Early Project Ideas

Currently I am working on

• a schedule for the development of the course content
• researching the course content
• the project-ware (such as this wave) that will keep all project members informed of my progress and able to comment on the development of the course content

Klipfontein Project Discussion

The Klipfontein project was a successful experimental project that Marion and I undertook with the students from the FAM Designing Interactions Course in 2007/8, I have emailed a previous student Debbie Turner to ask her if she is willing to submit her project as an example, and inspiration for the new students. The Klipfontein project gave the students the opportunity to create an interactive digital narrative about the history of the Klipfontein Road in Cape Town. This project was completed by groups of approximately 2 or 3 students in Flash.
For the 2011 Introduction to Programming module I'm considering (as per Marion's suggestion) the possibility of making a variant of the Klipfontein Project the main project.
My reasons for considering this project are

• the ability to incorporate researching data and data mining as a part of the project, this plays a vital role in data visualization
• the intention of instilling a sense of accomplishment for the students, in seeing their data evolve into something meaningful particularly regarding presenting their projects to the UCT oral history project as was the case with the 2008 students.
• This would mean the approach to the course is somewhat different than that of previous years, as Brad would need to incorporate pre-programmatic data collection and management into his lectures. I will also include a section on data collection in the notes that Brad will be able to use as a base for his lectures. Visualizing Data by Ben Fry has proven to be a valuable resource for this research.
• Students will need to understand the key concepts that make a data visualization project successful, and be guided by Brad in data acquisition, data parsing (organizing), filtering and representation. Brad we will need to discuss how you feel about this, and any ideas you have for a main project? 

Previous Documentation Examples and Current Documentation Relationships

To give you an indication of what the documentation I am aiming to create will be like,
This is a link to a very specific tutorial I created for embedding a movie in flash and creating a custom movie player interface in AS2
 
http://www.lyndondaniels.com/2010/learn/flash/FlashEmbedTut.html 

The following link is a more extensive approach to documentation on a course I developed in 2008/9 called "Programming Primer"
http://www.lyndondaniels.com/2010/learn/prog/prog07.html 
Please note the example at the end of the above listed page which gives students a short exercise, that requires that they apply the concepts taught in class in order to complete recreating the exercise themselves.
 
With the 2011 documentation I aim to achieve a balance between these two formats, offering a comprehensive technical guide to programmatic concepts and exercises that test their understandings of these concepts and require the students apply these understandings in order to complete the exercises.
Brad since you will be overseeing these exercises, and based on your industry experience I'd like to have your feedback on what you think will be most useful for students here.
Your input here would be most sincerely appreciated :)
 
Finally, Another part of the curriculum will involve a questionnaire that will test the students' knowledge as each main section of the course is completed. This Questionnaire will consist of approximately 10 Questions that are to be completed in half an hour (or less) during class time. Assistance from other students, lecturers, course-ware or the Internet should not be permitted during the Quiz.
The idea is that students will be given a sheet of paper with the questions printed on the paper, students then write their answers to the questions on the paper and hand it back to Brad.
Brad has already confirmed that he will be willing to mark the quiz.

Proposed Meeting for Thursday 16th Dec 2010
Brad and Lyndon
Topic: Main Project Suggestions and Course Structure

As I will be passing through Durban on Thursday 16th Dec, would it be possible for us to meet to discuss the main project and course structure. Unfortunately I cannot commit to a specific time right now due to certain other complications, but it will be in the latter part of the day somewhere between 14h00 to 16h00. I would hope for the meeting to take up not more than an hour.

Brad, please let me know if you are available?

I'll post a summary of the meeting (if it happens) on this blog so that Marion can engage in the discussion and take it further, where necessary.