What I’m Looking For

Young John Page after a morning in the field

I understand that many of you are waiting for a clear set of instructions regarding the Infographic Group Project that was announced last week. I hope in this post to be able to give you such a picture. But it is important at the outset to say that a big part of what I’m looking for is for you and your group members to figure out how you want to do this, together.

Essentially all I’m asking you to do is to find two infographics that are in some way related to the internet and to critically analyze them in term of content and aesthetics. Your group will also create an original infographic and present it to the class on February 22 or 24. That’s it.

I will be expecting each student to write two blog posts during our State of the Net section in which a portion of the group’s infographic gets analyzed. What I mean here is that a group might want to divide the infographic into sections for each member to cover. Alternatively, each member may choose to analyze the entire graphic individually. I will leave that decision up to the group – in a way it depends on the infographic your group chooses.

In terms of style or tone in these blog posts, I think it would be desirable to mention the discussion you and your members had about the infographic. Also, it might be good to read and link to one another’s posts.

What I’m looking for here is collaboration, critical analysis, and articulate expression. Having looked at the quality of work that’s been coming in so far, I have no doubt that each of the groups will be able to come up with some great work here. I’m really excited to see how you all tackle the assignment. I encourage you trust your instincts and judgement about how to go about doing it.

I would request that any questions about the assignment be entered as comments to this blog post.

Unrelated Note: The image that accompanies this blog post is, as far as I can tell, not an infographic. I am working on a new project and wanted to see how this old drawing which I colorized over the weekend would look on a web page. It is kind of ds106 related. I am trying to see if this method can easily be applied to other disciplines. In this case, I’m trying to develop an American history assignment. I will be further developing it on my personal blog.