User:Htw3/Spring 2008 Project Page

Overview of Soc 101 Projects for Spring 2008

These projects are an opportunity for you to express some creativity and to convey ideas related to sociology to a larger audience. There are basically two general paths you can take.

1. Play it safe. If you want to play it safe, get a decent grade and move on with your life you ought to choose one of the Wikipedia projects. Basically you can join up with the Rainbows End project, or the Religious Economy project and carve out a doable contribution. It is easy to learn the basics of editing Wikipedia, and with a little bit of background research you can write up your contribution, make some general edit improvements and be done. Of course, exceptional contributors to the Wikipedia projects (in terms of volume and quality) will get top grades. So while the Wikipedia projects are the best way to play it safe, they can also be a way to get a perfect score. This would be a good choice for people who like to work independently and want their hard work to be clearly measurable.
2. Go for it. If you have a good idea for a project, or you have video editing or photography skills, or you are good at working with others in a small team then you should join a YouTube or Flickr project. These projects require more effort in design, planning and coordination; but they have the huge benefit of allowing more creativity and control. Make something cool and new. Put it out there in the world and see what people say.

Instructions for posting project proposals

1. make sure you are logged in as you, not just an IP address
2. open this page in edit mode
3. copy the text between Project Template and Project Template
4. paste it ON YOUR USER PAGE
5. replace the words "Your project" your actually project title
6. save the page
7. fill in the other details for your project, based on the template. Make sure to replace the example with your own project.
8. save frequently

General description of proposal

Assignment objectives

This assignment is intended to encourage creativity, reward effort, in the name of teaching a wider audience about important concepts, theories, and insights from sociology. I want you to impress the world with your insight, skill, and creativity. You can start working on your proposal as soon as you know what you want to do. I will make a hard due date for the paper version for May 16th. Looking forward to your seeing your work! In order to print out your proposal-- just copy and paste the text when viewing the page in read mode (not in edit mode). That way the bold looks bold not with the mark up around it.

Assignment structure

Go ahead and just use a numbered list like this template below.

Start Project Template on next line.

Your Project Title

1. Objective I propose to. . .
2. Interest This is interesting because. . . [make sure you explain the substantive interest—why anyone should care; AND the sociological relevance, how does this project teach / demonstrate important sociological concepts.]
3. Background reading I will read wikipedia, text book and other basic sociology texts on the following topics:
   1. I will also find scholarly research on the general issue of (for example, violence in video games). Posting links here.
   2. I will find popular press discussions of my topic. Perhaps Wikipedia articles, blog entrys, newspaper and magazine stories, etc.
4. General Plan I plan to. . .describe the major next steps to get the project done. If working in a team, specify the parts that you plan to do.
5. Collaborators I will be working alone; or I will be working with ** and **.

Open this section in edit mode and copy the above, pasting on your user page. And then edit it to be your proposal.

Example Proposal

1. Objective I propose to create a YouTube Video that documents media reactions to violence in video games and contrasts level of media response to certain games, while ignoring similar levels of violence in other games.
2. Interest This is interesting substantively because Video Games are an important and largely misunderstood area of cultural creativity. In terms of sociological theory these games are often used by politicians and other moral entrepreneurs to ‘win points’ with the public, and thus are an interesting area of moral legislation used for political ends. In particular I am interested understanding which games become targets of media critique. How might they differ from the games that get ignored? I suspect that level of violence itself is less important (to the moral entrepreneurs) than the identities of the game characters who perpetrate the violence and those that are victims of the violence. In short, protest will be greatest when "others" are the perpetrators and the victims come from or represent the authority system of the moral entrepreneur's society. etc.
3. Background reading I will read wikipedia, text book and other basic sociology texts on the following topics: moral entrepreneurs, deviance, social control, and Conflict theory.
   1. I will also find scholarly research on the general issue of violence in video games and the media. Posting links here.
   2. 2. I will use Google to find popular press discussions of a sample of top selling console games in the last two years. I will also look at Wikipedia articles, blog entries, newspaper and magazine stories, etc.
4. General Plan My general plan is to find a moderate sample of games, 10-20; and get measures of both the amount of media criticism and the identity of the protagonist and antagonists. I hope to see whether or not criticism of games with ‘bad guys’ killing ‘good guys’ receive more than their fair share of criticism. The other half of the project will be finding you tube clips of news, politicians, and video game professionals as raw material for my video. The video will stitch these sections together, provide voice over, and where necessary use still images to describe my findings and commentary.
5. Collaborators I hope to team up with a couple of folks, especially people with more video editing skills than me.

