Thursday, June 16, 2011

Learning Outcomes

Oh yeah! Forgetting this would be bad........

Our stated learning outcomes for this course are to "consume, create, and connect" in the digital age. Did I meet those learning outcomes?

1. I consumed my digital culture book of choice, The Wisdom of Crowds, using Google Books and another online version. It was tedious because the Google book had missing pages that I had to read around and the online library version had terrible formatting. All in all, it made me appreciate both the traditional codex and the possibilities of legitimate e-readers--that is, not my laptop. Good learning experience.

The consuming of social media as a form of scholarly research was a particularly novel experience for me. I barely even knew that blogging existed before this class, but I was required to read the blogs of my peers on a regular basis. Also, I created profiles on Goodreads and Diigo and received feeds on my Google Reader. I read book reviews in diverse online locations and read online forums about Borges. I'm not sure how my consumption was in comparison to other students, but its breadth has been far vaster in the past month and a half than in the past nineteen years of my life.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Visual/Design Team

Creating this eBook has been a whirlwind process!

As a member of the visual design team, I was responsible with Matt Harrison to come up with the cover art for our eBook (final cover art was finished by Sam McGrath). We took different approaches to finding the cover art; I checked Flikr's Creative Commons-licensed photos, while Matt checked out iStockPhoto.com. The first group of pictures I posted I was really excited about--especially works that had been remixed to include old and new artwork. For instance, one piece of art was a remix of Mary Cassatt's "Mrs. Duffee Seated on a Striped Sofa, Reading." In the original, Mrs. Duffee is obviously reading a traditional codex; in the remix, the book has been replaced with a Kindle. I thought it was very original.

It turns out that my classmates and instructor were more excited about a picture that I had put up sort of just to prove that I had done my research and looked at different options. It's a picture of a woman reading a magazine, standing in front of a quickly-moving train. It has a nice nuance to it; it suggests class and traditional forms of scholarship in the context of an evolving world. It's not what I would have personally chosen, but I am satisfied with it.

In order to make it eBook-ready, I used a basic Paint program to add the title of our book. Sam contacted me on Saturday and told me that unfortunately, the picture was not a high-enough resolution to use as our cover. I went back to get a higher-resolution picture on Flikr, but the poster of the picture had taken it down between the time that I first found it and the time that I needed the higher-resolution picture. Sam solved the problem by adding a funky border to the picture that makes it the needed size.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Cover Art

Some options...these are all just tentative remixes, words/pictures can be altered. Just let me know if something is remotely appealing to you.









Or, alternatively, we could do a mash-up of these pictures (someone would need to help me):




I think there are a few ways we could do that. Just let me know if you like any of these (or if you have other ideas).