Week 1
Monday August 27
BEFORE CLASS: None
IN CLASS: Syllabus Review. Introduction to key assignments.
Brief discussion of writing and research in the context of Web 2.0 and social media.
HOMEWORK: Set up your Personal blog on Wordpress.com and a public twitter account for use in this class.
Email a link to your blog and twitter account to John and Deepti.
Wednesday August 29
BEFORE CLASS: Read Paragraphs and Paragraphing from Purdue OWL,
How to Structure a Paragraph With a Hamburger from Acephalous, and Paragraph Structure
from the UMUC Effective Writing Center.
IN CLASS: Discuss paragraph structure and formation. Evaluate paragraphs and discuss
how to write coherent multi-paragraph compositions. 15 Minute super-fast intro to Wordpress.
HOMEWORK: Reflection Essay ONE: What are your goals for this class?
What do you feel you need to know about writing and research online?
How would you characterize your daily engagement with the internet and digital technologies?
Reflection Essay ONE is due at 11:59pm Friday, August 31.
Week 2
Monday September 03 NO CLASS (Labor Day)
Wednesday September 05
BEFORE CLASS: Read "Introduction" in Net Smart (pgs 1-33) AND come to class prepared with one question
about New Media you would like to explore in this class.
IN CLASS: Discuss our questions about New Media, and how Rheingold's introduction addresses them. Develop a list of shared class goals.
HOMEWORK: Refine the list of class goals posted online by engaging in some collaborative editing.
Week 3
Monday August 27
BEFORE CLASS: None
IN CLASS: Syllabus Review. Introduction to key assignments.
Brief discussion of writing and research in the context of Web 2.0 and social media.
HOMEWORK: Set up your Personal blog on Wordpress.com and a public twitter account for use in this class.
Email a link to your blog and twitter account to John and Deepti.
Wednesday August 29
BEFORE CLASS: Read Paragraphs and Paragraphing from Purdue OWL,
How to Structure a Paragraph With a Hamburger from Acephalous, and Paragraph Structure
from the UMUC Effective Writing Center.
IN CLASS: Discuss paragraph structure and formation. Evaluate paragraphs and discuss
how to write coherent multi-paragraph compositions. 15 Minute super-fast intro to Wordpress.
HOMEWORK: Reflection Essay ONE: What are your goals for this class?
What do you feel you need to know about writing and research online?
How would you characterize your daily engagement with the internet and digital technologies?
Reflection Essay ONE is due at 11:59pm Friday, August 31.
Week 2
Monday September 03 NO CLASS (Labor Day)
Wednesday September 05
BEFORE CLASS: Read "Introduction" in Net Smart (pgs 1-33) AND come to class prepared with one question
about New Media you would like to explore in this class.
IN CLASS: Discuss our questions about New Media, and how Rheingold's introduction addresses them. Develop a list of shared class goals.
HOMEWORK: Refine the list of class goals posted online by engaging in some collaborative editing.
Week 3
Monday September 10
BEFORE
CLASS: Read pgs 35-50 of Net Smart and The Myth of Monotasking by Cathy
Davidson.
IN
CLASS: Attention Exercise and Discussion. How can we learn to pay more
attention to attention?
HOMEWORK:
Complete Part One of the Attention Journal Exercise. (Post assignment to your blog by 4:00 PM Wednesday)
Wednesday September 12
BEFORE
CLASS: Read: pgs 50-75 of Net Smart.
IN
CLASS: Discuss basic online attention failure modes and tools and techniques
for attention management online.
HOMEWORK:
Complete Part Two of the Attention Journal Exercise.
Week 4
Monday September 17
BEFORE
CLASS: Review your classmates' attention journals. READ pgs 77-89 of Net Smart.
IN
CLASS: Discuss the Attention Journal assignment. What techniques and tools did
we find successful? Which were less than successful? Introduction to effective search
techniques from Google's search technique classes. Discuss public blog project.
HOMEWORK:
Complete several Google-a-day puzzles.
Wednesday September 19
IN
CLASS: Discuss the search techniques we practiced, and the sources we relied
on, to answer the Google-a-day puzzles. Discuss the principles and techniques
of source evaluation. Share public blog project ideas.
HOMEWORK:
Build a twitter list with 7 good sources relevant to your blog and share it
with the instructor.
Week 5
Monday September 24
BEFORE
CLASS: Read pgs 111-119 of Net Smart.
IN
CLASS: Visit to library to learn database search techniques.
HOMEWORK:
Wednesday September 26
BEFORE
CLASS: Review your partner's blog proposal.
IN
CLASS: Discuss blogging as a participatory community. How can we distinguish high quality blogs from low quality blogs? How can we build our social capital within a blogging community? Introduction to workshop technique and etiquette. Blog proposal workshop.
HOMEWORK:
Revise your draft blog proposal prior to submission to the instructor!
