Course Schedule Sp18

On this page you will find all the info you need about assignments, readings, due dates. All readings should be accessed through the links below.

The schedule is organized by Week, listed at the top of each section. Standard and informational text is in black and other areas are color-coded in the following way:

Due Dates, ACTIVITY TYPE, Assignment and related information, Link

Face-2-Face Class Date: In class information and resources

(I later learned that color coding is not accessible so I no longer use this method of organization)

Week 1: Introduction & What is “New Media”

Before our First Class: WATCH these early reports about “The Internet”

First CLASS: Thursday, February 1st: Welcome to Principles of New Media!

By Friday February 2nd:

  1. Visit our course site & join (via sidebar on Homepage)
  2. Sign up for Hypothesis (here: hypothes.is) and
    • After signing up, join our Hypothesis group (here) “Prin. New Media Sp2018”
    • Link to join: [removed]
  3. Create Post #1: Find and link to an example* of the 5 Cs we discussed in class. Choose a unique title for your post. In your post, describe how your example demonstrates the 5 Cs. End your post with a sentence or two about what you hope to learn in this course. Categorize the post as “Intro to New Media”.

Week 2: Defining New Media

By Tuesday, February 6th: READ & ANNOTATE

  • “What-is-Web-2.0” by Tim O’Reilly in The Social Media Reader, Mandiberg, M. (Eds). New York: New York University Press. Creative Commons, BY SA NC. (2012)
  • “Digital” By Tara McPherson, Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU Press (2014)

By Noon Thursday,February 8th: Create Post #2: But really, what is Web 2.0? Find an example that demonstrates at least 3 of O’Reilly’s 7 principles. Share your example and describe how it demonstrates the principles of “web 2.o”. Link to your example, if possible. Categorize the post as “Web 2.0“.

CLASS Thursday, February 8th:

Lev Manovich. “What is New Media?: Eight Propositions” from New Media from Borges to HTML in the New Media Reader, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (Eds). The MIT Press. (2002)

Week 3: Web 2.0 and Beyond

By Tuesday, February 13th: READ & ANNOTATE: “Chapter 1: Eversion” By Steve Jones in The Emergence of the Digital Humanities. Routledge. (2013)

Create Post #3: Do you agree or disagree with Jones’ idea of the “eversion”. Why or why not? Use quotes and everyday examples to support your claims. Categorize the post as “Eversion“.

By Noon Thursday,February 15th: Comment on one other students’ posts

CLASS: Thursday, February 15: Eversion Debate; Introduce Digital Ecology Assessment

Week 4: Digital Ecologies & Networked Devices

By Tuesday, February 20th: Complete Digital Ecology/Networked Devices Assessment; Create Post #4 to list all New Media and related items, etc. Categorize the post as “Digital Ecology List“

By Noon Thursday, February 22nd: READ & ANNOTATE: “What is the Internet of Things? WIRED Explains“

CLASS: Thursday, February 22: Internet of Things; Digital Media Ecologies, Mapping

Week 5: Back to the Beginning [Lab]

By Tuesday, February 27th: Create Post #5 (*PRIVATE REFLECTION*): Digital Ecology Reflection: reflect on your assessment and ecology map. View full directions here. Categorize the post as “Digital Ecology Reflection“.

  • What role does new media and the internet of things play in your own life?
  • What insights did you gain from this tracking your new media use?
  • What do you think about your new media use in light of our Internet of Things debate?
  • How might this inform your future engagements with New Media?
  • You will need to read “Growing Up Digital” to complete this assignment

By Thursday, March 1st: READ & ANNOTATE “Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors and Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet” by Roy Rosenzweig , American Historical Review (December, 1998)

Check out: INTEL Timeline

CLASS: Thursday, March 1st: Timeline & Final Digital project

Pick two events from the article above. Input it into our Timeline JS Spreadsheet.

Week 6: Big Data & Algorithms

By Tuesday, March 6th: READ 1 article

  1. Tech’s Frightful Five: They’ve Got Us (NY Times)
  2. Can Facebook fix it’s own worst bug? (NY Times)
  3. The Long Tail (WIRED)
  4. How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did (Forbes)
  5. Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that might be a key Trump-Russia link, explained (Vox Media)
  6. Bias already exists in search engine results, and it’s only going to get worse (MIT Technology Review)
  7. Identity, Power, and Education’s Algorithms (Audrey Watters, Medium)

By Thursday, March 8th: You will be responsible for giving a 3-minute group presentation of your article to the class. Create Post #6 to plan your presentation. (You do NOT need to meet with other students who read the article, use the post to collect your thoughts so when we get to class, everyone already has some ideas.) Write a summary of your article and address the following questions:

  • What happened? Describe the situation in the article.
  • How was data used in this situation described in your article?
  • What role do algorithms play in the situation or issue?
  • How might this situation benefit users of the technology?
  • What might be a problem or ethical issue presented by this situation?

