Dr. Kim De Vries
Office: L-195N
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1-1:45 and by appt.
Email: kdevries at csustan dot edu
Phone: 209.667.3775
Important Notices about furlough and H1N1 Flu
Furloughs:
For the past 10 years the CSU system has suffered chronic under-funding. This year, because of the state economic crisis, the budget cuts are draconian, $584 million, the worst ever in decades. The CSU administration is attempting to manage these cuts by dramatically increasing student fees and by furloughing almost all University employees, including faculty, staff, and administrators. A furlough means mandatory un-paid days off for employees; there are 18 of these this year for faculty.
For students this means that on some days the campus will be closed. The library will have shorter hours and many campus support services will be decreased or eliminated. It will, for example, be more difficult to get signatures to meet deadlines. Some classes you need may have been cut from the class schedule or are full.
The days when I’m forced to cancel class because of the furloughs are marked on your syllabus below. These days off are not holidays; they are a very concrete example of how budget cuts have consequences.
H1N1 Flu
If you develop symptoms of H1N1 influenza (swine flu), which are: fever and cough or sore throat, along with fatigue and feeling ill, DO NOT come to class. Contact me by email or phone and I will excuse you and make arrangements for you to complete assignments. The H1N1 flu is very contagious; however, it is almost always associated with significant fever (over 100.5 Fahrenheit), so if you don’t have a fever and feel up to it, you may come to class. I encourage everyone to get the vaccine, which is just coming out. Make sure it’s the vaccine that covers H1N1 flu. If you do get the flu, once your fever has been gone for 24 hours, you should no longer be contagious, and may attend class. Also, wash your hands!
Focus on Technology and New Media
What does it mean to be “literate” and how has this changed as a consequence of the introduction of new communication technologies? What social skills and cultural competencies do young people need to acquire if they are going to be able to fully participate in the digital future? (Jenkins, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, 8/17/09)
Technology and “new media”have changed how we communicate, how we compose, and what it means to be literate. In this course we explore how new technologies and the texts we create with them impact various aspects of our social life and creative activities. Further, we consider in how new media has altered the way academic work and research are being conducted.
Purpose and Goals
Students in this course will:
- develop critical analytical skills while becoming familiar with a variety of digital media;
- become familiar with media theories and concepts from diverse fields;
- create concise descriptive, persuasive, and analytical texts;
- present their work to an audience, and engage in thoughtful discussions both online and in class.
Since it is difficult for students who are not actively engaged in media creation to properly understand the meaning of “new media”, students are also required to complete hands-on projects for the course.
Required Work
- Participation: For each class session, the student should make one thoughtful contribution to the class blog, describing their response to the readings or other assignments, and offering some topics or questions we should explore during the class. This process is designed to jump start the conversation before class so students should make an effort to read their classmate’s contributions. Keep in mind that contributions here also allow me to assess your mastery over the course content so try to anchor your comments closely to the course material. You need not, however, reference all of the material for that week but should focus your discussion on salient points of interest.
- Online reading journal/blog: You will maintain an ongoing blog in which you reflect upon the skills, knowledge, and tools you are seeking and getting out of this course and reflect upon how the subjects covered in the texts relate to the circumstances of your own life online and offline. The key word is reflection; this is about thinking about the subject matter, not simply demonstrating that you did the reading or writing. Your blog is open to others to read and comment on, but is primarily a conversation with yourself about what the subject might have to do with the world you actually live in.
- New Media/Technology Narrative: Media culture -print, screen, digital- plays a critical role in our lives as we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. For this assignment, you are asked to think critically about the role of media in your own life and environment. Select several “artifacts” that express your own taste and experience of the media. These “media artifacts” can reflect your relationship with any of the dominant media within American society or another society (i.e. print, film, television, radio, music, theater, comic books, cyberspace, etc.) The artifact(s) that you choose should have particular meaning for you. Some examples of possible choices include favorite phones, media players, texts, CDs, ads, photographs or posters, DVDs, video games, websites, etc.Create four pages (2000 words) on the meaning of this object(s) in your life and , if possible, bring the artifact(s) with you to class, or somehow show it to us. Be prepared to speak for a few minutes about the cultural significance of the media artifacts. Your goal should be to share with us something meaningful about your participation in popular culture. This will be posted in your blog. You will develop this piece into the remix that incorporates a variety of media, analyzes your own evolving relationship to contemporary media culture and how it may shape/have shaped your identity. *Adapted from Andrea Walsh, MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies
- Final Project: For this project you will focus on some idea we have discussed in class and/or that you have written about in your blog and create a text or multimedia work to explore that idea further. Your aim is to express your current thinking and the thinking of others on that idea and communicate this to an audience in a way that engages their interest and ideally provokes further thinking. If this is a text, aim for about 5 pages max, single spaced, or about 2500 words. If you are making a video or audio piece, probably 10 minutes, max. If it’s some combination, we can talk about it! The first step will be a proposal that explains the idea you want to explore and how you want to explore it.
