2015 Project Description and Topics

TalkTech 2015:

A Collaboration Project between
“Politehnica” University of Timisoara and Bentley University

Description

With your international partners, you will use web-based collaboration and communication tools to meet both synchronously (in real time using voice, video, and chat) and asynchronously (via e-mail, or messaging) to research popular tech trends. You will create a multimedia artifact using ThingLink, an image annotation tool, to present collectively what your group has learned. Think of this as an interactive infographic.

For this project you will use the VICADIS online tool at

http://www.vicadis.net/campus/course/view.php?id=121

All the information, your messages, etc will be stored here. To access this account please check the email message you received with your login information.

ThingLink

ThingLink helps you create interactive images by annotating them with photos and images, video, text, music, and audio. See examples of ThingLInks that others have created here: http://www.thinglink.com/learn

Bentley students have created this ThingLink to introduce themselves to students at UPT. Click around until you find your partners!

Each ThingLink has a background image that can be enhanced with text, audio, and video annotations.  Your group should collectively discuss and design the background image you would like to use for your topic.  It can be a screenshot, photo, scanned image, digital collage, photoshopped image, or other image that describes your topic. Your background image should contain several areas that you can annotate with text, voice, and video using ThingLink. Do not use an image that you find online already. (Ok to modify one if it has permission to allow this.)

After creating your group’s ThingLink, set sharing settings – who can edit, and image visibility (set it to unlisted). Check Allow Anyone To Edit so others can edit your image!

Post the link to your image to VICADIS so that everyone in your group can access it.

Topics for 2015

Sign up for one of these topics on VICADIS.  To keep things a bit simpler, Bentley students should sign up for topics associated with their section of IT 101 in class. The UPT students can choose from any topic.

 

IT 101 H01  

  1. How is augmented reality being used in various businesses or industries (healthcare, education, marketing, sales, etc.)?
  2. How does social media influence consumer experiences?
  3. What are the most popular messaging apps, and who uses them?
  4. What are the biggest cybersecurity threats facing Internet users today?
  5. How does streaming audio and video impact the entertainment industry?
  6. How do mobile technologies and the Internet enable new business models through crowd sourcing?
  7. Are MOOCs threatening the future or value of a traditional university education?
  8. Are wearable devices a fad, or the future direction for staying healthy?

 

IT 101 H02

  1. Can or should you license your photos using Creative Commons licensing on Instagram, Flickr, and other media sharing sites?
  2. Does information privacy matter in the age of big and open data?
  3. When it comes to the Internet of Things, are we there yet? If not, what is possible in the future?
  4. How smart are Virtual Personal Assistant apps such as Siri and Cortana? Each group member should try a different one and compare them.
  5. What factors are most important in increasing the adoption of mobile payment technologies?
  6. How do personal live streaming video apps such as Periscope and Meerkat change the way information is shared over the Internet?
  7. Research open-source mapping apps such as OpenStreetMap, HereMaps and Waze.  What features do these apps have over Google or Bing Maps?

 

Requirements

Individual Deliverables

Image and Text Annotation (One per person, in two languages!)

Be sure your name is clearly associated with the annotation that you write.

 

Each annotation should be between 100 and 150 words. Include an image to accompany your annotation. Create the image yourself and post it online, or find one online that you can use. Enter the web address for the image in the “link” field on ThingLink.

 

Create two versions of your annotation: one in English, and one in Romanian. (Use Google Translate if you need help!) Post your annotation twice, once in each language.

 

Make sure your name is near the comment that you contributed.

Vine Video  (one per person)

 

How can you introduce your topic in six seconds?  Create a Vine video and share a link.

Social Media

 

Each person in your group should share the ThingLink when it is completed, on one of your own social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, GooglePlus, etc., or post it to your own personal website or blog. Please use the hashtag #talktech2015 . Include an appropriate screenshot and link on Vicadis to document your social media post.

