Grades will be determined primarily by a student’s performance on consulting projects and in-class participation. In the words of my colleague Tapan Parikh, "The most important grade will be that you give yourself – in terms of what you have learned and experienced through this course. That said, official grades do still have to be assigned." Read more about grading weightage here. Instructions for AssignmentsBlog Posts and Discussions - Each student should sign up for two blog posts of your own topic related to ICTD by Monday 2/10, although you can change your topic later . You can choose to blog about the topic for that week for class OR a topic of your choice. You can check out, for example, the World Bank's ICTD blogs, to get a sense of the type of posts in industry.
- I want you to think of this not as a dreaded assignment but as a 'You' piece, where you are posting something of interest to you that you want to share with the ICT4D practice community, much like people like ourselves or our FB group. I can assure you that if you write a thoughtful piece, it will be useful to most if not all of us! ICT4D is a very diverse field, so we are always learning! If I can get my cake and eat it too, I would love for this to be accepted into cross posting to prominent blogs, and to have you be able to list this in your resume.
- Blog Posts are Due before class on Monday, please share it with me (allowing me to edit) as a Google Doc, or email them to me in some kind of searchable text based format (like MS Word) as I will be using Google Docs to open and post. I will post them on the (temporary) blog platform and give you the url.
- Students posting the post will then market the post to at least three separate sources (email lists and/or social networks)
- Blog posters will be graded on content and the ability to generate and moderate discussion. Criterion include:
- Your ability to share a topic close to heart with other students and practitioners in a way that informs them or is helpful to them (ie, keep your audience in mind, which is a basic principle of many social ICTD projects)
- The logic AND creativity in your a. setting out a topic/thesis, b. explaining the theory, c. the application, d. the critiques and e. your recommendations (ie be smart, AND not boring!)
- Your ability to generate quality discussions (again, another principle of ICT4D online community practice)- ie respond to the comments, be positive, managing conflict (if any), etc.
- Length is not as important as the above criterion, but as a general guideline, 500-1000 words (1-2 page single spaced, diagrams not included) is generally acceptable for a blog post of this nature.
- Blog comments and discussions by the non-posting students, as part of the class participation grade, are due within a week from the date of blog posting
- There is an expectation that classmates in our F2F class will comment at least once thoughtfully (if not more) on your classmates' posts for the week.
Consulting Projects- Students will choose a class project and preferably work in teams
- Select a project that is useful, important and fun for You. Possible projects as of 18th Feb are:
- A brief project proposal is due before class on Monday (see deadline in Assignment document, below). Please share it with me (allowing me to edit) as a Google Doc, or email it to me in some kind of searchable text based format (like MS Word) as I will be using Google Docs to open.
- Project Invoices with time sheets are due the first Monday after the end of each month, one invoice per team/project. Please share via Google Docs or email them to me.
- Detailed instructions on proposals and time sheets (with samples) are within the announcement here.
- Final presentations and papers are due to the clients at the end of the course. Papers will be approximately 8 pages single spaced PER team member (diagrams and appendices excluded) and with a presentation of about 10-20 minutes per project depending on group size (Q&A to follow).
- All group members will receive the same grade for the group component, unless there are rare, extenuating circumstances.
- Students will be able to list their projects in their resume, with the instructor and clients as references if needed.
Assignment Sign Up Sheet and Due Datesi190_Spring_2014_ICTDPractice_Assignmentsi190_Spring_2014_ICTDPractice_Assignments
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