Course materials
We will not be using a standard textbook this term. Instead, we will be reading a variety of articles from academic journals, excerpts from books, and selected writings and media pieces from web sites. All readings and media are available online.
Schedule
Week 1:
9/15– Introduction to class. What is new media? Read and discuss several definitions in class– Logan, Manovich. Discussion Groups formed.
9/17– Set up blog and begin posting both text and images. First post with your own ideas about new media. Second post listing all the ways you interact with tech and new media. Once you have completed the list, choose one or two aspects of your interaction, and write in more detail about that. Link out to websites and/or images (or figure out how to insert images) that illustrate your explanation.
Week 2
9/22– What is the Internet for? One possible answer: “The Internet is For Porn” — warning, some explicit language. Third Post: What do you think? What is the Internet for? What should it be for, and why? Remember to link to examples and say how they fit into your claims about the Internet’s use. You are making an argument, so the following guide may help you in thinking about how to organize your ideas: Argument Structure — Three Models. In class we will do a group exercise with these arguments.
9/24– New Media, Technology, and Literacy. What does it mean to be literate these days? Give some examples of what you think it means to be literate, and explain why you think so. Then take a look at this wiki page, written by A teacher, Will Rich, about what he thinks literacy means now. What do you think about his ideas?
Week 3
9/29 Evaluating Sources: How do you know what to believe? Things to consider when evaluating print sources; Things to consider when evaluating web sources. Find two web sites/sources you think are useful, relevant, interesting, and credible. Post about how they meet the evaluation criteria and why you like them.
10/1 Games We Play: “The Country as an MMO”, “Why Games Matter,” by Raph Koster. “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” Games and Education, by Barton Pursel. Many scholars and game designers agree that games teach us things, even unintentionally. Further, online games are becoming an important medium for socializing. Based on the material here and your own experiences playing games, what do you think? Refer to specific ideas, quotes, lines of song to support your view.
Week 4
10/6 Impact on Communication: The Guild — Wake Up Call, Facebook Breakup, How has the way we communicate changed with the introduction of new technologies? When did you first start using email, or instant messaging, or texting on a cell phone? How did your communication practices change? For which people do you use which kind of communication channels? Why? Further, we can hear from people we never would have encountered. For example, people in Afganistan.
10/8 Personal use of Technology narrative due. Workshop in class.
Week 5
10/13 Columbus day, no classes Start reading Little Brother.
10/15 Furlough Day
Week 6
10/20 The Information Society: Surveillance Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. Small group conferences.
10/22 Using online tools for research, writing, and composing in other media. Focus on how to make podcasts and vodcasts. Small group conferences. How-to video for podcasts.
Week 7
10/27 Furlough Day. Revision of Narrative due.
10/29 Remix and Mashup Culture: Remix and Remixability, by Lev Manovich (Oct. 2005); “Buffy/Twilight remix,” “Let’s Do Something Girlie,” Location Portrait Due.
Week 8
11/3 Creating and Using New Media: “Remixing the Matrix: An Interview with Paul D. Miller, aka DJSpooky.” Remixes at DJ Spooky’s web site — scroll to the bottom of the page to find them.
11/5 Furlough Day and project proposal due.
Week 9
11/10 Hacktivism: “The Yes Men” movie, available here.We will watch some in class and discuss it. “Tactical Media” on Wikipedia. P/Vodcast due.
11/12 Finishing touches on podcasts; we’ll start looking at them. Discussion of the Yes Men, of the remixes, and of the final project. project proposals developed in class.
- What is my claim/question?
- How will I present it?
- Create outline or story board
Week 10
11/17 Work on Remixes and Projects
11/19 Personal Use of Technology remix due. Workshop final presentations/papers in process
Week 11
11/24 Furlough Day
11/26 Thanksgiving
Week 12 Workshop final Papers/Projects
12/1 Bring what you need to work on your project; I’ll check in with each of you and answer questions, offer feedback, etc.
12/3 Today you’ll share with peers and continue working.
