DDS Session 2 Notes

Software surprise We started class by noting the number of students who had dropped the course. I guess there's something really discouraging about a class that takes place the night before the "widowmaker" of MFA courses (Vis Comm Lab). Overall, there was a lot of good news in this session. First, Mauro told us that our class would actually be learning to use software-specific skills in addition to our introduction to digital design strategy. This was a good news for all of us, who did not want to use more elective or directed study units for an introductory DD course. Through specially discounted and limited accounts at lynda.com, we would have access to lessons on Photoshop for the web, Dreamweaver, Flash, CSS, HTML, and a bit about planning and interaction design. We also learned that we would be doing some campaign work (more on that later).

Presentations This class was also where everyone showed the first stages of their blogging efforts. Blogger.com makes it easy to add widgets and sidebar elements that tie in different parts of your digital life, with access to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, RSS feeds, or anything else you can think of. Overall, lots of eye candy and inspiration from everyone's pages.

Brief for week 3 We learned that we would be meeting a representative from the National Park Service the following week, to discuss which events we could pick to develop a mini-site for. The time spent on this project could be counted as volunteer service time, and could lead to implementation if enough money could be budgeted for it. A real world project in an introductory course was a pleasant surprise. Then we were shown this project development diagram to give a better sense of how the next few weeks would proceed:



Let the fun begin.