The formatting got a little screwy here, but whatever, my comments and suggestions are unitalicized and are the result of out-of-class conversations with a few peers concerning how best to wrap things up.
Requirements: subject to negotiation
Everyone is expected to prepare the assignment prior to class and participate in class discussion. Attendance is a sign of engagement. Any student missing more than four classes will fail. Students are encouraged to bring electronic devices to class, although they should not use them until specifically instructed to do so. No student will be admitted to class after 12:05.
Students will need to be flexible--assignments and requirements are subject to change.
There will be three primary modes of assessment:
40% Projects and participation (including blogs). These will be graded on a curve. (no curve)
Students must have blogs with posts that comment on the readings. The best
posts will be featured on the class blog. Students are also expected to comment
on one another's blogs. (keep scrolling for conversation about blogs)
40% Exams and papers. These will not be graded on a curve.
20% Self-assessment. This is your final paper. In it, you give an account of what you've
contributed to the class and what you've gotten from the class. Bluntly put, you
grade yourself and try to convince me that you deserve this grade.
Alternative grading rubric:
30% -Projects
30% -participation
30% -exams and papers
10% -self assessment
5% -blogs
4/5 Group Projects: Google
“Back to Microsoft” (critique of google)
“Society of the Query and the Googlization of Our Lives”
“The Googlization of Everything”
4/7 Group Projects: Facebook, Twitter,
“The Viral Me”
“Twitter and Long Form Thinking”
4/12 Bifo, Precarious Rhapsody, chapters 1-3
4/14 Bifo, Precarious Rhapsody, chapter 4-8
4/19 Group Projects: Wikileaks
“Contain This”
“Twelve Theses on Wikileaks”
4/21 No class. Papers due in my office at 5:00 on 4/22. I will not accept late papers or electronic submissions. (We pick the paper topics 5- 8 pages )
4/26 Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 1-57
4/28 Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 58-143
5/3 Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 144-end
Final Exam: Saturday, May 7 at 1:30.
Group/personal project presentations during exam period – said projects in place of written exam
Should blogs still be a major part of what we get graded on?
Personally- I don’t think they should have a major impact on final grades- everyone has struggled to find a way to make their blog important, and for the most part everyone has failed. Reading over the blogs it’s clear that few if any get pleasure from writing posts, and deep thought is arguably rare. This suggests a problem, not with the class, nor their capabilities, but instead with the medium. Blogging has proved an insufficient means for facilitating and gauging learning.
Perhaps this is because students feel like they are floating in the vastness of the internet’s ether- hardly even tied to a blogipelago. Maybe the requirements are too loose. I don’t know, but whatever it may be, we have shown that blogs are not a good way for the class to respond; therefore they should not be weighted heavily to judge our understanding and explorations of digital networks.
We should ask why blogging has failed us- How are blogs any different then handing in response papers? Even as I argue that blogging has not worked for our class, it has served a purpose, giving us a window into the problematic nature of evolving media and it’s (potential) impact. Blogs should be, at most, 5 percent of our final grade, and everyone should pass for participating in the experiment of blogging- so long as they are able to reflect on it, and prove they have taken something from it.
In the future human blogging or snap presentations where students are given 5- 10 minutes to reflect on the reading/ or bring to light something apropos to the whole physical class might be more effective then the blogs. This risks limiting conversation to inside the classroom, yet it may be more productive and create a better exchange of ideas then the blogs. Maybe there could be an open discussion section of every class and students are required to have blog like conversations; it could be at the end of class so students could continue the discussions once the period is over.
Furthermore, “Terminator II” and the PBS Frontline episode, “digital_ nation” should be incorporated in to the class.
The final self assessment paper should be limited to no more than 5 pages
Blogs will be evaluated starting Monday, May 9, at 12:00 (noon)