Week 13
12/8 Final Projects/Papers due. Because of treacherous road conditions, I will not be meeting my 9:40 class (section 9), nor my 2:30 class (section 7), if the roads don’t open in time. Please sort yourselves into groups of 3 or 4 and look at each of your projects. Arrange so that each of you gets feedback from at least one person in the group, as a comment on your Final project post. Then, choose one of the projects to present in class as a group. That is, each peer group will present one of the projects to the whole class on Thursday.
While giving feedback and choosing a project to present, consider the question or issue the author explores:
- What makes it important?
- How are background information and research data given, so that viewers or readers can really understand the argument and conclusions?
- How did the authors choose to use other media to support their explanations and arguments?
- Do you understand how all the information fits together?
- Does the conclusion seem to follow logically from the rest of the project?
12/10 Selected final projects presented. What is New Media? redux. Evaluations.
* FLOSS = Free/Libre Open Source Software
ashes9109.wordpress.com
aplacido.wordpress.com
gottaluvgavroche.wordpress.com
ablades.wordpress.com
sadiecakes.wordpress.com
jstewart90.wordpress.com
njacquez.wordpress.com
nkishore129.wordpress.com
bretyoung.wordpress.com
Jackelyne Ramos
http://jramos2.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/new-media-in-todays-society/
Kanwarpreet Dhaliwal
Technology in my Lifetime
http://dhaliwalk.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/technology-in-my-lifetime/
Jackelyne Ramos
http://jramos2.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/ayo-technology
hope this is correct
jessmariec.wordpress.com
maribel5.wordpress.com
zwelton.wordpress.com
bavila3.wordpress.com
http://kariseph.wordpress.com
whoops. that last url was a typo
http://karisteph.wordpress.com
http://jesussolorio23.wordpress.com/
List and uses:
phone- texting
computer- myspace
radio- ipods
TV- dvr (record and rewind features)
With the new media I interact using computers,cell phones,Raido’s,Ipod’s.
The Cell phone is probobly the utility I use in my everyday life. I mostly make use of the texting feature. Texting has come along way, it use to be that people just communicated with one another to go to lunch or just say happy birthday. But now texting has taken over education. Students now texts their teachers to learn the lesson. I use texting everyday that is pretty much all I use to communicate with people. I no longer speak on the phone as much as I use to and even my home phone has been disconnected because there is no use of the phone just texting. I like texting because its a lot easier and faster to communicate with people and its better than using the internet. With a computer there is risk of viruses or even a crash. With a cell phone its less likely to have problems and its more convenient. The only way people can really communicate with me is through texting sometimes its even rare for myself to answer or make a phonecall.
With the new media I interact using computers,cell phones,Raido’s,Ipod’s. With the new media I interact using computers,cell phones,Raido’s,Ipod’s. I use the most common thing which is the cellphone and the Television. I have a cellphone to keep in touch with my parents and some of my close friends.That is the best way to communicate. I used texting and I use to use it all the time but it addicts you to keep texting. People that are on there cellphone all day is because they dont have anything else to do but text. Every certain months they come out with newer cellphones I like the cellphone I have but, the newer versions of my cellphone are better.I also like to watch television. I have a Big screen tv back home, we have it for the livingroom. When I was young I remember watching movies in a small tv. Now a days they have the tv connected to the internet. There are many website I log into myspace would be one of them. I communicate on that website with my friends that live far away. I also interact with different types of people that log in to myspace.
Myspace Information:
http://personalweb.about.com/od/myspacecom/a/whatismyspace.htm
Cellphones:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone.htm
Televisions:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-oKNXirnXIJs/learn/learningcenter/home/tv.html
http://hannahnoonan.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/new-media/
http://csustan.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/interaction-with-media/
http://nkishorenewmedia.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/5/?preview=true&preview_id=5&preview_nonce=d05f2d841a
http://jramos2.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/what-its-for
http://vquezada.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/how-the-intern…ss-intelligent/ Edit how-the-internet-makes-students-less-intelligent View Post Get Shortlink
http://vquezada.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/how-the-intern…ss-intelligent/
http://ashalita.wordpress.com/
http://maiarosales.wordpress.com/
http://soosterman09.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php
I didn’t see my name(Sarah Oosterman) so I added another comment with my blog site
My name is not on the student blog list.
Jazmine Garcia
http://kindachicfreak18.wordpress.com
http://csustan.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/14/
http://gmaldonado2.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/10/
The internet is for the exploration of resources, projects, questions and subjects that intertwine with daily life. It allows for people to accomplish their tasks with more efficiency and with less difficulty. Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, newspapers, media links, etc. are available online and are applied with a better time efficient and understanding to the task at hand than the original types of resources. If someone is sick but do not know if they have the swine flu they can quickly look up the symptoms and analyze their sickness to figure out what they have. If someone wants to know what issues are being debated over in politics, they can be informed with a media link. Convenience of the internet as a resource is the reason that it is used. That is why the internet should be used to make daily life easier. Thus each person has a different reason to use the internet.
