Can you believe we’re on the final project already? I feel like my calendar got set ahead a week.
For your final project, you are going to tell a story using multiple categories of media. You’ve done writing, photography, audio, video and design. You’ve remixed and mashed up. You’ve done big projects and group projects. You’ve connected different stories. Now we’re going to bring it all together in a digital media extravaganza.
Our final project prompt is: What is the story you want to share with the world? We’ve all put some thought into what we might do, and these thoughts can be seen at http://ds106.us/category/projectideas/ and https://ds106.us/category/projectideas2/. We have a Discord channel for #finalprojects which you can use to share ideas or look for collaborators. Hopefully everyone will be able to hit the ground running.
The main thing is that the final project communicates something that is important to you, and something you think is important for the world to hear. My hope is that you will produce something that you will be proud to show off to people you know. Almost anything can fit in with our theme, because, as Bob says, “You can do anything you want to do. This is your world.”
It will be a two week project, so consider the kind of effort you would put into doing 10 assignments, or 25 stars worth of assignments. That’s about how big it should be as far as effort goes. But there is no real length requirement. Someone could put 50 hours of work into making an excellent two-minute video, and someone else could put a half-hour’s work into talking at a camera for half an hour. The first one is going to be proud of their work. The second one is wasting time.
It should showcase what you’ve picked up through working in various media over the course of the semester. We’ve worked with writing, image editing, design, audio and video production and editing – how much of that can you work into the story? It doesn’t have to include all of them. Focus on your story, and see how various media can work together to communicate it.
You are welcome, even encouraged, to work together on your projects, but this is not a requirement. Due to the nature of the assignment, it should not be necessary to meet up in person to collaborate. If you work together you can bounce ideas off of each other and share the work. You can look out for each other and raise each other’s game. Everyone has to blog their own write-ups, of course.
By Friday, 11/19, at midnight, you need to post a progress report. This should, at the very minimum, outline your project and plan. That is, it should show that you’ve started working on the project and that you have a solid idea of where it’s going. Ideally it would feature media in progress. If you are working with a team, indicate who they are. This report could function as your weekly summary.
Post the project by 12/3. Your final project should be in a blog post. You will submit the URL of that to Canvas. It can link to other posts, if it makes sense to run it in multiple parts. The final project needs to be accompanied by a final summary, in which you discuss and reflect upon the project. This could be the same post as the project, or a separate one, depending on what makes sense for your project.
Daily Creates
While you are always welcome to do Daily Creates for fun, you are not required to do any during the Final Project weeks. You are however requested to submit ideas for future Daily Creates on the Add a New Daily Create form. Help inspire the next ds106 crew!