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Week 16: Project presentations, iteration 4: presented

December 9, 2025, at a special time (12pm–4pm)

Plan for the day:

  • For those who can join in person: Snacks!
  • For those who can’t join in person: Zoom
  • Presentations: First half
  • Break
  • Presentations: Second half
  • Until next time…

For those who can join in person: Snacks!

I’ve brought some sweets, some dippable, and some self-packaging options. Hopefully that accommodates most diets!

For those who can’t join in person: Zoom

I can’t send sustenance through the wire, but your telepresence is still very much desired, if you can make it! Join us at pitt.zoom.us/j/99565388052, using a password that completes this sentence with a plural noun: “DSAM students have _______.”

(Clue 1: you might need them to present.)

(Clue 2: as the homework prompts have reminded you before each presentation.)

Presentations

Figure each person targets 10 minutes, and we’ll have relatively minimal discussion after: this is mostly a celebration! But we can also express excitements or confirm directions or make suggestions if they seem apropos to that overall motive.

I know some folks have contacted me about needing to leave early; can we use those now to plan an order in the shared google doc?

We’ll take a break after about four presentations, which I expect to be around 1:45 or 2:00.

An end is a beginning

I still can’t quite believe it’s already our final class meeting! And very nearly the end of that, too.

But it is not quite the end of the semester: you still have until the end of the week to reflect on your learning in the class, and add any final-for-now polish to the public-facing homes of your projects. I fully believe you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished, even if it wasn’t exactly what you set out to achieve at the beginning.

Nor is it the end of DSAM, if you don’t want it to be: you are all invited to register for DSAM 3100: Practicum, if you haven’t yet. (Who’s already signed up?)

And my office hours are still open to you, whenever you need them. (I’ll update the hours semester by semester, but the same link should work.)

So we'll be in touch, but let me say here while we're all still gathered together: It's been a pleasure getting to know you and to work and think with you this semester. Please don't hesitate to reach out to continue that process! Thank you all!

Final assignment / where to turn in

If you haven’t already done so, please post the following to the discussion forum no later than noon Pittsburgh time on Friday, December 12:

  1. A link to the final-for-now version of your public-facing project
    • Where relevant and possible, please give credit to sources you used within your public-facing site, e.g. by linking back to source pages or by having a page within the project with bibliographic information (title, author, location, license).
    • Note that you should probably also credit yourself! (Unless there’s a reason that anonymity is essential for safety – and there might be.) If your name and a brief bio do not yet exist on your public-facing site, consider: you use information about site creators to gauge your own trust-levels, right? How will you help others trust your own credentials?
  2. If relevant, a link to a separate repository of source materials that you have been shaping or processing to produce your project.
    • NB: Both GitHub or OneDrive offer functionality to share a folder, either publicly or with specific people. If you have a repo and aren’t sure how to share it, I can help.
  3. As much of your end-of-semester reflection (as we discussed last class) as you’re willing to share publicly.
NB: If you do not feel comfortable sharing the repo or reflection with the public, please submit them instead by email.

Reminders of instructions from last class:

Questions to cover in your final reflection
  1. What methods and workflows have worked for you (perhaps as compared to those that have not)? What were the challenges and the joys that keep you moving through them?
  2. What surprised you, or what surprises you now as you look back? e.g. What things did you learn that you did not expect to learn, or not learn that you had expected to? What realizations or questions do those surprises point you toward?
  3. What feedback has been most helpful to you, and how did you receive it? What have you done as a result of that feedback? Did giving feedback help you as well? In what ways?
  4. Thinking about the digital tools and digital objects of study you encountered this semester, are there any you want to explore further? What are your plans for doing so?
  5. Finally, what evidence of engagement with the course as a community can you share that isn't covered by the above? You might, for example, point to successes in the recurring seminar activities from the syllabus / policies page (reprinted below for convenience).
You can be confident that you are successfully working through this seminar by...
  • Contributing respectfully to our weekly topical conversations, whether in class or online.
    • Consider: What is the purpose of seminar conversation? How do we learn from it? How do we balance speaking up, sitting back, branching out, and listening in, to produce the most effective learning environment for ourselves and others?
  • Completing the project iterations as described in the course plan, and on the schedule recommended.
    • Consider: Why is iteration important? Why is the schedule important? How can I be not answering my question and nevertheless succeeding in the context of this seminar?
  • Offering a content-rich, web-based palimpsest that you are proud to share with others.
    • Consider: Why pride? Why do we share our findings publicly at this point in our (different) careers?
  • Offering cogent and professional presentations that stay within the requested time limit.
    • Consider: Why is presentation to peers important? Why is the time limit important?
  • Writing two peer evaluations after each iteration is due, reflecting back what you notice and what you wonder about your peers' projects.
    • Consider: Why are these evaluations requested on top of in-class discussion? How can I help someone else improve when I am still so unsure of what I am doing? How can evaluating someone else's work help me improve?
  • Working at least 2-4 hours on your project every week, and documenting this effort in your Mindful Practice Journal.
    • Consider: Why is consistency important? Why is documentation important? Why is so much self-reflection a part of this seminar?

Evaluation criteria + inspiration

Baseline criteria

For a minimum grade of B+, all successful final reflections must…

  • Link to (or attach) the most recent version of your project
  • Briefly summarize and/or catch-up your project
    • Name at least one digital tool or digital object of study you used in your project.
    • Describe at least one way in which you attempted to work with your tool or object of study
  • Name at least one thing in the course that did not happen as you’d expected it – or that did happen, but as you did not expect it
  • Point to one piece of feedback from the course, either given or received, that you want to remember moving forward
  • At least gesture toward your future plans with regard to digital studies and methods
  • Include a minimum of 800 words

Aspirational inspirations

To exceed the minimum grade, the best final reflections may…

  • Include evidence from earlier in the semester to illustrate how your project (or your learning) developed
    • e.g. quotes from first-day letter, in-class writing, or Mindful Practice Journal; screenshots from project iterations; short video clips selected from presentations / drafts
  • Reflect on the inspiration or exigence for the project, and what kept you inspired throughout
  • Address some of the why and how questions offered under the forms of engagement on the policy page of the course website
  • Acknowledge and discuss the impact of any ways in which you did not meet all the forms of engagement
  • Incorporate ideas from assigned reading materials, with attribution to their sources
  • Assess how well the methods you tried worked for your project, and/or how you might change your approach or application of those methods in the future
  • Propose a concrete plan for next steps on your project
  • Add a thorough writeup of project staging, clarifying the choices you made in the public-facing project in light of desired audiences – especially if github isn’t used, acting as a quasi-readme
  • Use exploratory writing style, almost as if writing a journal entry or personal letter
  • Use organized structure, whether essayistic or like a report
  • Name the (genre of the) product you’re working toward, so we can put it in a professional context

Thank you for a great semester!!

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