The internet should be used for the convinience of accomplishing tasks that can have a sufficient outcome in peoples lives. Education, work, bills, news, and to allow for one to have time efficiency to satisfy the daily life experience. It should not be used on subjects that have no true effect on real life.
http://jramos2.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/to-be-literate
http://gmaldonado2.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/new-media/
http://gmaldonado2.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/interacting-with-new-media/
Jazmine Garcia
http://kindachicfreak18.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/literacy-today/
The internet should be used for tasks that have a significant positive impact on people’s daily lives. Education, important news, work, finances and organization of time management are what it should be used for. The internet shouldn’t be used for time consuming subjects that have no true positive effect on people’s lives. By exposing themselves to the temptations of gambling, sex, drugs, extensive shopping, videogames, etc. online will result in a bad outcome. Taking part in the negative aspects of the internet may cause addiction and poor decision making. Although some may take pleasure out of certain internet misuse, by doing so one takes away the ability to make justifiable decisions. Some of the addictions that may result from misuse of the internet are shopping too much, extensively playing video games, and betting on sports.
Internet for educational use allows students to expand their available resources for research, texts and also the curriculums that they’re involved in. Internet use with one’s job can make it less stressful and more productive in certain situations. People have an extension to their workload as well as expanded resources. (Necessary) Shopping and bill paying online eliminates the rush and extended time consumption that result from shopping and paying bills in person. News updates and history can provide important information needed faster for those who need it. All these aspects of the internet allow for the organization of plans to be more time efficient.
A mother can pick up her son from school and pay the bills online so she won’t have to worry about her payment being late for the bank being closed. A father can change a family camping trip to a trip to Disneyland as a result from wildfire updates. He can also send his boss his work reports via email from the hotel.
Many oppose limitations on internet use claiming that if they take joy from their tasks they should be able to continue. The key to not allowing internet misuse is that it would allow for the enhancement of the life experience with fewer setbacks. There are already many negatives that people can be exposed to without the internet. To give these negative aspects extensions into the internet to branch out further would be reckless and irresponsible.
The internet should be used for tasks that have a significant positive impact on people’s daily lives. Education, important news, work, finances and organization of time management are what it should be used for. The internet shouldn’t be used for time consuming subjects that have no true positive effect on people’s lives. By exposing themselves to the temptations of gambling, sex, drugs, extensive shopping, videogames, etc. online will result in a bad outcome. Taking part in the negative aspects of the internet may cause addiction and poor decision making. Although some may take pleasure out of certain internet misuse, by doing so one takes away the ability to make justifiable decisions. Some of the addictions that may result from misuse of the internet are shopping too much, extensively playing video games, and betting on sports.
Internet for educational use allows students to expand their available resources for research, texts and also the curriculums that they’re involved in. Internet use with one’s job can make it less stressful and more productive in certain situations. People have an extension to their workload as well as expanded resources. (Necessary) Shopping and bill paying online eliminates the rush and extended time consumption that result from shopping and paying bills in person. News updates and history can provide important information needed faster for those who need it. All these aspects of the internet allow for the organization of plans to be more time efficient.
A mother can pick up her son from school and pay the bills online so she won’t have to worry about her payment being late for the bank being closed. A father can change a family camping trip to a trip to Disneyland as a result from wildfire updates. He can also send his boss his work reports via email from the hotel.
Many oppose limitations on internet use claiming that if they take joy from their tasks they should be able to continue. The key to not allowing internet misuse is that it would allow for the enhancement of the life experience with fewer setbacks. There are already many negatives that people can be exposed to without the internet. To give these negative aspects extensions into the internet to branch out further would be reckless and irresponsible
http://csustan.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/internet-use/
The internet should be used for tasks that have a significant positive impact on people’s daily lives. Education, important news, work, finances and organization of time management are what it should be used for. The internet shouldn’t be used for time consuming subjects that have no true positive effect on people’s lives. By exposing themselves to the temptations of gambling, sex, drugs, extensive shopping, videogames, etc. online will result in a bad outcome. Taking part in the negative aspects of the internet may cause addiction and poor decision making. Although some may take pleasure out of certain internet misuse, by doing so one takes away the ability to make justifiable decisions. Some of the addictions that may result from misuse of the internet are shopping too much, extensively playing video games, and betting on sports.
