his is a hands-on, skills-oriented class. You will be responsible for creating a good deal of work in J365. Specifically:
Projects
About two-thirds of your final grade will be determined by your creative work on our five projects. Each will require you to use the software and apply the principles we are studying at the time, and each will require a good amount of your own creativity. Two of the projects — the Front Page and Information Graphics Package — are team assignments, in which you will work with a classmate, and the other three are to be solo endeavors. For the first three projects, I will provide you with material to work with. With each project, you will post your work, along with an analysis/reflection, on the class’s website (www.j365design.com). We will go over how to do this early in the semester.
Participation
We will be engaging in a series of short exercises and tutorials that will help you develop your visual creativity and become proficient with the software. Tutorials will generally involve my providing you with step-by-step instructions — via a PDF handout as well as pre-recorded videos — to help you reproduce a design or illustration. Creative exercises will be a little more open-ended. Your completion of these materials will determine 20 percent of your grade — the “participation” score.
Quizzes
We will also have five or six short quizzes during the semester so you can demonstrate your understanding of the key concepts in each unit as well as how to use the software and how to think creatively.
Your grade
Grades are a fact of our lives, and even in a creative course we must have them. Here then, is breakdown of how your final grade will be determined:
Projects
- Front Page (team): Due Sept. 26
- Magazine: Due Oct. 19
- Graphics Package (team): Due Nov. 2
- Poster: Due Nov. 16
- Website: Due Dec. 12
Quizzes
- Five (maybe six), to be given at the end of each unit
Participation
- Series of tutorials and creative exercises to build skills
Submitting work
All exercises, tutorials and projects will be submitted via Canvas. Be sure to check each assignment prompt (in Canvas) to make sure you are submitting in the correct format. We will go over procedures to turn in project folders before the first project is due. You will also post your project work, as PDFs, to the class website — www.j365design.com — with a written reflection for each project. Unlike C226, where your reflections were just between yourself and your instructors, these reflections will be publicly viewable. Use the reflection to discuss your learning, your intentions and your design decisions for each project.
Learning for media careers
In J365, you should expect to make significant progress in mastering the following areas, based on the core values and competencies articulated by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications:
- Present images and information effectively and creatively, using appropriate tools and technologies;
- Demonstrate an understanding of professional ethical principles and work ethically in pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness and diversity
- Apply critical thinking skills in conducting research and evaluating information by methods appropriate to the communications professions in which they work
- Effectively and correctly apply basic numerical and statistical concepts
- Critically evaluate their own work and that of others for accuracy and fairness, clarity, appropriate style and grammatical correctness
- Apply tools and technologies appropriate for the communications professions in which they work
For a full list of the ACEJMC’s accrediting standards, click here.