This week in LIS 201

Week 12: Sustainable information infrastructure

LECTURE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

• We'll consider the global environmental impact of the information society, and watch a bit of the Frontline documentary episode "Digital Dumping Ground".

READINGS BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Rebecca Slayton, “Efficient, secure green: Digital utopianism and the challenge of making the electrical grid ‘smart,’” Information & Culture 48:4 (2013).
• Jonathan Sterne, “Out with the trash: On the future of new media,” in Charles R. Acland, ed., Residual Media (2007).

HOMEWORK BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Post your five-minute slideshow presentation to your personal wiki page. This must be a working presentation; in other words, once your TA downloads it and clicks on it, it should open up and play with both images and narration.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: QUIZ on reading terms
• You will begin to screen the slideshow presentations and talk about them.
• Your TA will save some time at the end of class to discuss the upcoming second midterm.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week you will review and revise your previous blog postings to think about the online "voice" that you have developed over the course of this semester, and how that differs from the voice you construct for yourself through written and print materials.

• Go back through your discussion section blog and copy out every single entry you have posted for these weekly online assignments all semester long, pasting them all into a single word processing document, one by one, with the title and date indicated for each entry.   (You don't have to include the comments you left on other students' blog posts -- just your own main blog posts.)  
• Then go through and proofread this big compendium of blog posts.   Check all of your spelling and grammar.   Make sure you have written in complete sentences all the way through.   Add paragraph breaks if appropriate.   And make sure you have correctly spelled/identified any authors' names you have reference.  Your goal is ZERO MISTAKES.
• Format this blog post compendium document as a regular writing assignment -- with 12-point Times  or Times Roman font, one-inch margins, and double spacing -- and print it out so you can hand it in to your TA at the next discussion section.   You will want to read over it one more time in printed form, because you will probably catch some last-minute typos if you do.   
• Finally, write a NEW blog post back on your discussion section blog discussing how you have presented yourself through your online writing in the class so far, and whether that is the same way that you present yourself in other aspects of your scholarly career in LIS 201 (eg. in person in discussion section, through your formal written assignments, and/or through your work on exams).   Which of your self-presentations is the most "true" or the most effective?   Which showcases your talents the best? 

This week in LIS 201 (week 11)

Week 11: Games, simulations, and avatars

LECTURE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11

• Video games

READINGS BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Stephen Kline et al., “The new cyber-city: The interactive game industry in the new millennium,” Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing (2003).
• Carlo Rotella, “No child left untableted,” New York Times (12 September 2013).

HOMEWORK BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your turn to write a 500-word article critique, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.
• Upload a working "skeleton file" of your slideshow presentation to your discussion section wiki, and make a link to your personal wiki page. This should be a PowerPoint file that has all the timings correct for the Ignite presentation, with 15-second auto-advance of the slides.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: QUIZ on reading terms
• Two student presentations (# 17 and #18) on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).  These should be the last article speeches of the semester.
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
• Discuss your book slideshow project.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This weekend you'll participate in an augmented reality game.  For this exercise, you should team up with from one to three other students in your discussion section.  At least one student in each team needs to have an iOS device (an Apple iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad).    

• Read through the Aris web site at http://arisgames.org and learn about this augmented reality tool.
• Download the Aris app from the iOS app store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aris/id371788434
• Use the app to create an ARIS account and login to the game server.
• Pick one of the available games from the "Location Specific" category (these involve our campus and city).
• Play!
• Blog about your experience playing this sort of game.  (Each group may create a single jointly-authored blog post.)
• (Inspired to create your own augmented reality game?  I'm willing to consider extra credit if you do; let me know.)

This week in LIS 201 (week 10)

Week 10: Information labor and digital divides

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 04 

• Apple, Foxconn, and controversy over different meanings of work and the varying conditions for different information workers across the globe. 

READINGS BEFORE DISCUSSION

• David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park, “The political economy of work and health in silicon valley,” in The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy (2002).
• Michael Spence, “Information technology and the integration of the global economy,” in The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World (2011).

HOMEWORK BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your turn to write a 500-word article critique, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.
• Finish your final draft of paper #2!

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: QUIZ on reading terms
• Two student presentations (#15 and #16) on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
• Turn in printed final version of paper #2.
• Discuss your final multimedia project ("skeleton" file for Ignite presentation due on wiki next week)

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This weekend you will explore the presence of casualized labor on the Interent -- and in real communities.

• Manpower Inc. is the world's largest temporary employment firm: "Manpower's worldwide network of 4,500 offices in 80 countries and territories enables the company to meet the needs of its 400,000 clients per year, including small and medium size enterprises in all industry sectors, as well as the world's largest multinational corporations." Explore their web site a bit to get a sense of what this firm does. (They even have a branch on Second Life ...)
• Now go to the US site for Manpower and do a job search in three different areas: (1) Madison, WI; (2) your hometown (or the city closest to your hometown); (2) a town or city you might like to someday live in.
• (Hint: Leave the "Keyword(s)" field on the search page empty, but choose a specific state from the drop-down menu, click on a specific town in the "locations" list, and then click the ">" button to move that town into the search box. Finally, click "Search.")
• What kind of technology skills do these jobs demand? How many temporary vs. permanent jobs are listed? Do these look like good jobs to you?
• Write up a report of your findings, comparing the three places you investigated, for your discussion section blog.
• Comment on at least one other student's posting.
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.