Instructor: Kelsey Dufresne and Alin Yalcinkaya
While AI provides the opportunity for endless generated work, this course explores what is needed to generate a good story. Through artistic AI creation and play, students will have the opportunity to engage in AI and data generation through applications such as Luma Dream Machine, Midjourney, Leonardo AI, Adobe Firefly, Krea AI, Flux AI, CapCut, and more.
Throughout the class, students will develop a semester-long data-diary rooted in reflection and AI image generation to explore the capabilities and capacities of data and AI as tools for storytelling and self expression. Moreover, this course will focus on using the data of self to investigate what gets counted as data, what data looks like, and what data can be used for.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with stories.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
About the Data Science Academy. Welcome to an NCSU Data Science Academy Course! In July 2021, the universitywide and interdisciplinary Data Science Academy was launched to meet the growing needs of data science research, education and expertise in North Carolina and beyond. At NC State, Data Science is for Everyone. Data Science Academy (DSA) Courses are designed to make sure that each student can pursue appropriate level challenges through opportunities to make choices and pursue projects of interest. Whether you have never thought about data science before or bring experience and expertise, we welcome you. Our goal is that after each DSA class you want to learn more! For more on the DSA course design
About our research. To make sure that we are providing an appropriate collection of courses with a variety of challenge levels within each course, we will be collecting data to help us build a practice of continuous improvement. The purpose of the data is to evaluate the DSA and how well we are serving our students. We hope to be able to share what we learn with other universities and researchers - we will ask your permission at the beginning of the course to be able to share your anonymized data when we communicate about the work of the DSA.
Land Acknowledgement. From the College of Education at North Carolina State University:
We would like to honor the land beneath us. North Carolina State University sits on land that was originally stewarded by two Indigenous tribes: the Tuscarora and the Catawba tribes. We honor these tribes today by recognizing that this institution of higher education is built on land stolen from those who were here before the colonizers arrived. Additionally, this land has borne witness to over 400 years of the enslavement, torture, and systematic mistreatment of African people and their descendants. Indigenous Americans since long before their first contact with European settlers, shared their knowledge of the land and its resources and have continued to play a vital role in the development of our local communities, North Carolina, and the nation. We honor these people today and every day by recognizing them in order to break the cycle of colonization and the continued erasure of Indigenous and Black peoples. We must acknowledge the history of the spaces and places we occupy to both understand and unlearn the many ways that we have been socialized.
Non-Discrimination Policy. NC State University provides equality of opportunity in education and employment for all students and employees. Accordingly, NC State affirms its commitment to maintain a work environment for all employees and an academic environment for all students that is free from all forms of discrimination. Discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation is a violation of state and federal law and/or NC State University policy and will not be tolerated. Harassment of any person (either in the form of quid pro quo or creation of a hostile environment) based on race, color, religion, creed, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation also is a violation of state and federal law and/or NC State University policy and will not be tolerated. Retaliation against any person who complains about discrimination is also prohibited. NC State's policies and regulations covering discrimination, harassment, and retaliation may be accessed at https://policies.ncsu.edu/category/campus-environment/ or https://policies.ncsu.edu/policy/pol-04-25-05/. Any person who feels that he or she has been the subject of prohibited discrimination, harassment, or retaliation should contact the Office for Equal Opportunity (OEO) at 515-3148.
A Classroom for All. Absolutely no discriminatory language will be tolerated in this classroom, including racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, sexist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, or other language that denigrates or stereotypes a group of people. This course and my pedagogy center around the celebration of diversity, inclusion, accessibility, respect, and listening. As we all learn together, I expect everyone to maintain and uplift these collectively and collaboratively.