These are the Instructions for the Eighth module of this course:

 

Complete the reading assigned to this week:

Reading n 3, from the book "The Soft Edge, a natural history and future of the information revolution". By Paul Levinson.

This is the last text that we read on Media Analysis. The Chapter 2 of this book, included in the reader, brings up a very innovative theory on the causes and reasons for the success of the Alphabet.

After all we have been reading about the "written medium" and the literary culture is interesting to think of the alphabet at its point of conception.

Part of chapter 3 is also included in the reader; it reflects upon the printing-press, being a Chinese invention but becoming a changing element of western culture in the sixteen century, again because of a special cultural conditions that made the written medium succeed.

 

Check out successful student projects.
Check again some student Mid-term presentations. They can give you ideas on what to do or not do for Your presentation

http://soma.sbcc.edu/users/ajarabo/intro_Multimedia/mcluhan_students_midt.html

I have a presentation on McLuhan topics,

https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/ajarabo/intro_Multimedia/flash_video/Understanding_media.htm

 

Complete this module's assignment and your Mid Term project for this class.

Your presentation should cover any of the topics on Media covered until now in the reader. Choose a topic and define it through images and text combined.

Remember: You shouldn't put together a paper with photographs ( long text with illustrations).
  You shouldn't copy/paste paragraphs from the reader and add some generic/non related images.
  Biographical/historical facts are not important: You are presenting the theory itself.

You need to explain complicated concepts in an easy way, by breaking or re-structuring concepts in simple phrases, using images, color and blocks of text to make concepts easier digest.

You can work on PowerPoint but please do not create animation of slides with it.
If you are more familiar with digital graphics and formats you could work with Prezi. This is a free cloud software that you access online through Prezi.com
You will have to create a free account, create your presentation online and provide me with the link to it.
You could also work in InDesign and export the multipage document as a PDF file.
A more dvanced posibility is to work the presentation as a quicktime video or a flash swf, but only if you are familiar with editing, timing and compositing. Not understanding how the medium works would only lead you to a poor job that would make you loose points.

Those are the basic technical constraints:

  10 slides minimum, 17 slides maximum. Title and end do not count.
  The content should reside in the Text and the images combined. Pay attention to color, font and design issues.
  Don't use strange fonts: they will not show up in other computers
  Think about images as a subject and images as a background. Use good resolution.
  In the presentation you are trying to clarify concepts, like if you were teaching yourself: the sequence of ideas is also important. Some concepts need to develop through 2 or 3 slides.
  Take the theories to their maximum consequences, most MacLuhan ideas can be linked or intertwined. Do not respect chapter conntent.

If you are working with digital video, your file should be underneath a minute and a half.
size: 720X480
Compress it with Sorensen, mpeg-4 or h.264 to make the file as small as possible.
If you add audio, be careful that it doesn't compete with the concepts, keep it low unless if you adding voice..

Make your post in the Forum about "The first digital Medium".