Communication 337
Fall 2007 Semester
Class Hours
Section 1
Tuesdays: 9:00-10:15 Crawford Hall 212
Thursdays: 9:00-11:30 Crawford Hall 212
Section 2
Tuesdays: 1:30-4:00 Crawford Hall 212
Thursdays: 1:30-2:45 Crawford Hall 212
Instructor Office & Hours
Colin Macdonald, PhD
Crawford Hall 304
Tuesdays: 10:30-11:30 / Wednesdays: 1:00-3:00 / Thursdays: 3:00-4:00 pm
or by appointment
Course Description
Combined lecture-lab course providing an orientation and examination of procedures and techniques of multimedia. Emphasis on new media literacy, human interaction and basic design of electronic media.
What the class entails
The purpose of Communication 337 is to encourage you to investigate and to become more literate in new media—chiefly, in the World Wide Web—through readings, assignments, individual exploration, class discussions and lectures, and hands-on lab exercises.
Although no prior computer experience in multimedia is either expected or required, because the majority of class hours will be spent using computers, you should already be very comfortable with their use. In addition, because the Crawford 212 lab is Macintosh-based, acquiring a basic understanding of the Macintosh operating system will be very important and your responsibility.
The lab classes will consist of hands-on, instructor-led training sessions. The first part of the semester will focus on Dreamweaver CS3 while the second part will focus on Adobe Photoshop CS3.
You are expected to spend an absolute minimum of 2 additional hours each week practicing and experimenting with Photoshop and Dreamweaver. You simply won't be able to meet the course objectives without this practice time!
Objectives
- To develop a sound understanding of the cognitive, creative, technical, and other processes and issues involved in interactive multimedia production.
- To gain a thorough knowledge of leading multimedia production tools (chiefly, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3).
- To demonstrate, through projects, assignments, examinations, and discussions, your knowledge of multimedia and of the development tools used during the semester.
What You'll Need
In addition to the required textbook, you’ll find it useful to have some form of portable media for assignments, projects, files, and so on. The lab computers can burn DVDs (DVD-R only) or CD-R/W for backups, and they have Firewire (i-Link) and USB ports so you can also use external hard drives or USB flash drives for backups or file transfers.
Many students have found that a steno pad or other small writing tablet works better in the lab’s limited desk space than does a regular-sized writing pad.
Syllabus
The class syllabus is available in Acrobat (pdf) format; note that you'll need Adobe's (free) Acrobat Reader to view or print this file.
Prerequisites: COM 201 or consent
Tips for your final projects are now available in either flash-player format or as a printable pdf file.
Assignments for October 10–12.
Class tutorials are now posted in the Tutorials section of the site.
Check back each week for the latest class presentations, they're posted in the Lectures section of this site.