Internet for educational use allows students to expand their available resources for research, texts and also the curriculums that they’re involved in. Internet use with one’s job can make it less stressful and more productive in certain situations. People have an extension to their workload as well as expanded resources. (Necessary) Shopping and bill paying online eliminates the rush and extended time consumption that result from shopping and paying bills in person. News updates and history can provide important information needed faster for those who need it. All these aspects of the internet allow for the organization of plans to be more time efficient.
A mother can pick up her son from school and pay the bills online so she won’t have to worry about her payment being late for the bank being closed. A father can change a family camping trip to a trip to Disneyland as a result from wildfire updates. He can also send his boss his work reports via email from the hotel.
Many oppose limitations on internet use claiming that if they take joy from their tasks they should be able to continue. The key to not allowing internet misuse is that it would allow for the enhancement of the life experience with fewer setbacks. There are already many negatives that people can be exposed to without the internet. To give these negative aspects extensions into the internet to branch out further would be reckless and irresponsible.
Internet was originally invented in the 1960’s for the U.S. Department of Defense so that they would have a more rapid way of communicating and sharing research. This great invention made its way to the public in the 1980’s but did not gain popularity until the 1990’s. Now we use the Internet for a variety of everyday purposes.
The Internet has grown from being used solely for communication and research to an innumerable amount of things. It can be used for shopping, social networking, research, communication, etc. Yet the main reason it is used today is for entertainment. Teens spend an average of 31 hours a week on the Internet. Of these 31 hours, 3.5 hours are spent instant messaging, 2 hours on you tube, 3 hours on homework, nearly 2 hours looking at porn, and the rest is spent looking up various other topics. Whatever happened to reading a good book? The Internet is being abused purely for entertainment and should be used for more resourceful things like gaining information and research.
In today’s society we can see that people look for ways to fill there spare time and a lot of that time is spent on entertainment from the internet. The internet is great for many things, you don’t even have to leave your bed to experience everyday activities through your computer. Shopping on the internet is as easy as pressing a couple of buttons, yes you may have to pay a couple extra dollars for shipping but why get stuck in those long lines and noisy stores when your purchases are just a click away. Gaming technology is like you would never imagine it to be, and the games aren’t just for teenage boys there is games made for all ages with multiple levels. Social networking has billions of users world wide, people can easily keep in touch with sites like facebook and twitter. There are also other sources of entertainment, that bring in huge numbers, such as pornography. As you can see entertainment caters to anyones pleasure and purpose while used on the internet.
Yes, the internet may be used mostly for entertainment purposes but people do use search engines such as google and yahoo in order to acquire information or enhance their knowledge on a subject. The internet is positively used for communication from one person to the next in order to keep in contact and up-to-date. People may use social networking sites such as facebook, which is marketed for not only young people but also adults, in order to keep up communication. The internet is a vast world that has many options for each individual person, one person might use it mainly for entertainment purposes and the next person could use it for research and information.
The internet should be used more for information rather than entertainment. It is as simple as that. People are spending too much of their time playing games or commenting each other on myspace rather than doing something productive! It is taken into consideration that millions of people do use search engines such as Google or Yahoo to look up things. However, they are looking up song lyrics, the latest fashion, or something of that sort when they could and should look up something more meaningful. For example, a college student could be researching about European history for his or her term paper. Perhaps, a mother could go to webMD.com and type in the symptoms of a sick child, and better understand the medical care the son or daughter might need.
Some people may argue that since they are the ones that spend their hard earned money on a computer and internet, they should have the freedom to do what they please. Whether it is to look at porn or do online shopping. However, it would be a safe bet that over half of the people using the internet are teenagers. These teenagers were most likely not the ones who paid for the computer. On another note, parents would be likely to be more than pleased for their children to be on the internet and gain knowledge rather than waste away catching up on all the gossip on myspace or downloading music from limewire…
Should the internet be used for gaming, videos, music, reseach, purchasing and the selling of products or communication? I guess nobody could really say what the internet should be used for, but what we can definitely say is what people are using the internet for and that is all of these things. It shouldnt be so much about what your doing on the internet weather it be gaming, videos, or research. It should be about how your doing these things for example gaming can be a productive by giving a person the social skills he or she needs, and research may help a student gain knowledge on the subject he or she is researching. So are you using the internet productively? probably not, but what it comes down to is all of these things are on the internet and most everyone has access to these things so use it wisely dont be on the internet to look up a video that has no significance but look up a video that can benefit you. Basically its all on you.
http://dhaliwalk.wordpress.com/