Schedule

Note: Assignment due dates appear as highlighted text

Orientation

Wed., Jan. 18: Introductions (campus closed due to weather)

Mon., Jan. 23: Introductions / The Digital Landscape of 2023

• Complete the introductory student survey.
• Perusall (access readings via Canvas):
  • Course Syllabus: questions or clarifications about policies, assignments, etc., reactions to different topics, things you’re dreading, things you’re excited about, etc.
  • Brian X. Chen, “The Tech That Will Invade Our Lives in 2023” New York Times (December 29, 2022)
• In Class (slides):
  • Introductions to each other and the course
  • Discussion of current state of tech

Wed., Jan. 25: The Digital Landscape of 2023

• Join the class Slack workspace (see Canvas or university email for invitation), customize your profile picture, and write a message introducing yourself in the #general channel that includes one image (GIF, meme, picture of your pet - whatever you want!)
• Sign up for a free NYTimes student account
• Perusall:
  • Maggie Appleton, “The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI” maggieappleton.com (January 1, 2023). [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Digital Studies Certificate and student goals for the course
  • Practice using Slack
  • ChatGPT and Generative AI (Google Doc)

If you haven’t done so already, complete the introductory student survey by Fri. 1/27

Your Digital Identity

Mon., Jan. 30: A Domain of Your Own

• Follow these instructions to register for a Reclaim Hosting account.
• Perusall:
  • Audrey Watters, “The Web We Need to Give Students” BRIGHT Magazine (July 15, 2015). [Perusall]
  • HIST students only: Sheila Brennan, “Digital History” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook (June 4, 2019). [Perusall]
  • COMM students only: Emily A. Vogels, Risa Gelles-Watnick and Navid Massarat, “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022” Pew Research Center (August 10, 2022) [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Caroline Klibanoff, Program Manager for Made by Us at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
  • Files and Folders tutorial

Wed., Feb. 1: Personal Websites I

• Make sure you finished all of the Files and Folders tutorial from last class
• Follow these instructions to install a Wordpress site in your Reclaim Hosting server space.
• Perusall:
  • Marques Brownlee, “Who Cares About the Metaverse?” YouTube (October 28, 2022) (15:50 min). [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Discussion of virtual reality and the Metaverse
  • Introduction to Wordpress tutorial

LinkedIn Profile due February 6th

Mon., Feb. 6: Personal Websites II

• Finish the Introduction to Wordpress tutorial so that you have your basic Wordpress site up and running (note: we will cover the last section “Using sub-menus” in class)
• Perusall:
  • Jonathan Haidt, “The Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls,” The Atlantic (November 21, 2021) [Perusall] Note: this reading discusses issues of mental health, including self-harm
  • HIST 5260 / COMM 5081 only: Ian Bogost, “The Age of Privacy Nihilism is Here” The Atlantic (August 23, 2018) [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Wordpress Themes

Wed., Feb. 8: Personal Websites III

• Read this Twitter thread by @iamscicomm on fonts and typography.

• Complete the “Privacy and Security Checklist” portion of your Digital Hygiene and Reflection assignment and be sure to take notes so you can complete your reflection.

• In Class (slides):
  • Wordpress Themes and peer peview of personal websites

Digital Hygiene and Reflection due February 12th

Working With Media

Mon., Feb. 13: Images

• Sign up for Adobe Creative Cloud using your CU Denver student login credentials (instructions here)
• Install Adobe Illustrator on your computer.
• Bring a laptop charger to class!
• Perusall:
  • Kevin Roose, “A Coming-Out Party for Generative A.I., Silicon Valley’s New Craze” New York Times (October 22, 2022) [Perusall]
  • Tom Hartsfield, “How do DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and other forms of generative AI work?” Big Think (September 22, 2022) [Perusall]
  • HIST 5260 / COMM 5081: Ana Jofre, Josh Cole, Vincent Berardi, Carl Bennett, Michael Reale, “What’s in a Face? Gender representation of faces in Time, 1940s-1990s” Cultural Analytics (March 19, 2020). [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Tour of the CLAS Media Learning Lab
  • Graphic Design with Adobe Illustrator I

