Basic Course Information
| Meeting Times | T/R: 12:30pm-1:50pm. PV 213 F: 3:00pm-4:50pm. BH 124 |
| My Contact Info | Matt Frye SE 115 matt.frye@oit.edu (94I) 5O4-138O |
| My Office Hours | M – F: 11:00a – 12:00p These are open drop-in hours for anyone who wants to come by. A Zoom link will be posted on Canvas. I’m happy to set up other times to chat. |
Course Info & Materials
Study of the technical aspects of digital media design and production. Hands-on experience in creating and editing multimodal documents. Production of multimodal documents for specific contexts.
OIT Catalog Description
That said, this course focuses on the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere and Character Animator), as that set of tools is standard for most digital and multimedia design professionals. Open Source alternatives (Photoshop/Illustrator -> GIMP, Premiere/Character Animator -> Blender, InDesign -> Scribus) offer the same affordances, but the learning curve is a bit more than we can tackle in 10 weeks.
All Creative Suite programs are available on our computer lab machines. Student pricing is available with your OIT email address — currently $20/month at https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/buy/students.html.
Required Materials
This class has no textbook or other required purchases. I recommend subscribing to the Creative Suite if and when you are ready, but our lab assignments are designed to be completed in the lab time itself. If the virtual desktop or lab computers won’t allow us to use some of these tools, we will find alternatives.
You must have Canvas access and OneDrive through OIT for this course.
Grading
This course has three broad categories for grades: (1) labs, which are completed each week in the computer lab; (2) drafts of your final project, which will help you build your final project through the term; and, (3) a final project in which you will design your own children’s ebook and animated short.
| Labs (10) | 6% each, 60% total |
| Drafts (2) | 10% each, 20% total |
| Final Project | 20% |
Course Outcomes
COM 248 supports the following Communication Studies and Professional Writing Student Learning Outcomes:
COM1: Demonstrate critical and innovative thinking.
You will need to design documents that answer a specific audience need.
COM2: Display competence in oral, written, and visual communication.
Most of our communication strategies developed in this class are visual rather than linguistic.
COM3: Apply communication theories.
We will use some of the things you learn in COM 237 (Visual Communication), COM 105 (Intro. to Communication Theory) and PWR 101 (Intro. to Professional Writing) to determine the best rhetorical strategy in the documents we create.
COM4: Understand opportunities in the field of communication.
Digital Media Design fields are dominated by Communication, Writing and Design/Arts majors, and this course is an introduction into the technical skills required in those careers.
COM5: Use current technology related to the communication field.
This course currently uses the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which is still industry-standard (and freelancer-standard).
COM6: Respond effectively to cultural communication differences.
This course will ask you to design documents and video for audiences in different cultural or demographic groups from yourself.
COM8: Demonstrate positive group communication exchanges.
PWR11: Demonstrate ability to collaborate with teams including working with clients in culturally sensitive ways.
Our major project in this course is a group-designed audio/visual project.
PWR4: Manage text for a variety of purposes and use various writing tools (software); show clear ability to analyze and adapt to audience needs; use digital media, storytelling, media design, and video; and develop websites and manage social media for a variety of purposes.
We will be using several Adobe products to create a short story in text and video format.
PWR8: Demonstrate mastery of text and visual rhetoric.
PWR9: Use graphic design and technological applications effectively.
PWR10: Create and manage large-scale projects, document design, and production.
Our major project will be produced over the entire term, and it will require multiple pieces of software to complete.
PWR13: Demonstrate mastery of the concepts and skills of user-centered design.
PWR15: Demonstrate understanding of copyright and intellectual property, and evaluate the legal, social, and economic environments of text creation and management.
Policies
Attendance
I try to avoid lecturing at the class as much as possible (even in a course that focuses on building technical skills). Discussion and participation are important to keep things moving productively. As per OIT policy, I’ll record each class on Zoom and post the recordings to Canvas, but that won’t be a complete replacement for attending.
