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DCI 271 New Dark Age

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Schedule

Jump to: Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4

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Participate

Everything with this label are activities you should do on the day if possible. Discussion questions are meant to prompt conversation. You don’t have to answer every one, instead, look for ways to engage with the ideas of your classmates.

Read/Watch

Readings and recorded lectures will appear with this label. They should be done on the day listed if possible.

Reflect

Reflections are thinking/writing prompts that will not be turned in. I encourage you to take some time away from screen to your answers by hand. If you want some accountability or feedback, you can take a picture of your writing or copy and paste and send it to me directly on Slack. You could also send yourself a message on Slack!

Due

Red means an assignment is due!

Week 1 – Chasm

Wednesday, April 29

Participate

  • Zoom: office hour introductions at 1-4pm EST. Drop in during this window to say hi and introduce yourself.
  • Slack: Icebreaker of the day on the #icebreakers channel.

Read/Watch

Reflect

  • What are your goals for this course? Your answer can be specific to the course content or general to the experience of taking a spring term course online.
  • Based on what you know of the course thus far, what are your biggest questions about the course itself?
  • Your normal routine of going to class has changed. How will you try to stay engaged? What can you do to set up new routines? What habits will help you, and what habits might be less than useful?
  • What questions do you have about technology in society? What fascinates you? What scares you? You will be able to choose your topics for most of your assignments. What topics might you want to explore?

Thursday, April 30

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Chapter 1 discussion. Posted in #discussion channel.
    • What are the greatest challenges in the world today from your perspective? How is technology involved?
    • What aspects of technology scare you the most? Excite you?
    • How have you seen technology change in your lifetime?
    • What are your biggest questions about technology and the future?
    • What does it mean to “think critically?” Have you learned skills at W&L (or elsewhere) that have helped you think critically?

Reflect

In discussion-based classes, I like to have students come up with a class charter. This is a collaboratively drafted document that spells out the guidelines for participation in the course. To prepare to write this charter tomorrow, reflect on the following:

  • What was your best classroom experience? Why was it so great?
  • What was your worst classroom experience? Why was it so terrible?
  • What are the qualities that make for a positive, safe, productive, generative, enriching classroom?
  • What about this online format? What other considerations should we keep in mind?

Friday, May 1

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Share a summary of your reflections on the reflection questions from yesterday. What are the shared values for a positive classroom experience? How can we carry those values through an online format? Use the Post feature in Slack to create a shared document where you write out your charter. Sign your name at the end when the document is complete. Here’s some examples if you need them.

Week 2 - Computation & Cognition

Monday, May 4

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Answer Chapter 2 discussion questions
    • Do you agree with Bridle’s take here (pg 34)? What are some examples of the ways that computers reduce complexity? What are examples of ways they “freeze the problems of the immediate moment into abstract, intractable dilemmas?”
    • What did you take away from this section? What questions do you still have? Is there a particular technology whose history intrigues you?
    • Bridle obviously has his own motivations for telling this history the way he does. What’s missing from his telling? How might a historian tell it differently?

Reflect

Do some serious brainstorming for Assignment #1! A full draft will be due Friday. Is there a piece of old technology you’ve always wondered about? Walk around your house (normally I’d suggest going to a thrift store or an older relative’s house, but not today) and see what remnants might be there. Have a conversation with someone older than you. Maybe you have a favorite old movie or period piece that might have some inspiration. And of course there’s always eBay or Etsy. I recommend making a list or creating a mindmap. You could also check out websites like the Computer History Museum or Collectors Weekly. In fact, Collectors Weekly is a great example of what your essay might look like!

Tuesday, May 5

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Answer discussion questions from Chapter 2 Part 2:
    • What GPS services do you use regularly? How does that service create a selective model of the world?
    • What code/spaces come to mind?
    • Where have you seen examples of automation bias? In your own life or in society? How did you know?
    • What do you know that isn’t online or hasn’t been shaped by computation?
  • Zoom: office hours 1-4pm EST + topic approval. Join me in Zoom to share your ideas for assignment #1.

Wednesday, May 6

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: research workshop. Let’s get together and share what we’ve found so far. Feel free to create a post on Slack to collect resources that you’ve found useful. Maybe there’s a great website or cool ebook that could be useful to someone else in the class. Or maybe you’re struggling to find sources and could use the help of others in the class.

Thursday, May 7

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day!
  • Slack: discussion questions for chapter 6:
    • Where else can we see bias in technology? What can we do about it?
    • What are the implications for how we act in the word with regard to the “reality of nonhuman intelligence?”
    • Bridle calls for an ethic of cooperation between humans and non-human intelligence. What does that look like?

Read/Watch

Friday, May 8

Read/Watch

  • Read New Dark Age, chap 3 over the weekend. Read chapter 5 if you want to get ahead!

Due

  • Canvas: Assignment #1 Dead Tech draft due Friday at 5pm EST. Post your essay to the course website, then turn in the link on Canvas.
  • Before Monday at 9am EST, review the drafts of two classmates (go to the people section of Canvas and find the names of the classmate directly before and after you) Send your feedback to them via Slack. Address the following:
    • What did you learn? How did this essay make you think differently about the topic?
    • What questions do you still have?
    • Did the author make an effective use of media?

Week 3 - Climate + Complexity

Monday, May 11

Due

  • Take any feedback from your classmates that is useful and update your Dead Tech essay. Essays should be done by 5pm EST.
  • Prepare a question or two for our guests tomorrow and Wednesday. What do you want to know about energy use, sustainability, and technology at W&L?

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: share your essay with the rest of class! What did you learn? What are some patterns you notice across multiple essays? How does learning about these old pieces of technology affect your perspective on the future of technology?

Read/Watch

Tuesday, May 12

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day!
  • Slack: Chapter 3 discussion questions:
    • What new thing did you learn about climate change? What do you want to look into further?
    • What can you do personally about climate change? What feels beyond your control? Why? Is there a step that you feel yourself resisting?
    • What other hyperobjects can you think of? What are the effects you see from those hyperobjects?
    • What does “practical unknowing” mean to you?
    • What questions do you have for our guests this week?
  • Zoom: Live class at 2:30pm EST with Kim Hodge and Jane Stewart from the Sustainability Office at W&L.

Read/Watch

  • New Dark Age, chapter 5

Wednesday, May 13

Read/Watch

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day!
  • Zoom: Live class with David Saacke at 1pm EST.

Thursday, May 14

Read/Watch

  • Canvas: watch chapter 5 lecture video

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day!
  • Chapter 5 discussion questions:
    • What do you think of this acceleration idea? Do you see that working or not working in certain areas? Where do see a gap in what technology could do to benefit others?
    • What have you learned so far in college about approaching complex ideas? Does Bridle’s recommendation work for you? Does it work for technology?

Friday, May 15

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day!
  • Zoom: office hours 1-4pm EST to answer any questions about assignment #2.

Read/Watch

  • Canvas: Watch Assignment #3 Unessay video before Monday
  • Read New Dark Age chap 10 over the weekend. Take a look at the other chapters we haven’t read and choose at least one to read thoroughly. To help you decide:
    • Chapter 4 - Big data, science, pharmacology
    • Chapter 7 - government surveillance, intelligence
    • Chapter 8 - conspiracy theories
    • Chapter 9 - weird auto-generated content on YouTube

Due

Week 4 – Cloud

Monday, May 18

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Share your Assignment #2 post in Slack. Take a look at posts from other students and compare their findings with your own. Let’s talk about the following:
    • What patterns do you notice? From looking at the map vs. reading entries?
    • What information was easy to find? What was hard?
    • What remains obscured?
    • Are there Code/Spaces you observed? How does this assignment change how you perceive the environment around you?

Reflect

Do some brainstorming for Assignment #3 Unessay. This is a creative assignment! Don’t freak yet. Give yourself a little time to let your mind chew on this idea. Freewriting can help! What has most intrigued you in this course so far? What challenges did you identify early on that you might want to pick back up? What new things do you want to tackle? I recognize it’s a tough time to be creative, but I want this assignment to help you work through the issues we’ve talked about so far in this course - in whatever manner works best for you. When/where/how are you your most creative? How can you harness that for this assignment?

Tuesday, May 19

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: Share what you learned from the chapter (not chapter 10) you selected.
  • Zoom: office hours from 1-4pm to talk about Assignment #3.

Wednesday, May 20

Read/Watch

  • Canvas: Chapter 10 video

Participate

  • Slack: icebreaker of the day
  • Slack: chapter 10 discussion questions
    • Where are you at the end of this book? Still optimistic?
    • What do you want to be a guardian of?

Thursday, May 21

Participate

  • Zoom: office hours as needed
  • Slack: Share your progress so far with your classmates. We’ll do some gentle and encouraging peer review.

Friday, May 22

Participate

  • I’d love your feedback on how this course went via ourcourse evaluation.
  • Slack: final thoughts on chapter 10 and your Unessays
  • Zoom: Unessay presentations at 1pm. If you can’t attend, please share your Unessay in Slack.

Due

  • Canvas: Assignment #3 Unessay due Friday night 11:59pm.
  • Canvas: Assignment #4 Reflection due Friday night 11:59pm.