Wikipedia projects

In general Wikipedia projects will involve using our text book and a short list of further resources to improve the content of existing Wikipedia pages that deal directly with important sociological topics. If the page is not discussed in our text book I suggest finding a different topic.

How Wikipedia projects will be evaluated

I am going read your edits and compare the article before your edits to afterwards. I will take into account the amount and the quality of your contributions. Ideally, you edits will make the article in your project more accurate, more complete, and more academically based. How much work is enough? You want me to compare your page before and after, and hear me say, "Wow the new version is much better than before!" and "I am really impressed with your understanding of your topic and the clarity of the new version." That is 'A' territory.

Possible Wiki Project Topics

Sociological themes in Rainbows End

Students will work with me to construct a new page that documents sociological themes in Rainbows End, in particular focusing on how technological change has implications to alter social interaction, leading to changes in large scale dimensions of society. For instance, how the availability of information through the internet forces education to adopt an increasingly integrative / creative dimension and undercuts the basis for simple testing of factual information.

The Rainbows_End article summarizes the plot but does not systematically deal with the sociological relevant part of the book-- the part where Vinge tries to predict the social implications of future developments in technology.

See the start of an outline on this page: User:Htw3/Sociology_of_the_future_in_Rainbows_End

People working on this project:

1. User:Ma_Ch_Spring_2008
2. User:Ka_Ke_Spring_2008
3. User:We_Th_Spring_2008
4. User:Ha_Er_Spring_2008

Theory of Religious Economy

The current page on the Theory_of_religious_economy has valuable aspects but requires improvement on several levels. Students will work to make this page better.

People working on this project:

1. User:Finn_Kat_Spring2008 ( I decided to apply the theory to different cases: US and other countries. Let me know if anyone else was already going to do this. )--Finn kat spring2008 (talk) 20:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
2. User:Sc_Co_Spring_2008
3. User:Ci_Mi_Spring_2008
4. User:Ad_Re_Spring_2008
5. User: Go_Ji_Spring_2008(I'm going to expand on the key ideas of monopoly and the free market and how they relate to religious economy.)--Go Ji Spring 2008 (talk) 16:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
6. User: Ha_Do_Spring_2008

First steps

1. Expand the intro. The intro needs the addition of a brief summary of what the theory actually argues.
2. The development section needs major development. Now it is simply a sentence. The section on the development should, while referencing the most important work in the field, document the early, middle and current development of the theory and the body of research.
3. After the development of the theory there probably ought to be a section that explains/defines key ideas.
4. Then a section on major ongoing debates
5. There could be a section on how the theory has been applied to different cases: US, countries in Europe, the former Soviet Union, etc.
6. Then a section on current research. The current section has three entries of current resarch-- but there is not sense of whether these are important recent work. Need to find a recent review of the field and base changes and additions on that.

Other Wikipedia Projects

Projects improving existing pages, as proposed by students.

Improve social stratification page

User: Cu_Ch_Spring_2008

Improve sociology of deviance page

1. User: Ha_Th_Spring_2008

YouTube Projects

Students will create instructional and entertaining films concerning an important concept from our intro to sociology course. Students propose topics, and work in teams of 2-3. Films should be brief-- no longer than 4-5 min.

How I will evaluate YouTube Projects

The instructional component is most important. Entertaining is good, and decent production values are worth something too. But by far most of my evaluation will be on the capacity of your project to teach about and encourage interest in concepts, theories, and research in sociology. The clip I showed in class, with Batman, Lysol etc. got a good grade. Other projects did also, but we should learn something when done. All the better if we laugh along the way or are amazed by some other attribute of your video.

Flickr Photo Essays

Students create instructional and artistic photo essays concerning the intersection of ideas from course with topics available in and around Athens Ohio. Photo essay themes are to be proposed by students. Photo essayists are welcome to work independently or in teams of 2.

How I will evaluate Flickr Projects

Once again, the instructional component is most important. Entertaining is good, and decent production values are worth something too. But by far most of my evaluation will be on the capacity of your project to teach about and encourage interest in concepts, theories, and research in sociology. The slide shows on SoulofAthens are great examples. Since Flickr does not have audio-- you should begin your photo set with a brief comment that frames the project. Use informative titles for you shots. The final shot in the series should have an artists statement about the ideas that informed the contents and arrangement of your photo essay. You will hopefully get some good comments from others. Your responses to those comments are also part of your project.