Group Deliverables

Digital Story Telling: Powtoon, Pixton, Wideo, or Moovly  

(One from the team)

 

Collaborate with your international partners on a digital story that explains a concept associated with your topic. Use one of the digital storytelling services listed above.  Save the video online.  Write a brief description, and include the link to your video on ThingLink. It’s ok for everyone to speak in English.

Live Stream Broadcast

(One from Bentley students with UPT students in the audience, one from UPT students with Bentley students in the audience)

 

Engage your team in a live broadcast over Periscope or Meerkat or another live streaming service, where you and your local partner discuss some aspect of your topic, and your international partners participate by texting questions or comments for you to respond. Other followers may also join in!  

 

Presenters:  Use a service such as katch.me to record your live streamed broadcasts.  

The length should be between 3 and 4 minutes.  Post a link to the video on ThingLink along with a brief description.

 

Participants:  Take a screenshot of your mobile device as you participate in the streamed broadcast.

 

Timeline

 

Week Of Milestone
October 3 – Vicadis Password sent – save the email! You can change the password at your first login.
October 7 – 10 Sign up for a group and a topic, and exchange contact information with group members.

Try to identify a time when you can meet regularly with your international partners.
October 14 – 20 Make first contact to arrange a real-time chat, and discuss project division of responsibilities
Oct 21-27 One person creates ThingLink Account. Group brainstorms content of background image and decides how it will be created.
Oct 28- Nov 3 Post background image on ThingLink.

Share the link to your ThingLink on your group’s Vicadis blog so everyone can see it.

Discuss which aspects of the background image will be annotated and how, and by whom

Decide what you will talk about for your audio and video annotations
Nov 4-10 Work on individual deliverables, and post them to ThingLink

Begin working on group deliverables.
Nov 11-17 Work on group deliverables with partners and post to audio and video hosting sites, then to ThingLink
Nov 18-26 Post final annotations online, post final thing link to Vicadis and on social media sites
Dec 7- presentation UPT

Holidays:

 

Oct 12, 13- Bentley Fall Break

Nov 25, 26, 27, – Bentley Thanksgiving Holiday

Nov 28 – 1 Dec – National Day in Romania

Grading

 

Post the final all of your work on Vicadis. http://www.vicadis.net/campus/course/view.php?id=119

Share transcripts of IM chats, email messages, or other communication as evidence of your collaborative efforts.

 

This project has a total of 65 points, to be allocated as follows:

 

INDIVIDUAL SCORES
DELIVERABLE: Your Text Annotation

  • Is the information correct and relevant?
  • Do you share anything insightful?
  • Does the image illustrate or enhance the text?
  • (and is it in two languages?)
 10
DELIVERABLE: Your Vine

  • Clever?
 5
DELIVERABLE: Your Social Media Sharing

  • Did you share your completed thinglink on social media and post evidence to Vicadis?
 5
PROCESS: Your Participation

  • Is there evidence of your participation throughout the process through chat transcripts, posts to VICADIS, etc.?
 5
Total Individual Score 25

 

GROUP SCORES
Background ThingLink image posted to Vicadis by Nov 3

  • Is it original?
 5
DELIVERABLE: Digital StoryTelling Artifact

  • Is the information correct and relevant?
  • Do you share anything insightful?
 15
DELIVERABLE: Streamed Video Broadcasts via Periscope or Meerkat  (Presenters)

  • Quality of Presentation from Presenters
  • Quality of Participation from International Partners Viewing
  • Quality of the audio or video? Is it audible? Is the video fuzzy?
  • Is there evidence of collaboration?: (For example, Do you interact with or speak after your international partners?)
  • Presenters: Video Posted; Participants:  Mobile Screenshots posted
 15
PROCESS: Group

  • Did your group document its process, how you would work together, and post evidence or snippets of your work together (chat logs, call recordings) of this throughout the project to the VICADIS Blog?
 5
Total Group Score 40

Use whatever social media, digital media, communication and collaboration tools you wish to work efficiently together (e-mail, Skype, messaging, etc).