Blog proposals are due via
email by 11:59pm Friday, September 28
Week 6
Monday October 01
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Copyright and Plagiarism from the Penn State University Library,
and About The Licenses from Creative Commons.
IN
CLASS: Discuss copyright, plagiarism and the ethics of blogging. Debate the
merits of various CC licenses and decide on a license for public blogs.
Exercises on best practices for image and video re-use. Final Q+A for public
blogs.
HOMEWORK:
Watch for comments from John and Deepti on your blog proposal, and be prepared
to make and discuss changes.
ALL
PUBLIC BLOGS MUST POST THIS WEEK AND EVERY WEEK FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE
SEMESTER.
Wednesday October 03
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 119-126. Come to class with examples of filter,
connector, critic, and advocate type blogs selected from your annotated blog
rolls.
IN
CLASS: Discuss the use of the four styles of blogging, as observed in your
blogging community. How might we apply these styles to our own projects?
HOMEWORK:
Post a "filter" style post to your blog.
Week 7
Monday October 08
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Wikipedia Manual of Style
IN
CLASS: Discuss the idea of style conventions and explain how we can adapt the
Wikipedia Manual of Style to our own needs. Show how Wikipedia's style
conventions meet the needs of its purpose, audience and readers. Discuss how we
might adapt the some of these rules to meet our own needs. Deepti will lead
discussion of best practices for writing and editing blog posts.
HOMEWORK:
Post a "connector" style post to your public blog. Begin work on the
class-edited blog manual of style.
Wednesday October 10
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 126-134. Consider how the blogs on your blogroll
exercise the curation skills discussed by Rheingold. Explore the photo-sharing
site flickr, and the social news site reddit and consider how they utilize mass
participation and tagging to filter and content for readers. How does this mass
filtration differ from the curation exercised by individual bloggers? How might
participating in mass filtration benefit you, as a blogger?
IN
CLASS: Discuss the concept of curation and how examples drawn from blogs on
your blogrolls make use of it. Discuss the potentials and weaknesses of social
news sites. Discuss how class bloggers can curate information for their
readers, and how we can benefit from mass curation of a public bookmark list.
HOMEWORK:
Sometime this week, post a "critic" style or "advocate" style post to your public blog. Find at least three new sources to support your
position. Add your new sources to the class public bookmarks collection on Diigo.
Week 8
Monday October 15
BEFORE
CLASS: Make significant progress on the homework assignments from last class.
Review the class-edited blog manual of style and make any useful edits you can
think of.
IN
CLASS: Continue our discussion of curation and critic/advocate style blogs. What questions do we have about what curation
means and how to practice it effectively? Deepti will lead discussion of
writing techniques applicable to recent public blog posts.
HOMEWORK:
Reflection Essay Two: Use the following questions to reflect on your first two weeks of blogging.
What did you learn about the filter, connector, critic and advocate modes by writing your first posts?
Which style of posts do you expect to be the most challenging for you to compose in the future and why?
What sources did you rely on for your first two weeks of blogging and why did you choose these sources?
What did you learn about the filter, connector, critic and advocate modes by writing your first posts?
Which style of posts do you expect to be the most challenging for you to compose in the future and why?
What sources did you rely on for your first two weeks of blogging and why did you choose these sources?
Wednesday October 17
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 134-145 and How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, by Steven Johnson. Review your list of twitter information
sources, as well as some of the lists compiled by your classmates. Consider how
twitter users craft personas for themselves in 140 characters or less. How do
these personas vary depending on the audience and purpose of the twitter
account? How do twitter users demonstrate curation?
IN
CLASS: Discuss the use of twitter by your sources, and best practices for
building an identity online, especially on public social media platforms.
In-class exercise building Storify stories (unless Storify fails us, in which
case we will work on expanding our twitter lists).
HOMEWORK:
Finish your storify story, adding comments and explanation of your own. Post as
a "connector" style blog post to your public blog.
Week 9
Monday October 22
BEFORE
CLASS: Make significant progress on the homework assignments from last class.
Review the class-edited blog manual of style and make any useful edits you can
think of.
IN
CLASS: Continue our discussion of building public personas online and twitter.
What have we learned by building our storify stories and connector blog posts?
What questions do we have about what curatation means and how to practice it
effectively? Deepti will lead discussion of writing techniques applicable to
recent public blog posts.
HOMEWORK:
Write a "critic" or an "advocate" style post for your
public blog.
Wednesday October 24
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 147-173.
IN
CLASS: Discuss collaboration online and "crowdsourcing." In class
collaboration exercise/game. Discuss how we might apply mass collaboration
techniques to specific future on-line writing tasks.
HOMEWORK:
Write a "filter" or "connector" style blog on your public
blog. Collaborate with your classmates by leaving at least two constructive
comments on their public blog posts.
