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

 

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.

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 or with quicktime video (if you are familiar with it). You can also structure the presentation with Flash.

Since most of you will work with PowerPoint here you have the technical constraints:

  10 slides minimum, 17 slides maximum.
  Text and images. Pay attention to the color, font and design issues.
  Don't use strange fonts: they will not show up in other computers
  Send a ppt or pps file.
  I recommend that you Zip your file.

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.

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