Spring 2010 Graduate Courses
Here are the courses we are offering at the graduate level in EMAC for Spring 2010. If you have questions about the classes you can talk to the instructor or ask professors Terry & Parry who can assist with class selection. A number of graduate ATEC courses are also available. And remember to follow @emacutd @therefore & @academicdave on twitter for news and updates.
.
EMAC 6361 After/Print with Dr. Parry – Wednesday Evenings 7-9:45
For roughly 400 years, a period we might refer to as the Gutenberg Parentheses, analog print has served as the primary substrate for knowledge creation, archivization, and dissemination. This, to state the obvious is no longer the case, a vast majority of the information produced this year will never see an analog format, instead existing only in the digital network. This class will focus on understanding what happens as we move from a culture whose primary means of knowledge organization is analog print to one which is digitally networked. The class will be divided into three sections. In the first we will look at the broad theoretical questions which inform this change. In the second we will look at how specific knowledge and cultural institutions (libraries, journalism, higher education, entertainment) have been affected and examine the approaches/experiments that have already been taken. In the final portion of the class students will work in groups to produce projects and propose alternative approaches and solutions. Recommended for all EMAC students.
.
EMAC 6V81 – MobileLab 3 with Professor Dean Terry – Thursday Evenings 7-9:45
This class is an introduction to the mobile ecosytem, ideas, technology, content, and culture. The browser centric Internet is based upon a desktop computing model that is being challenged by the changes in mobile computing, both at the technological and the sociocultural level. The most popular applications for mobile are games and social networks. These applications, like those from leading social networks like Facebook and Twitter, were born in the web 2.0 era, before the current generation of mobile computing, and based on the browser experience. As developers, users, and networks change in reaction to the mobile web, new kinds of expression, commerce, and communication emerge. This class explores these changes and challenges its students to imagine new experiences in the emerging mobile communications space. Areas of investigation will include location/place, privacy, social mapping, location based content, augmented reality, and related topics. No technical knowledge or background is needed, though students are required to have a recent smartphone (iPhone, Pre, Android) for this class. Recommended for all EMAC students as an introduction to mobile communications and content.
.
EMAC 6372 Reinventing the Media with Dan Langendorf – Tuesdays 11:30-3:15pm
The Media has been turned upside-down due to new digital technologies. Traditional media such as newspapers are scrambling for updated, relevant business models as they translate paper-based products onto the wild, untamed Internet. And traditional media is struggling. Conversely, the social medias are inventing the future of media through innovative blogs, podcasts, video podcasts and information-rich social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Along the way, it’s the innovative technologists and social media entrepreneurs — not the journalists and media owners — who are controlling the conversation of the Media’s future.
This is not a Traditional Media vs. Emerging Media or an either/or battle. This course examines the melding of Traditional Media with Emerging Media to form the Next Media. We will examine “blowing up” traditional media content, processes, and form and reassembling the “best of” pieces with the latest innovations of emerging media. We will research social media “networks”, business models, and job opportunities, as well as study how social media and social networks are also changing advertising, marketing, and public relations. Recommended for all EMAC students, particularly those interested in the future of media as is transitions from analog to digital, broadcast to networked.
.
EMAC 6V81 This is Not a Game with Dr. Al Brackin – Tuesday Evenings 7-9:45 PM
“This is Not a Game” is the catchphrase for “Alternate Reality Games”, the newest form of Interactive Online Entertainment. They were born from interactive forms of viral “Guerrilla Advertising” and are made up by a blending of Social Networks, Interactive Fiction, and MMOG concepts with emerging media of all kinds. This intensive graduate-level lab class will dive head first into the theory of ARG development first hand. The focus of the class is to develop a working game as a cohesive development team. Students will be testing the known boundaries of “Interactive Online Entertainment” and “Chaotic Fiction” by actually going “behind the curtain” as a team of actual “Puppet Masters” while taking a personal role on the team to assist in writing, creating, and running a working Alternate Reality or Transmedia Storytelling Game. This lab class has an unknown outcome and one objective: develop, produce, and deliver an Alternate Reality Game. Each student team member will have his/her own duties and assignments based on his/her own abilities and skills do be determined as the process of development occurs. Recommended for all EMAC students. Experience with game development not required and in fact, people who are new to ARG’s and online content production are encouraged to take the class. Working knowledge of online interactive entertainment concepts and instructor approval is required. The nature of this course requires a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and Talent Release Form for all students.