Participate in our private Mattermost channel: https://chat.opened.ca/edci337/

To foster communication and collaboration, it’s important to get to know the people we’ll be working with.

Guidelines for Your Introduction

Your initial introductory post should be 200-400 words and may include the following prompts (you don’t need to address them all, but try to help us understand who you are):

  • What is your full name and age?
  • Where is your hometown? What is your native country and first language?
  • Where are you living this term (please include this information to best coordinate groups)?
  • What is your university major, and when do you plan to graduate?
  • Introduce your professional background (please include any volunteering or philanthropy)
  • What are your favourite academic subjects?
  • What are your hobbies or life passions?
  • Can you share something interesting you did in the past year? 
  • What experiences have you had with multimedia in education?
  • What is something you hope to learn in this course?

Now, let’s start thinking beyond text – what can a photograph or short video clip tell us about you? Images are quick to process and engage us primarily on an emotional level (Yousman, 2016). So please share some photos or a short video clip of yourself — can you answer any of the above questions with an image?

Engage with Your Classmates

Once you’ve posted your introduction, take time to meet your peers:

  1. Review/read at least 10 of your classmates’ introductions.
  2. Engage substantively with at least 4 peers, especially those who haven’t received much feedback yet.
  3. Use this opportunity to find peers with shared interests, goals, or majors who could potentially form a small group for synchronous discussions or identify a team for the challenge projects. Group Work starts in the second week!

Note: Teams for the three challenge projects should have ~3 students, but you’re not required to work with the same team for all challenges.

Assessment and Deadlines

  • Participation in this forum (your introduction + responses to peers) is worth 5% of your total course mark.
  • Be sure to post your introduction and engage with peers within the allotted timeframe (see the schedule in the course outline).

References

Yousman, B. (2016). The Text and the Image. In Media Literacy, Pedagogy, and Generational Divides (pp. 157-170).