Week 10
Monday October 29
BEFORE
CLASS: Make significant progress on the homework assignments from last class.
Review the class-edited blog manual of style and make any useful edits you can
think of.
IN
CLASS: Continue our discussion of collaboration. What did you learn from making
and receiving blog comments? How do we see collaboration unfolding on other internet
platforms, like reddit? How might we tap into this? Deepti will lead discussion
of writing techniques applicable to recent public blog posts.
HOMEWORK:
Write an "advocate" or "critic" style blog post.
Wednesday October 31
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 173-187.
IN
CLASS: Introduction to Wikipedia editing. Briefly discuss the core values and
culture of Wikipedia and provide tips for successful editing. Some in-class
practice time will be provided.
HOMEWORK:
Begin the Wikipedia assignment. Write a "filter" or
"connector" style blog post.
Week 11
Monday November 05
BEFORE
CLASS: Make significant progress on the homework assignments from last class.
Review the class-edited blog manual of style and make any useful edits you can
think of.
IN
CLASS: Discuss our progress on Wikipedia editing. What challenges are we
encountering? What have we learned about the process of online collaboration?
HOMEWORK:
Write an "advocate" or "critic" style blog post.
Wednesday November 07
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs 191-215.
IN
CLASS: Download the network analysis tool and
complete the Network Analysis Exercise. Discuss the results of the network analysis exercise. What did your
blog's "neighborhood" look like? How do the link networks your
classmates discovered compare to the network you discovered? How would you
characterize the "supernodes" of your blog community? What sorts of
bloggers occupy supernodes? Who are they? Who do they work for? Deepti
will lead discussion of writing techniques applicable to recent public blog
posts.
HOMEWORK:
Submit a post from your blog to a "supernode" blog in your community.
Write a "filter" or "connector" style blog post.
Week 12
Monday November 12
BEFORE
CLASS: Make significant progress on the homework assignments from last class.
Review the class-edited blog manual of style and make any useful edits you can
think of. Review the class infotention guide, and make any useful edits you can
think of based on our experience of finding sources and writing blog posts over
the last few weeks.
IN
CLASS: Continue our discussion of Network Analysis and start working on your Prezi for the Network Analysis Assignment. Discuss our experience
submitting a post to a "supernode" blog. Deepti will lead discussion of writing techniques
applicable to recent public blog posts. HOMEWORK: Write an "advocate"
or "critic" style blog post.
Wednesday November 14
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs. 215-238. Review the blogs on your blog roll, as well
as your twitter list. How do you think members of your community build social
capital online?
IN
CLASS: Discuss social capital and the techniques to build and maintain it
online. Present your Prezi on Network Analysis.
Week 13
THANKSGIVING
BREAK! EVEN THOUGH CLASS DOES NOT MEET THIS WEEK, YOU MUST COMPLETE ONE
FILTER/CONNECTOR AND ONE ADVOCATE/CRITIC BLOG POST THIS WEEK. YOU MAY COMPLETE
THESE ANYTIME THIS WEEK YOU CHOOSE, BUT THEY MUST POST TO YOUR BLOG PRIOR TO
11:59 PM SATURDAY NOVEMBER 24
Monday November 19 NO CLASS
Wednesday November 21 NO CLASS
Week 14
Monday November 26
BEFORE
CLASS: Read The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff.
IN
CLASS: Discuss apps and other internet platforms.
HOMEWORK:
Begin the Group platform review assignment.
Wednesday November 28
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Bernard Stiegler’s essay from The YouTube Reader.
IN
CLASS: Discuss the process of critically evaluating platforms for digital
writing and multimedia production. According the Stiegler, what makes video
sharing platforms like YouTube so historically significant?
HOMEWORK:
Write a "filter" or "connector" style blog post.
Week 15
Monday December 03
BEFORE
CLASS: Review your contribution to Wikipedia for Wikipedia assignment. Has it
withstood the activity of later editors? What else, if anything, has changed on
your Wikipedia article since you completed editing it.What did you learn from
the process of editing Wikipedia?
IN
CLASS: Discussion of Wikipedia Assignment. Continue discussion of internet platforms in the context of Stiegler's essay.
HOMEWORK:
Write an "advocate" or "critic" style blog post.
Wednesday December 05
BEFORE
CLASS: Prepare for group presentations on platforms.
IN
CLASS: Group presentations on platforms.
HOMEWORK:
Write a blog post of any style of your choosing.
Week 16
Monday December 10
BEFORE
CLASS: Read Net Smart pgs. 239-253.
IN
CLASS: Finish group presentations on platforms. Revisit class goal document from the beginning the semester. What did we
learn that we hoped to learn? What do we feel we need/want to investigate
further? What surprised us?
HOMEWORK:
Write a blog post of any style of your choosing.
Wednesday December 12
HOMEWORK:
Final reflection essay assignment:
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