myth and folklore for this semester. The purpose of the theme is to give us some common ground for interaction. You will have ample opportunities to personalize the work you do. We can take this theme in any directions the class chooses.
Your second assignment, after set up and introductions, is to consider the theme. Some people say every story is the same. Personally I think that over-generalizes a bit, but I see where they’re coming from. What do you think about this theme? Wikipedia has rather extensive background information on the diverse aspects of it, such as Folklore, Legend, Fairy tale, Urban legend, and Myth. TV Tropes takes a more lightweight look at it, but you can find a lot of pop culture connections by poking around their site through the topics Urban Legends, Fairy Tales, Folklore, and related links on those pages.
Your assignment is to write a blog post about what you think of this theme and where we can go with it, individually and as a group. Review a few of the above links for background, but bring in your own thoughts and interests. Are there examples of media (text, image, audio, video, etc.) that you think are outstanding or important, which the class might be able to use for inspiration? If you have ideas, include them in your post. If you don’t, keep thinking about it because it might just be part of next week’s assignment. Another thing to be thinking about is a character or persona that you might use to interact with the course and the theme. Share your thoughts and ideas and tag the post ds106thoughts. Need to know about tags in WordPress? Here’s some help.
- Write your Weekly Summary
You’ll be completing these summary posts on your blog every week. This week, write a post that shares your reflections on the first week. Tag this post WeeklySummary. These posts are REALLY important. We use them to grade you every week, so you need to link to other posts you’ve written, embed media you’ve created, and narrate the process of learning that you went through this week. What did you learn? What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? What drove you crazy? Why? What did you really enjoy? Why? NO EXCEPTIONS. NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED.