Digital Culture/clutter: Life and Death on the Net

Tangibility is being replaced by virtuality. Social media supplants the water cooler. MOOCs challenge the classroom.

This course is a colorful melange of ideas, debates, inventions and stories of the visionaries and entrepreneurs who've created-- and critiqued -- the digital world - as we know it today.

This is an introductory survey course. It fits into early, foundational learning in various disciplines, such as Social Science; Arts & Culture; Business & Management; Communication; Computer Science; Education; Humanities; Law, and the informal studies of lifelong learners. No previous knowledge is required.

However, life in the 21st century is assumed.

Topics (weeks) Death of Privacy? Death of Center, Time and Distance? Death of Conversation? Death of Classroom? Death of Tangibility and Books? Death of Choice (Truth)? Death of and Memory and Death? Weeks 8-10 (CCM) Collaborative Concept Mapping ( creation/ranking questions on Ligilo ) Death of the Promise? Final Exam Assessment Students will be assigned to cohorts of 50-80 participants each. Collaboration activities and assessment will be within the cohorts. Students enrolled for credit are expected to watch the recorded lectures, read/listen/watch the assigned materials, complete two midterm quizzes, write one final examination (all multiple choice), and submit weekly contributions to online arenas shared by their cohort. The weekly assignments comprise the creation of test / knowledge items, response to items created by peers, and participation in the creation and construction of a collaborative, semantic concept map. Grade breakdown 30% (15 + 15): 2 midterm short, interactive, internal quizzes (weeks 3, 6) 20%: Assignments based on collective discussion, throughout the course (weekly, starting from week 2) 20%: Students contribute questions of their own and answer/rank/tag questions created by their peers 30%: Comprehensive summary examination (week 12) The full syllabus, including assigned and recommended readings, and indications of the key terms and key thinkers discussed in each chapter/week is available on the course website: http://CltrCltr.net