Wed., Feb. 15: Images

• Finish up the in-app tutorials section of Graphic Design with Adobe Illustrator I and complete the two tutorials at the beginning of: Graphic Design with Adobe Illustrator II:
  1. Get to know Illustrator (17 min.)
  2. Transform and edit artwork (19 min.)
• Bring a laptop charger to class!
• Perusall:
  • Pranav Dixit, “Meet The Three Artists Behind A Landmark Lawsuit Against AI Art Generators” BuzzFeed News (January 20, 2023) [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Allison Royster, Product Marketing Manager at Epsilon
  • Discussion of generative AI for images
  • Graphic Design with Adobe Illustrator II

Meet with Professor Blevins for one-on-one meeting by Fri. February 17th

First Self-Assessment due Sun. February 19th

Mon., Feb. 20: Video

• Install Adobe Premiere Pro from your Adobe Creative Cloud account and make sure you can open it on your laptop.
• Bring headphones to class that can connect to your laptop.
• Perusall:
  • First half (first 30:30) of Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, “TikTok’s Spying Scandal and ChatGPT’s Challenge to Google” Hard Fork podcast, January 6, 2023. Transcript [Perusall]
  • HIST only: Abe Gibson, “Keeping It Real: Historians in the Deepfake Era” Perspectives on History (May 17, 2021). [Perusall]
  • COMM only: Kalley Huang, “TikTok Class Is in Session” New York Times (December 21, 2022). [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Anya Dickson-Arguello, Digital Equity Program Manager for Mayor’s Office of Social Equity and Innovation (and recent CU Denver COMM major!)
  • Introduction to Adobe Premiere Pro

Wed., Feb. 22: Video

• Complete the following Adobe Premiere Pro tutorials:
  • Adding Images and Text
  • Adding Effects
• Bring headphones and a laptop charger to class!

• Record a video that is under thirty seconds in which you convey one takeaway from this course so far. This can be from a reading, tutorial, assignment - whatever you want - and it can be as silly as you want (pet appearances highly encouraged). Use Zoom to record the video, name it yourfirstname-yourlastname.mp4 (cameron-blevins.mp4), and click this link to upload your video to Dropbox. We will be using these during class to learn how to edit videos.

• In Class (slides):
  • Discussion of TikTok
  • Video Files and Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro I

Mon., Feb. 27: Audio

• Bring headphones to class!
• Download and install Audacity on your laptop and have it ready for class: Windows, Mac, Chromebook
  • Follow these instructions to install the FFmpeg library for Audacity: Windows, Mac.
• Perusall:
  • Ben Sisario, “Podcasting Is Booming. Will Hollywood Help or Hurt Its Future?” New York Times (February 25, 2021). [Perusall]
  • Alison MacAdam, “The journey from print to radio storytelling: A guide for navigating a new landscape” NPR News Training (December 6, 2017). [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Going from print to audio
  • Audio Editing I

Wed., Mar. 1: Audio

• Bring headphones to class!
• Use Audacity to record a 30-second “elevator pitch” for your Media Project that explains what topic you chose and why you chose it. Export it as a MP3 file named yourfirstname-yourlastname.mp3 (cameron-blevins.mp3) and upload it to this Dropbox link by 12:30pm.
• Perusall:
  • Listen to episode “The Millennial Mom” from podcast ¿Quién Are We?, Colorado Public Radio (October 28, 2022). [Perusall] (Link to written transcript). Content note: this episode discusses miscarriage.
• In Class (slides):
  • Slideshow presentation practice
  • Audio Editing II

Mon., Mar. 6: Media Project Presentations

• Perusall:
  • Valerie Pennington, “Slides that Don’t Suck” (17 min. video) [Perusall]

• Prepare a 5-minute presentation with accompanying slides on the topic of your media project.

• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from May Ortega, host and producer of ¿Quién Are We? podcast on Colorado Public Radio
  • In-class presentations on the topic of your media project

Wed., Mar. 8: Music

• Bring headphones to class!
• Perusall:
  • Spencer Kornhaber, “TikTok Killed the Video Star” The Atlantic (June 2022). [Perusall]

• Optional: Record a short video (less than 10 seconds) of your pet, name the file your pet’s name, and then upload it to the #random channel as a Reply in Thread response to Prof. Blevins’s post.

• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Spencer Kornhaber, pop culture writer for The Atlantic.
  • Video Files and Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro II

Working With Data

Mon., Mar. 13: The Data Economy I

• Perusall:
  • Benjamin Pimentel, “Dear Liberal Arts Major: STEM Companies Need Your Skills to Grow” EdSurge (February 25, 2019) [Perusall]
  • “Data Analyst vs Data Engineer vs Data Scientist” (April 12, 2020) (10 min.) [Perusall]
  • HIST 5260 / COMM 5081 only: Jerome de Groot, “Ancestry.com and the Evolving Nature of Historical Information Companies” The Public Historian (2020) [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Colin Schoppert, Head of Dispatch and Supply & Product Lead at DoorDash
  • Finish Video Files and Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro II

Wed., Mar. 15: The Data Economy II

• No reading today - work on your Media Project
• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Alexis Baird, Director of Product Management at Thumbtack
  • Media Project workshop

Media Project due Sun. March 19th

Mon., Mar. 20: No Class (Spring Break)

Wed., Mar. 22: No Class (Spring Break)

Mon., Mar. 27: Understanding Data

• Install Tableau Public on your computer
• Perusall:
  • “Chapter 6: The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves” in Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020) [Perusall]
  • HIST 5260 only: Claire Lemercier and Claire Zalc, “History by numbers” [Perusall]
  • COMM 5081 only: “Chapter 4: What Gets Counted Counts” in Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020) [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Understanding Data and Spreadsheets

Wed., Mar. 29: Analyzing Data

• Complete the tutorial Tableau Public I and submit a URL on Canvas to your completed Tableau Public workbook.

• In Class (slides):

  • Class visit from Yan Wu, graphics designer and developer for the Washington Post.
  • Tableau Public II

Second Self-Assessment due March 31st

Mon., Apr. 3: Visualizing Data I

• Complete the Tableau Public II tutorial we started in class and submit a URL on Canvas to your completed Tableau Public workbook.
• Perusall:
  • Eric Deluca and Sara Nelson, “Lying with Maps”, in Steven Manson, ed. Mapping, Society, and Technology (University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2017). [Perusall]
  • HIST 5260 / COMM 5081 only: Brian Page and Eric Ross, “Envisioning the Urban Past: GIS Reconstruction of a Lost Denver District”, Frontiers in Digital Humanities (11 August 2015). [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Diane Fritz, Geospatial Data Scientist at Auraria Library:
    • Mapping Resources slides
    • StoryMaps handout
    • ArcGIS Online handout
    • Social Explorer handout
  • “Little Lies” in Mapping
  • Mapping in Tableau Public

Wed., Apr. 5: Visualizing Data II

• Perusall:
  • “Ch. 5: Visualizing with Clarity” from Nathan Yau, Data Points: Visualization That Means Something, pp. 201-240. [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Brainstorming ideas for final project
  • Mapping in Tableau Public
  • Tableau Public III

Career Center Appointment and Reflection due April 9th April 11th

Mon., Apr. 10: Organizing Data

• Complete the Tableau Public III tutorial and submit a URL on Canvas to your completed Tableau Public workbook.
• Perusall:
  • Samantha Thompson, “Why Don’t Archivists Digitize Everything?” May 31, 2017. [Perusall]
• In Class (slides):
  • Class visit from Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University of Colorado Boulder.
  • Digital Archives activity
  • Final project examples

Wed., Apr. 12: Accessing Data

• Perusall:
  • Jennifer Hijazi, “Is Instagram killing our museum culture or reinventing it?” PBS, November 17, 2017. [Perusall]
  • HIST 5260 / COMM 5081 only: Kim Christen, “Does Information Really Want to be Free? Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Question of Openness”, International Journal of Communications (2012) [Perusall]

• In Class (slides):
  • Classification Activity
  • Data Exploration Workshop

Wrapping Up

Idea for Final Project due Fri. April 14th

Data Exploration due Sun. April 16th

Mon., Apr. 17: Final Project Workshop

• No reading - work on your final project

Wed., Apr. 19: Final Project Workshop

• No reading - work on your final project

Resume Page due April 23rd

Mon., Apr. 24: Final Project Workshop

• No reading - work on your final project

Wed., Apr. 26: Your Website Portfolio

• No reading - work on your final project

• In Class (slides):

  • Workshop on finalizing your personal website to use as a professional portfolio tutorial (part of Career Portfolio assignment)

Mon., May. 1: Final Project Presentations

Draft of Final Project due by beginning of class.

Wed., May. 3: Wrapping Up

• No reading - just show up to class one last time!

Website Portfolio due May 5th

Build a Tutorial (HIST 5260/COMM 5081 only) due May 8th

Final Project due May 10th

Final Self-Assessment due May 11th