Week 8

Content

  • Creativity and Audience Awareness

    Our topic this week is complementary to the analysis topic we explored last week. Based on what you discovered, it's now time to really delve in and shape those styles and habits that will define you. Additionally, while you might have an audience in mind, nothing quite beats real-world feedback; be prepared to adjust or even target a different audience based on what you observe. Let's get creative!

    This week you will...
    • Develop unique characteristics that will define your stream
    • Incorporate creative thinking processes into your design methodology
    • Integrate personalizations and analyses of other streams to form a coherent product
    • Assess audience to determine if content is suitable
    painting while wearing virtual reality headset

  • Loot for your mind

    Weekly Materials


    You'll notice that we'll spend a lot less time this week saying "You should do this!", and more time discussing the concepts involved in Creative Thinking and how to nurture them in yourself. Creativity often comes down to you and your confidence in your abilities and presentation. You might come across attempts to differentiate Creative Thinking from Critical Thinking, but it's much easier to view them as complementary; they are simply two perspectives on how to find solutions, and overlap each other every step of the way.

    This really is a topic you'll want to take a deep dive in; being able to set yourself apart, radiate confidence and charisma, and engage your audience is not only good for your viewership, it's great for your personal mental health! The New York Times (2014) reported that "'creative' was the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles two years running" and that a survey of 1,500 CEO's found "creativity" to the most important characteristic for success. We have begun to pass out of the "Information Age" and are, as a society, entering the so-called "Conceptual Age". How will you link together the myriad of trends in and outside of streaming, your knowledge set, and current events? How will you challenge norms and devise original ideas to serve your stream? How will you create the thread that ties everything into your unique product? 

    The Creative Thinking Process

    Usually, when Creative Thinking as a process is discussed, it is described with four (4) steps. Those steps are Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. Check out the graphic to learn a bit more about each step, and see how this could help you solve your problem of "developing a hook" for your Assignment this week. Consider also how this process could complement different Critical Thinking methods in every-day problem-solving.

  • Discussion

    Discussion Requirements

    In each week, you will have a Discussion assignment that will help to prepare you for that week's main assignment. You are required to:

    • make an initial post answering the questions provided, and
    • to respond to at least one peer.

    You won't be able to see any of your peer's posts until after you have posted. Your response should be go beyond a simple "good job" or other basic complement. While there isn't a hard requirement on the length of your response, 100 words would be a good starting place. 

    The reason we only require a single response is that we are encouraging you to engage your instructor and peers through Blackboard Collaborate and Discord in real-time discussion. The questions presented here are to help you to form ideas for your main assignment, as well as allow you to more deeply analyze what your peers are thinking about as they prepare for their assignments. Your peers may be in-class students, or they may be remote and in an entirely different time-zone. We want to ensure that you all have the same opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other. We want you to be fully prepared and confident going into your main assignments.

    Discord

    Discord chats are set up by week, and are supplemental to your actual assignments. Click the icon below to access the channel. Please participate in these chats! Discord is a very popular tool used by the streaming community, so if you're not familiar with it, this is your chance! Use the Discussion assignment to help organize your interactions. It's our hope that you find people through this class that you can collaborate with, game with, and stream with in your careers; you are welcome to invite your peers to other channels that you use!

    discord icon and link to channel


    Discussion

    10 Points

    Create a mind map centered around a core idea that you have to engage your viewers. This can be something as simple as "funny personality" or "subscriber alert", but we encourage you to think of something more detailed or unique to your stream. Write keywords, thoughts, supporting ideas, etc... that branch out from this central idea. You can create this in Word or PowerPoint, draw it out on paper and scan it in/take a picture of it with your phone, use specific mind-mapping software - it doesn't matter what you use to put it together, but we want to see it.

    Comment on at least one peer's mind map; try and comment on someone that hasn't yet received any feedback. If you really feel the need to comment on something you see and they already have comments, it's perfectly OK to respond to more than one peer!

    Submission Instructions
    • Read the discussion rubric. You will be graded on this rubric!
    • Make an initial post based on the assignment prompt provided.
    • Reply to at least one peer with a substantial response.
    • Use Discord for further discussion.

  • Your "Hook"

    20 Points

    You have the option of writing a 500 word essay or recording a 5 min video to complete this assignment. If recording a video, consider using it as a way of demoing your idea!

    • Develop an idea or hook to increase engagement or entertainment levels beyond your basic stream.
    • Discuss your strategy to being entertaining without an audience.
      • Many of the hooks and gimmicks from your favorite streamers were created out of something that happened during the stream itself or through chat interactions. What are the challenges to streaming without an audience or without interactions with other people? Give us your tips, tricks, and plans to being an entertaining streamer when starting from scratch!
    Submission Requirements

    For written assignments:

    • Assignment must be composed in a word processor (Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Pages, Google Docs, etc...)
    • The file type must be supported by Microsoft Word, regardless of word processor used (.doc or .docx is preferred)
    • Accepted fonts include Arial, Calibri, Verdana, and Times New Roman with a font size of 12pt
    • Essays should be double-spaced on 8.5" x 11" paper size and 1" margins
    • You will attach your completed document in the assignment submission area (don't type the assignment out directly in Blackboard!)
    • Please use APA in-text citations and include a reference list for any sources cited outside of those included in the Supply Drop area.

    This assignment is due no later than 11:59 PM at the end of the seventh day of class.

    Start Assignment

    Assignment Rubric

    Before starting your Assignment, please review the Assignment rubric. You will be graded using this rubric.

    Click below to view the Assignment rubric.

    Click Here

  • twitch.tv/bellevueuniversityeSports

    Check out our Twitch Channel below! If you want to participate in chat, you should click the Twitch button on the video player to head to the Twitch website. You'll want to do that if you want to keep the stream open while you switch tabs to work on your assignments, as well. Also, head on over to our Video on Demand page to see a collection of all of our videos.

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