Monday, August 31, 2015

Essay 1 - instructions

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You have to write an individual essay twice during the course; one in the beginning and one more when the course ends. Writing these essays are compulsory. Below are the instructions for the first essay.

Please download and use the template that is available in Bilda (Bilda/DM2571 fmed15/Documents/150904 FoM essay 1) when you write your text. Use your family name to name your file ("Pargman essay 1") and upload it to the "drop box" that has been created exclusively for this purpose in Bilda (see "contents"). Do note that you can only upload the file formats .doc, .docx (MS Word) or .pdf to the drop box.

If you have any practical or other questions about this task, please ask them in the form of a comment to this blog post so that others can see the question and the answer!

Deadline for handing in the essay is Friday Sept 4 at 18.00. This task is meant to be neither comprehensive nor especially time-consuming.

Instructions

1A. "Expectations and apprehensions". 
This is the 13th time the course is given. Some students have previously seen one or several final presentations and have furthermore (perhaps) talked with older students about the course - while others know very little beyond the course introduction that was given on Monday Aug 31. In both of these cases, it is important for us teachers to avoid misunderstandings, to adapt the course according to the participants' preferences (where possible) and to explain why that is impossible in other instances.

Please write 200-600 words (0.5 - 1.5 pages) about your hopes and expectations, or your fears and apprehensions about the course as it now starts - based on whatever information you have available right at this moment. Perhaps you have opinions about the form or the content of the course that you would like to voice?


1B. "My relationship to storytelling". 
Please write 400-1000 words (1 - 2.5 pages) about your personal relationship to the theme of this year's course.

What does storytelling mean to you? What kind of stories (and in which kinds of media) do you consume/like/dislike? Where do you find your favourite stories (or don't you)? In what context do you consume stories (for example in terms of times of the day and daily routines and/or in terms of physical locations)? Have your habits changed lately or at some earlier point in your life? How have stories and the way you listen to/consume them changed for you, for example in terms of technological developments. What are you looking for in stories? Have you ever been involved in making (writing, editing, producing) stories? Are there already at this point some issues that are related to storytelling that you find particularly interesting and that you would like to immerse yourself in (or suggest that someone else should immerse themselves in) during the project phase of the course?


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Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Welcome to the DM2571 course blog

This is the blog for the 2015 edition of the KTH course DM2571 "Future of media". The course has a new theme every year and this year's theme is "The Future of Storytelling / Storytelling of the Future". (Last year's theme was "The Future of The Digital Commons and the Sharing Economy").

The course starts on Monday August 31 (10.15-12.00 in Q33). If you plan to take the course, make sure to come to the first lecture. It will be full of information about the course and about this year's theme.

Do note that the schedule (which can be found here) will be pretty full with lectures and seminars during the first seven weeks of the course (week 36-42 - Monday August 31 to Friday October 16) and that these activities are not optional to attend (i.e. the course requirement - the major part of the examination for the first half of the course - is set to 75% attendance). The good news is on the other hand that we will be visited by a large number of high-profile guests from the academy, from industry and from non-governmental agencies (NGOs). The high requirements on attendance will also be "compensated" by the almost total absence of scheduled activities during the second half of the autumn term when students will instead work with their group projects and can thus schedule your time however you wish.

This blog will be used as a one-way channel to spread timely administrative and practical information during the course. As a student attending the course, you also have the option of commenting on blog posts (for example to ask questions) instead of sending mail to the teachers. That way the whole class can benefit from seeing your questions as well as the answer.

If you plan to take the course, please 1) check out this blog regularly, i.e. at least a few times a week, 2) subscribe to the RSS flow, or 3) subscribe to blog posts by e-mail.


That's all for now, see you on August 31!



/Malin Picha (head teacher) & Daniel Pargman (associate teacher)