Monday, December 22, 2014

Thanks for a great semester, and have a great new year

Folks, this will very likely be the last time I teach LIS 201 for quite awhile.  This was an unusual and experimental course that I developed just around the time that I earned tenure here at UW, and frankly I didn't know if students would find it either interesting or useful.  Seven years and over 1,000 students later, I think I have my answer.  It has been a great highlight of my career to watch each class of new participants encounter this material from their own ever-changing historical perspectives.  (This class is about as old as Twitter is, for example.)

Going forward, you're all going to continue to build the "information society" yourselves with every economic, democratic, community, and career choice you make over the course of your lives.  I hope our brief time together has helped you to better understand the impact of those choices, and inspired  you to similarly help to empower others to more fully participate in shaping our networked world of ideas.

All the best, GREG
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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

This week (and next week) in LIS 201

Week 15: Student presentations

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 09

  • Each TA will submit one student presentation for screening before the whole course. You may bring snacks if you like.
  • Last fifteen minutes: Fill out overall course evaluation (professor leaves room).

HOMEWORK BEFORE DISCUSSION

  • Work on your multimedia book review and bring your questions to section.
  • If problems with your slide show were discovered when screened by your TA, fix them and repost.   You must have a working slide show to receive credit for the assignment.

DISCUSSION MEETING

  • Workshop for the final analytic, multimedia book review.
  • Last ten minutes: Fill out discussion section evaluations (TA leaves room).
  • Graded exam #2 handed back to students.

Final Exam Week

There is no final exam for this course.
Your multimedia book review is due on the last weekday of finals week: Friday, December 19, by 5pm. Post the link to your book review blog to your discussion section wiki (and you may want to email it to your TA as well, just to make sure). Make it serious, and make it look good. No late book reviews will be accepted.

Have a good winter break!
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Monday, December 1, 2014

This week in LIS 201

Week 14: SECOND MIDTERM EXAM

EXAM ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 02

READINGS BEFORE DISCUSSION

  • None.  (Not yet, anyway.)

HOMEWORK BEFORE DISCUSSION

  • Begin work on your multimedia book review.

DISCUSSION MEETING

  • Continue to screen the remainder of the slideshow presentations and discuss them.
  • Discuss strategies for multimedia book review project.
  • Graded paper #2 handed back to students.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

For your last online activity, you will reflect on your own online experience in this course.
  • The "hybrid" or "blended" course approach of LIS 201 -- combining in-person lecture, in-person discussion section, and online activity and writing -- is an increasingly popular mode of educational delivery in higher education. Do a web search and see if you can find a few other examples of hybrid/blended courses, either at UW-Madison or at other universities. How do these examples differ from our approach in LIS 201?
  • Think about your own experience with this course. For example: Did the online portions connect with the in-person portions? Did you feel that you were a more effective student in the physical world or the virtual world? Were you able to learn more about your fellow students from online or offline (face-to-face) interactions? Do you feel more comfortable now with online resources like blogs and wikis than you did before taking this course? Should UW instructors increase their use of online components in courses, or should we proceed with greater caution?
  • Finally, think about the substantive material from the lectures and readings on the information society that you've worked with all semester long. Did the course lectures and readings bring a better perspective to your own online experiences, both in this course and in your personal life? Or another way of thinking about it: would online course components work differently in a course that wasn't all about the online world of information?
  • Write up your findings and your reactions on your discussion section weblog. Be honest, it's OK.
  • Comment on at least one other student's posting.
  • You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

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

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? 
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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

This week in LIS 201 (week 11)

Week 11: Games, simulations, and avatars

LECTURE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11

READINGS BEFORE DISCUSSION

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.)
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Tuesday, November 4, 2014

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

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.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

This week in LIS 201 (week 09)

Week 09: Social networking and online immersion

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28 

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE 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.
  • Complete your peer reviews of your fellow students' paper #2 drafts on their pages of the discussion section wiki.

DISCUSSION MEETING

  • First five minutes: QUIZ on reading terms
  • Two student presentations (#13 and #14)on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).
  • Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
  • Discuss paper #2 revision strategies.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week's challenge will be especially difficult. Get ready.
  • Attempt to survive without using any personal digital social networking tools for the whole weekend, Friday 5pm to Sunday 5pm. Do not consult or post to Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn or Google+ or whatever else it is that young people these days use for social networking.  Do not Tweet. Do not text. Do not instant-message. Do not Skype. Do not iChat. Do not answer personal emails (or even read them, if you can avoid it). And, yes, do not use your cell phone at all (although you may use a land-line phone or a pay phone). The only thing you are allowed to do is the minimum necessary online participation for other classes you are taking.
  • Once the weekend is over (or once you've thrown in the towel if you don't make it to Sunday at 5pm), write about the experience on your discussion section blog. How do you end up communicating with people? How do you coordinate meetings with your friends? How do you survive without taking a Quiz On Your Favorite Star Wars Lego Mini-Figure every hour?
  • Comment on at least one other student's write-up.
  • Be thankful you weren't a college student before the early 1990s, like I was, when THERE WAS NO WORLD WIDE WEB! (Gasp!)
  • You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.
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