Weekly Schedule
Class 1 – August 26, 2020 – Introductions
Introductions, Course Overview, Course, Expectations
What does “Technology and Communications” mean in today’s society? What is a “Critical Network”?
Screening: The Innovation of Loneliness, Digital Kids, Together But Alone, One Simple Fact – Steve Jobs
Class 2, September 2, 2020 – Network Theory
Required Reading:
Networks – The Science-Spanning Disciplines / Anna Nagurney
Audio of her talk: https://bit.ly/annanagurney
Albert-Laslo Barabasi – Taming Complexity
Assignment: Blog-1
Assignment: Write a post about how networks can take many forms and functions.
Class 3 – September 9, 2020 – The Public Sphere, Blogs, Linked Information
Question: Do you feel as if the Internet and your devices have made you unable to retain information?
Required Viewing:
Tim Berners-Lee: The Next Web of Open Linked Data: http://bit.ly/389kvi
Required Reading:
Bill Joy, “Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us”: http://bit.ly/x9RQ
Fred Vogelstein, The Great Wall of Facebook: http://bit.ly/8jH47Z
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, http://bit.ly/3GmukC
Anil Dash, “The Web We Lost”, 2012. https://bit.ly/32uKYIR
Discussion: Blog 1
Discussion: A Week without Google and Facebook
Assignment: Spend a week without using any Google and Facebook Products, write down your daily notes, thoughts on what life is like. Is it more difficult? More relaxing? Stressful?
Assignment: Blog 2.
Class 4 – September 16, 2020 – Information Overload and 24/7 Access To Networked Media
Question: Are the tools of digital media impeding or expanding our knowledge?
Required Viewing / Reading:
Jeffrey Rosen: “The Web Means the End of Forgetting”, http://nyti.ms/atnScD
Anna Notaro, The Lo(n)g Revolution: The Blogosphere as an Alternative Public Sphere?
Link: https://bit.ly/notaroanna
Tom Owad, Data Mining 111: Finding Subversives
with Amazon Wishlists: http://bit.ly/TxZPt
Google Opt Out Policy: video link: http://bit.ly/11wcAc
Case study: Google Search, Facebook, Gmail, Google Adsense,
Assignment: Blog 3
Class 5 – September 23, 2020 – Crowdsourcing and User Generated Content
Question: How is Crowdsourcing changing methods of labor on the Internet?
READ:
- The Rise of Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, 2006: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
2. “The Future of Crowdsourcing: Why the Crowd Is Changing, and What You Can Do About It”, Dustin Haisler, WIRED, March 11, 2014
3. The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional, The Atlantic, 2010
Class 6 – September 30, 2020 – Wikipedia And Wireless Space
Question: How has wireless technology changed how we think of public vs. private spaces?
Required Reading:
1. ”Social Impacts The Telephone And The Cell Phone Has Had On Society”, Victor Epand, http://bit.ly/1Peq52
2. WiFi-Hog: From Reaction to Realization
Brucker-Cohen, Jonah, Link: https://bit.ly/2DFzM3v
3. Slashdot, “Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves”: http://bit.ly/agNKu
4. “Corruption, Tretchery and Deceit at Wikipedia“, Wolfshead, January 2009.
5. “ Smartphones revolutionize our lives—but at what cost?” BY Yudhijit Bhattacharjee , National Geographic, https://on.natgeo.com/2Hh3e1l
Class 7 – October 7, 2020 – Midterm Presentations
Students present a project idea that engages critically in the area of technology and communications
Class 8 – October 21, 2020 – The Culture and Tools of Digital Networks / Public DATA
Discussion: Blog 1: Making Data Public
Case study: The Most Boring Places: http://angiewaller.com/the-most-boring-places-in-the-world-2009/
Case study: Sad Topographies: https://www.instagram.com/sadtopographies/?hl=en
Open Data: http://www.data.gov
Content: How does the internet work? Why is it successful?
Case study: E-mail, Blogs, Instant Messaging, Torrents
Assignment: Blog 6
Required Reading:
Arvind Narayanan “Is Making Public Data “More Public” a Privacy Violation?” https://bit.ly/3eANYYn and “What Every Developer Needs to Know About “Public” Data and Privacy” : https://bit.ly/2DOEJXM
NEW MEDIA, REWIRED
By Jussi Parikka, 18 October 2006
http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/new-media-rewired
Clay Shirky, Does the Internet Make you Smarter? https://on.wsj.com/30ennv2
Interview with Christophe Bruno: Neural Magazine: https://bit.ly/2CI3Tqg
Class 9 – October 28, 2020 – Designing With Technology – Part 1
Question: What tools allow you to to design interactive content for the web?
Download Processing for free: https://processing.org/download/
P5JS – Create a simple project using p5.js = http://p5js.org
Required Viewing:
1.Hello Processing: https://hello.processing.org/editor/
Assignment: Create a drawing in Processing or P5.js using code examples from the tutorial
Class 10 – November 4, 2020 – Designing With Technology – Part 2
Question: Why are maps important? What societal information can be learned from them?
Mapping Stories
Fundamental map concepts and types. Survey of journalistic map features
Assignment: Create an interactive social map with Google Maps
Links:
- No street View – Argentina” – https://bit.ly/3jd3VXU
- Mapping Stereotypes : https://bit.ly/stereotypesmap
- “Reliance on Google Maps Street View Could Create an Urban Digital Divide”, GREGORY SCRUGGS, Next City, https://bit.ly/3905jZu
- Google My Maps Tutorial: https://bit.ly/mymapstutorials
Class 11 – November 11, 2020 – Designing With Technology – Part 3
Question: What is your App idea?
Assignment: Design an App prototype using proto.io
Signup for a free account at this Link: http://proto.io
Post a screenshot and link to your finished app to the blog. In class, show your prototype in action!
Class 12 – November 18, 2020 – Biomedia
Question: How are we becoming interconnected with technology biologically?
READ:
Review of Eugene Thacker’s Biomedia / Nicholas Ruiz III link: https://intertheory.org/thacker-ruiz.htm
Excerpt from Biomedia “DATA Made Flesh”: https://bit.ly/dataflesh
Decoding the Future with Genomics / Juan Enriquez. link: http://bit.ly/1HEKsJ
Assignment: Blog 11
Class 13 – December 2, 2020 – Final Projects Presentations Part 1
Students present their concepts.
Class 14 – December 9, 2020 – Final Projects Presentations Part 2
Come up with a creative technological solution to a social problem. You can use some of the ideas from your App projects and midterm, but you need to significantly take these projects further with user studies – demo your app with people – get feedback, report on the feedback, and change your design t version 2.0 based on user feedback. Write a 1000 word post on the blog that explains your project and why it is important. Use at least 3 references for your written component. If your project is an App, link to it or if it uses P5.js you should embed it on the blog.
Students present their concepts.
