This document provides an overview of the Networked Media course. It discusses the flexible online format of the course where content will be delivered through online videos and tasks. Students have autonomy over their pacing and can complete tasks in any order by certain deadlines. Assessment involves many small exercises organized into levels that build skills in digital storytelling. Tasks are submitted through an online system and feedback is provided through a shared Google Doc. The course content is presented through an immersive online "storyworld" centered around characters Mip and Mop who are lost. Students are encouraged to begin with introductory tasks on using Gmail, Google Docs, and setting up social media profiles to facilitate communication.

1. Networked Media
s2, 2012, RMIT University
lecture 1 by jenny weight

2. Introduction to the course
Agenda
• A course like no other!
• Flexibility
• Digital storytelling
• The networked media assessment system
• Mip and Mop Get Lost
• First task
• Housekeeping

3. A course like no other
In this course we will use the internet, to learn
about the internet.
That includes all the course content – lectures
and tutes.
However, you can still attend F2F lectures and
tutes should you choose to do so.

4. Choice
The internet gives us so many choices that we
didn’t use to have.
And that goes for the way we learn, as well.
The best way to learn is to do …
… so we’ll do our learning via the Internet

5. However…
As I said …
• You can still go to tutes if you need them.
• You’ll need to assess your learning needs, and
decide whether you need or want the tute, or
whether you are fine on your own.
• With greater choice comes more responsibility…

6. And lectures?
• There are only 5 F2F lectures.
• The next one is week 3, ‘What is a website?’ and it will
address some of your assessment tasks
• We have a guest lecture about web design in Week 9
• The rest of the lectures are online videos.
• They are all linked from the course website,
• http://geniwate.com/admin/mipandmop

7. Flexibility
• By using the internet, you get flexibility.
• But you also get the ability to work at your
own pace.
• You can finish the course way ahead of
schedule, then turn your attention to other
things – if you want to.

8. Flexibility
That’s because the content isn’t tied to 1 lecture
a week. 7 of the lectures are available online
right now.

9. Deadlines
You can hand in your work at any time, but the final deadline
is end of week 13.
We recommend
--finish level 1 by end of week 6
--finish level 2 by end of week 9
--finish level 3 by end of week 13
…So, what’s the assessment like?

10. Many small exercises
• They vary in complexity
• They vary in the potential mark from 2 marks
to 25 marks
• They are organised into three levels

11. Many small exercises
• Level 1 – you have to do all of it, but you can choose the order.
• Level 2 – will only be marked if you have submitted all of level 1. You
have to do at least 4 exercises, and at least 1 from each of the three
sections.
• Level 3 – is optional. It will only be marked if you have done 4 tasks in
level 2.
• You are unlikely to pass if you only do level 1. You are unlikely to get an
HD if you don’t do level 3 (as well as 2).
• …and they work together to give you skills in …

12. Digital storytelling
• Stories created for distribution on the internet which make
great use of digital production tools.
• There’s great scope for variety within that definition, and
we hope you’ll get a taste of that variety during this course.
• The final assessment task – should you choose to accept it –
is to create and publish your own digital story.

13. Digital storytelling
• The assessment tasks are varied, but they combine to give you skills in
digital storytelling
• At the start you’ll find them very specific and not clearly relevant to
digital storytelling.
• There are tasks about social media, the history of the internet, computer
code, and online research, and creating and maintaining a blog and a
website.
• To use the web properly you need to have the history and the technical
knowledge
• Further into the course, the digital storytelling theme becomes more
obvious.

14. But how is the course going to
work?
We have made an online system to manage this
course. When you finish a task, you have to
submit it to the system.

15. Task submission form
Linked from
the task itself
(be patient)

16. The bit you don’t see
The submitted tasks go to a spreadsheet which
James, Jeremy and I use

17. Your mark and feedback sheet
We transfer the spreadsheet to your own form kept in Google docs. You can
read it, and your tutor can write in it. You can look at it any time to see what
your marks and feedback is.
• Don’t know Google docs? You will, after this week’s tute

18. Read this!
The total mark on the form may not be the same as your mark for the course.
This is because there are approximately 130 marks available in the exercises.

19. So, where do I start?
Mip and Mop Get Lost:
http://geniwate.com/admin/mipandmop
This is the storyworld for Networked Media. In it
are the tasks and the theory and everything else
for this course.

20. Storyworld?
A storyworld is a term derived from computer
games. It is literally both story and world. There
is a narrative (often in computer games it is
rather rudimentary) and a universe in which the
narrative happens (which can be very rich and
visual in computer games).

21. Let’s check it out
http://geniwate.com/admin.mipandmop

22. In the tute this week
• We will set everyone up with ‘study buddies’
• Discuss the course guide asnecessary
• Do the first task about gmail contacts
• Submit the task to the form
• This includes uploading a screen grab of your contacts.
• Then … I recommend you go to Vanity Fair next, but you have the
freedom to choose.
Note: we are going to use Twitter rather than email. Vanity Fair is
where you set that up.

23. The first exercise
• About gmail contacts

24. The first exercise
And about using Google docs (the image shows the ‘share’
dialogue box that you will use to share a file with your tutor)

25. The first exercise
• It’s a bit dry, but we have to learn to
communicate before we can do anything else

26. Housekeeping
• If you haven’t received an email from me yet, put your name and s number on the
list.
• Assignments from last semester’s writing media texts to collect on your way out.
• Tute changes
– only 2 tutes with room. No-one can enter the full tutes unless several people leave, so it is
unlikely. If you must try to change, put down several choices on the tute swap form. I can’t
guarantee anything.
• Lectures
--next week, the lecture is a ‘flipped’ online video lecture.
--go here http://geniwate.com/?p=2542 and choose one (with the exception of the digital
storytelling one which you should do later in the course).
--In week 3 there is a face to face lecture.
--I sent a calendar invitation to all the F2F lectures (only 5)