Complete List of Assignments

Printed below is a list of the published Multimedia Literacy course assignments. Depending on the options chosen by your course instructor, some of these assignments may not actually be required. Your instructor may also require you to complete other assignments, which are not listed here. Use your course management system's assignment option to list the assignments you must complete for sure.

1. Your first assignment in this course is to say why you decided to take it. Please summarize what your reasons are for enrolling in this course. What goals do you hope to accomplish? Stating your goals will help your instructor understand what you are hoping to get out of this course. In the process, you will experience how convenient it will be in this course to submit your assignments online and get feedback from your instructor.
2. Every student in this class is required to participate in the course discussion forum. Please join in the conversations you will find in progress there, and initiate new topics as you wish.
3. A major part of your grade in this course is determined by a term paper that you write on a topic of your choosing related to a multimedia trend or issue in the field of education or communications. Your paper must be about six pages long and contain at least six bibliographic references if you are taking this course for undergraduate credit, or about twelve pages long with at least twelve references for graduate credit. Before you write the paper, you need to have your topic approved. Please tell what your paper is going to be about. Say why you have chosen this topic, tell how you plan to research it, and indicate how the writing of this paper will help you achieve the goals you had for taking this course. Your instructor will respond by writing a comment on this assignment to let you know if your topic is approved.
4. The largest part of your grade in this course is determined by the multimedia application that you will create. Your application must have at least seven screens if you are taking this course for undergraduate credit, or at least fourteen screens for graduate credit. Before you develop the application, you need to have your topic approved. Please tell what your application is going to be about. Say why you have chosen this topic, and tell how you plan to design it. Describe your intended audience, tell how they will use your application, and indicate how developing this app will help you achieve the goals you had for taking this course.
5. This assignment is a "style check" to make sure you will know how to use proper bibliographic style (either APA, MLA, or CMS) when you write your term paper later in this course. After you read chapter 33 and study the sample term papers at the Multilit Web site, please rewrite the sentence below, which quotes the definition of multimedia on page 2 of your textbook. Rewrite the sentence by including in it an inline citation that attributes the quote as coming from a scholarly source that you will document in the list of references at the end of your paper. Beneath the rewritten sentence, also write the bibliographic entry that would appear for this citation in the list of references at the end of the term paper. Finally, tell whether you followed APA, MLA, or CMS style. The sentence to rewrite is:
   
   As defined by Hofstetter, multimedia is the use of a computer to present and combine text, graphics, audio, and video with links and tools that let the user navigate, interact, create, and communicate.
    
6. Chapter 11 presents the components that a multimedia computer comprises, and chapter 12 provides you with computer buyer checklists that organize these components into low-end, mid-range, and high-end configurations. What brand and model of multimedia computer do you use? Which one of the three checklists provided in chapter 12 most closely matches your multimedia PC? What features does your multimedia computer have in addition to those listed? What features does it lack?
7. List three different ways you could write a hypertext instruction on the screen which, when clicked, takes the user to the application’s home or startup screen.
8. Visit the Teledesic Web site and check on the deployment of the Teledesic satellite network. Have any of the satellites launched yet? What is the latest news about the network?
9. Go to America's Job Bank at www.ajb.org. When your textbook went to press, there were 1,521,306 available jobs. How many jobs are open now?
10. Following the instructions provided in the Listserv section of chapter 17, join the NewsScan listserv. When the next issue of NewsScan arrives in your e-mail, read the news. In your opinion, what is the most significant news item in the current issue of NewsScan?
11. This assignment calls for you to submit the term paper that you will have written in this course. Please make sure the title of the paper, your name, and the date appear on the first page of the paper. Use your word processor's Save As Web Page or Save As HTML feature to save your paper as a Web page. Then use WS_FTP or Fetch to transfer your term paper to your Web site. Use your browser to go to the URL (that is, http:// Web address) of your paper, and make sure everything works properly. Correct any problems you may find, transfer the corrections to your Web site, and test it again. Repeat this process until you are ready to submit your paper for a grade. Then submit to your instructor the URL (that is, the http:// Web address) of your term paper. Your instructor will read your paper via the Web. After a week or so, check back here to find out your grade on the paper and any feedback from your instructor.
12. This final assignment requires you to submit your multimedia application to be graded by your instructor. Following the steps you learned in Chapter 40, use PowerPoint's Save As Web Page or Save As HTML feature to save your application as a Web page. Then use WS_FTP or Fetch to transfer your application to your Web site. Make sure you transfer the folder of supporting files along with your application's startup page. Use your browser to go to the URL (that is, the http:// Web address) of your application, and make sure everything works properly. Correct any problems you may find, transfer the corrections to your Web site, and test it again. Repeat this process until you are ready to submit the application for a grade. Then, submit to your instructor the URL (that is, the http:// Web address) of your application. Then your instructor will run your application from the Web. After a week or so, check back here to find out your grade and to receive any comments from your instructor. At any time, you can check the status of your assignments by clicking the option to Inspect Assignments in the control panel at the bottom of the screen.