Based on your site participation and your own interests, you can choose one of three challenges for your final project. Final projects must involve building, manipulating, evaluating, interpreting, playing and otherwise prodding at social media networks, games and tools. Individual contracts will be agreed upon between the professor and student for this project.
- The Gamemaker: Build out (as a group or individual) a playable prototype for a social game. You might extend an idea from the midterm raid or another assignment and build greater functionality into an already-started concept, or you can pursue a new game. If you are working as an individual, you can choose to write a 10 page game design document in lieu of building a playable prototype.
- The Toolmaker: Build out (as a group or individual) a prototype for a tool that allows users to make productive social use of their cognitive surplus with greater ease for creative purposes. You might extend the idea from an earlier assignment.
- Social Media Master: one (or several) social media for gaming purposes. This can include developing a presence, designing a social game or capitalizing on an existing network in a new or original way. In lieu of actively participating in social media, you can instead engage in writing a ten-page research paper addressing an aspect of the field that you are interested in forming original opinions about.
For all projects:
A Level Work: Will clearly propose, through either creative or analytic means, a new way of playing with social media and games. This original idea will be clearly grounded in an understanding of existing social game theory and structure. A-level work will show additional research and engagement with ideas that go beyond the class requirements. For a prototype or design document, the game will be clearly original and seek to build upon social network play in a different direction than existing models. For a creative tool, the prototype will show an understanding of gamification, gamefulness and engagement in communal creativity. For a social media mastery or analytic paper, a clear original stance and engagement with the larger community will be evident. In all cases, work submitted will exceed expectations for presentation, design, spelling and grammar.
B Level Work: Will clearly propose, through either creative or analytic means, a new way of playing with social media and games. This idea may be somewhat derivative or not clearly grounded in outside research and knowledge. For a prototype or design document, the game will be clearly original and seek to build upon social network play in a different direction than existing models. For a creative tool, the prototype will show an understanding of gamification, gamefulness and engagement in communal creativity. For a social media mastery or analytic paper, a clear original stance and engagement with the larger community will be evident. In all cases, work submitted will demonstrate sufficient presentation, design, spelling and grammar.
C Level Work: An attempt has been made to demonstrate a new idea, but the idea is not fully-formed or may not have been well implemented. The project shows some grounding in outside research and knowledge. For a prototype, the result might show the promise of the idea bot not contain sufficient examples for gameplay to be observed. For an analytic or creative paper, the focus is unclear or poorly developed. Presentation, design, spelling and grammar are lacking.
D Level Work: The project is of insufficient scope or relevance to class content. An attempt was made to meet the requirements for the project, but the result might be unfinished, unplayable or overly derivative. Presentation, design, spelling and grammar may be poor.
Failing Work: Work is not submitted by the deadline or fails to include most required content.
