Popular New Media concentrations

User Experience (UX) design

Digital storytelling

Web and mobile apps

Labs

Flipping the classroom

Laptop

Impassioned

Agile

Hybrid

video + mobile app

game + physical computing

graphic design + fabrication

video + code

video + website

graphic design + animation

Needs 2

✅

Syllabus

Find schedule, links, and grades. Submit tasks and quizzes.

✅

Slack

Post questions and exercises (not homework).

✅

ChatGPT or equivalent

Test AI abilities (alternate weeks only). Not for quizzes.

Why learn WordPress?

Why learn Slack?

Typical weekly schedule

Digital Hygiene

File extensions

• How to show or hide file extensions in Mac OS X
• How to Make Windows Show File Extensions

Memory

• bit v. byte
• KB v. MB v. GB v. TB
• Mbps
• RAM v. ROM
• CPU v. GPU

Email

• Be careful with Reply to All.
• Don't refer to an attachment—put text content in the subject and message body.
• Don't expose private emails.

Compressing files

Never email or post proprietary source files unless they need to be opened in the original application.

• ❌ .psd (Photoshop), .ai (Illustrator), .aep (After Effects), .dra (DaVinci Resolve), etc.

Image formats

• ✅ .jpg, .png, and .gif are the most universal image format.
• 😐 .webp and .avif are up-and-coming but not universal.

Movie formats (in decreasing size)

• ❌ .mov (QuickTime)
• ✅ .mp4 or .m4a (MPEG-4 / H.264)
• 😐 .webm (WebM)
• 😐 .av1 (AV1)

Physical and mental health

❌

During breaks

• You're required to get out of your chair during breaks
• Look away from your screen during breaks

During class

• You can get up to stretch or leave the room at any time
• You will sometimes join randomized groups

Welcome aboard!

Day 2

Grading in this course

• 60% Tasks (√+, √, √-, or 0)
• 20% Quizzes (out of 10)
• 20% Participation (exit tickets 🎟 and class discussion 🗣)

AI risks you'll encounter in this course

Privacy concerns about AI prompts and training data

• Sometimes you will be submitting prompts to generative AI
• Sometimes your instructor/TA will submit your work to generative AI
• ⚠️ Generative AI can lead to false or biased results.
• ⚠️ Generative AI can expose or exploit personal data you add to it.
• 🎩 You can switch off OpenAI's use of your data for training in ChatGPT's settings.
• If this makes you nervous, let us know!

Privacy concerns about feedback on assignments

• A research team will collect your anonymized feedback
• We will draw aggregate conclusions and share them publicly.
• Individual comments may be cited but no names will be associated with them.
• We are complying with the university's human subjects research policy.
• The research team includes Computer Science professor Greg Nelson, grad student Troy Schotter, and New Media professor Jon Ippolito.

Financial costs

• 💰 There is no textbook for this course, and free tools exist for most of the assignments. However, you will achieve better results by subscribing for some during the run of the course, eg GPT-4 (4 months x $20 = $80).
• Runway ~$50

What do these have in common?