Zoom
If you’re participating over Zoom, I won’t force you to turn on your camera or mic. (Do it if you want, though!) But, I need more than a black box with a name. Let us know you’re alive by setting your Zoom profile picture to something that appropriately captures your mood at the moment. You can switch pictures any time you want. If you aren’t feeling creative at the moment, I’d recommend making three…
- An image dominated by a neutral color (beige, grey, a pastel). Let me know you’re conscious and listening!
- An image dominated by a hot/angry color (red, orange, yellow, magenta). Let me know that you have a question or something that we need to address right now!
- An image dominated by a cold/calming color (blue, purple, green). Let me know you have a comment or question, but you can wait a minute to ask it!
Academic Honesty
Please do not plagiarize. We’ll talk about techniques for getting copyright-free materials to use in your designs. Beyond that, this class has very little value if you don’t do the work yourself. I am supposed to include the statement below:
According to OIT-14-030 (Student Academic Integrity policy)
Academic dishonesty is defined as cheating, plagiarism or otherwise obtaining grades under false pretenses. Plagiarism is defined as submitting the language, ideas, thoughts or work of another as one’s own or assisting in the act of plagiarism by allowing one’s work to be used in this fashion. Cheating is defined as, but not limited to: obtaining or providing unauthorized information during an examination through verbal, visual or unauthorized use of books, notes, text and other materials; obtaining or providing unauthorized information concerning all or part of an examination prior to that examination; taking an examination for another student or arranging for another person to take an exam in one’s place; altering test answers after submittal for grading; changing grades after grades have been awarded; or altering other official academic records.
Accommodations
If you have a disability that requires any additional accommodations to complete work this course, please let me know. Like all professors at OIT, I rely on the Disabilities Service Office in LRC 229 to help me with this process. If you feel that you may need some accommodation in your courses, please contact this office.
If you do not have a disability but you think I could do a better job of accommodating your learning style, also let me know. Seriously. I do my best to ensure that my courses create as few hurdles as possible beyond their content. If I’m not succeeding there, I want to know.
Classroom Conduct
During class, you are expected to act like a grown-up and a professional. Please contribute to discussions and activities, and do not purposefully harass, intimidate, insult, bully or otherwise diminish the experience of any of your peers.
In the age of social media, this also goes for conduct outside class, but I’m not grading that.
Communication
No working relationship should be completely inflexible. Any policy in this syllabus or on any assignment is up for discussion, individually or class-wide. If life throws you a curveball and you need some wiggle room, let me know. If an assignment just isn’t working for the class, we can change it. I plan these classes long before the term starts, and something is bound to need adjustment as the quarter unfolds.
I do my best to return emails as quickly as possible, but I’m old and I keep old-people hours. Please don’t expect a quick response unless you email me between 9 and 5 on a weekday. To help me keep up with your emails, please use your OIT email address when communicating with me. I will only use your OIT address to contact you.
Safety
Smoke: At 7am, if the Air Quality Index (google “Klamath Falls AQI”) is 151 or greater, expect an email from me by 8am addressing what we’ll do to replace class.
General Meteorological Phenomena and Other Events: Check your email and local news regularly to stay informed about weather or other safety-related issues. Also, be sure to sign up for alerts at http://www.oit.edu/oit-alert (Links to an external site.).
If classes are ever cancelled or delayed, keep an eye on your email. Anything due in class will be due the next time we meet. Anything due online will have its grace period extended 24 hours (more if power outage/internet outage/apocalypse occurs
Late Policy
Falling behind on labs will make future labs more difficult. There is a flat 1-point (15%) penalty for not submitting a lab by the start of the next class session. If you know you will be missing a lab time, please get to work on that assignment early so you can ask questions in class if you need to.
Your rough drafts can be turned in up to a week late with no penalty. After that, it’s -1 point (10%) per day late.
I will accept no additional work after the Wednesday of finals week.