Categorize the post as “Big Data” Tag your post with Keywords from the article title.

CLASS: Thursday, March 8: Big data & Algorithm presentations and discussion

Week 7: New Media & Activism

By Tuesday, March 13th: READ The Washington Post article below. Then, choose 1 article from the list below to READ.

LIST:

By Noon Thursday, March 15th:

Create Post #7 and categorize the post as “New Media & Activism“.

For post 7: Find a current or recent #hashtag that you might contribute your thoughts to.

Give a 2 sentence background on the #hashtag you chose. If you are comfortable create a tweet, status, post, on your social media and screenshot to share on this site. If you prefer, create a post on this site using the #hashtag and the thought you would contribute to this #hashtag conversation.

CLASS: Thursday, March 15th : Hackvism, Memes, and more

Week 8: Internet Architecture

By Tuesday, March 20th: LISTEN (podcast): On Being with Danah Boyd on Online Reflections of Our Offline Lives

Create Post #8: Reflection on Podcast. Categorize the post as “Online/Offline Lives“.

By Classtime Thursday March 22nd: READ about HOW THE INTERNET WORKS to answer the questions below. Write down your answers and bring them to class.

  1. What is an IP Address?
  2. Who is your ISP?
  3. What is TCP? What does it do?
  4. What are the 4 levels of the protocol ‘stack’?
  5. Give an example of each layer.
  6. What is the term for the chunks of data sent via the internet?
  7. What are routers?
  8. What is DNS?
  9. What does hypertext transfer protocol regulate?
  10. What feature uses SMTP?
  11. What is a LAMP stack? What About a MAMP stack?
  12. What is HTML?
  13. What is CSS?
  14. What is PHP?
  15. What is WordPress?

(HINT you may not get ALL the answers from resource above. Use the INTERNET to find the rest. There will be prizes.)

CLASS: Thursday, March 22nd: What is the internet, anyway? How does it work? Stacks, Languages, Timeline JS, Codecademy, Prizes and more…

“Information Management: A Proposal” by Tim Berners-Lee, CERN (1989); What is the internet? Where did the internet begin? Intro to Google Spreadsheets and Timeline JS

Week 9: Coding [LAB]

By Tuesday March 27th: Create Post #9 to address the following prompt:

Using what we learned in class about internet architecture, in several steps, describe what happens when you go on Twitter or Instagram from your phone, browse the content feed, and then create a post.

By Noon, Thursday, March 29th: Sign up for free account on Codecademy.com & start the Make a Website Lesson

CLASS: Thursday, March 29th: HMTL/CSS Coding; MIDTERM ASSIGNED (link to Doc)

By Friday, March 30th: Complete “Make a Website” coding course. Create Post #10 to share a screenshot of completion certificate. Include a short reflection on how you feel about coding and code as the structure of the internet. Category “Codecademy Cert”

Week 10: Spring Break

NO CLASS: Thursday, April 5

By Sunday, April 8th: Turn in Midterm

Week 11: Data Ownership, IP, Copyright

By Tuesday, April 10th: What is the Creative Commons?

Create Post #11 to answer the following questions. Category “Creative Commons”?

  • What is Creative Commons?
  • What does it do?
  • Why would this be important/needed?
  • What are the different types of CC lisences? Post or link to a picture of one in your post.
  • Find a CC liscenced image in Flickr Creative Commons
  • Download it, upload into your post (‘Add Media’ Button), and attribute the source by linking to the original image location.

By Thursday, April 12th: READ & ANNOTATE Remix: How Creativity is being Strangled by the Law. by Lawrence Lessig in The Social Media Reader

CLASS: Thursday, April 12: Data & Ownership, DMCA; Wikipedia, CC, image licensing; Discuss Final project proposals

Week 12: Net Neutrality

By Tuesday, April 17th: Create Post #12 – write 1 paragraph (250-300 words) about your plan for your final project. What New Media artifact, company, event, or technology will you trace through time on your timeline? Link to 2 sources that you might use in your project.

By Noon, Thursday, April 19th: READ & ANNOTATE Why Net Neutrality Was Repealed and How It Affects You from the NY Times

WATCH: Net Neutrality Update: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

CLASS: Thursday, April 19th: Final Project and Net Neutrality Discussion

By Sunday, April 22nd: Create Post #13 to present you ideas for your final project proposal, link to at least 2 articles you will use as sources for information about your new media artifact.

Posts should be 800+ words describing your New Media Artifact, why you chose it, and provide details about the the information that you will use from the 2 articles/sources. Category “Final Project Proposal” (post worth 5 points)

Post 13 will begin to answer some of the following questions, which you will answer and display in the timeline for your final project:

  • What is the first event in your New Media Artifact history? When was it invented/begun/founded?
  • What important historical developments LEAD UP TO your New Media Artifact?
    • For example, Twitter could not be invented without the development of Internet, widespread access to personal computers, or without widespread use of SMS text messaging ( where the original idea came from…)
  • What were the most important points and events in the history of your New Media Artifact?
  • Were there any historical events that strongly influenced or effected your New Media Artifact?
  • Has your New Media Artifact gotten any “bad press” or caused any scandals? Conversely, has your New Media Artifact promoted any positive social change in the world?
  • What effect has your new Media Artifact had on the world? How has your New Media Artifact affected business sectors, social relations, political processes, or other aspects of everyday life?

Week 13: Educational Technology

By Thursday, April 24th: READ Teaching Machines and Turing Machines by Audrey Watters

CLASS: Thursday, April 26th: You can either:

OPTION 1: On Thursday April 26th: Attend the Audrey Watters event at the Graduate Center from 6:30-8pm. Meet in GC lobby at 6:15. Make sure you have read the article above – do not come to the event without reading!! More details on blackboard and in email sent on Tuesday, 4/24.

OPTION 2: By 11:59pm Thursday, April 26th: Create Post #14 summarizing Watters main ideas and posing 3 questions you would have asked her for her tonight. Category “Ed Tech“

Week 14: Lab Day

By Tuesday, May 1st: Read and comment on 2 peers Final project proposals (Post #13). What events would you suggest adding to their timeline? What aspects of the New Media artifact may they have overlooked?

By Thursday, May 3rd: Find 2 more articles/sources you plan to use in your final project.

CLASS: Thursday, May 3: Lab day to work on final projects

Week 15: Review & Recap

By Wednesday, May 9th: Create Post 15 (*Public*) Your Top 5 Principles of New Media . See Directions here

LAST CLASS: Thursday, May 10

By Thursday May 24th: TIMELINE Completed and posted to course site. Post should include timeline AND statement.

According to the articles you read, how does Social Media contribute to or deter activism? How does social media shape and influence our opinions and political landscapes? Have you ever engaged in activism on Social Media?

In class: Hyde, et al. What is Collaboration Anyway? in The Social Media Reader, Mandiberg, M. (Eds). New York: New York University Press. Creative Commons, BY SA NC. (2012)

Open source, Intellectual property, and Creative Commons

Technology and Consumption

READ: Michael Mandiberg. “Giving things away is hard work”  in The Social Media Reader, Mandiberg, M. (Eds). New York: New York University Press. Creative Commons, BY SA NC. (2012)

READ: Zukin, Lindeman, Hurson. “The omnivore’s neighborhood?: Online restaurant reviews, race, and gentrification.” Journal of Consumer Culture. (2015)

April 12: Corporations, Startups, & Unicorns

READ: The Rise and Fall of the Unicorn from The Economist

READ: What is a startup? in Forbes by N. Robehmed

April 14: Technology and Democracy

READ:

OPTIONAL READ: Rebuilding the Web We Lost

READ: Little Brother: Intro & Chapters 1 by Cory Doctorow

READ: Identity, Power, and Education’s Algorithms

WATCH: THIS will Revolutionize Education

May 10: Ethics, Futurism, and Moore’s Law

WATCH: Ray Kurzweil on Accelerating Technology OR Does AI need to be controlled?

READ: 5 amazing predictions by futurist Ray Kurzweil that came true

READ: What Is The Singularity And Will You Live To See It?

Google’s genius futurist has one theory that he says will rule the future — and it’s a little terrifying

Singularity FAQ

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