Syllabus
This is the course policies page, please familiarize yourself with it as you are responsible for everything detailed below.
Vital Info
My office is located in HEAV 415. My office hours are on Monday and Thursday before class, 3:30-4:30. I make myself as available as possible, so if you cannot make it during those times, email me and we can set up another time. My email is mcsantos at purdue dot edu.
Attendence
I list attendence first because, well, it is quite simply the most important aspect of this course. Unlike many classes, there is no discrete body of knowledge that I will be transmitting to you this semester. Rather, I will help you hone skills--these skills will be dissected and practiced in class. Furthermore, my pedagogical style is hands on and "experiential," meaning that you have to be here to experience what we do, the "learning" cannot be distilled down into some notes that you can receive later.
Thus, I will permit you to miss only three classes all semester. Evey absence above three constitutes a ten point (full letter grade) deduction from your final grade. Missing a conference counts as an absence. Please do not bother to contact me and explain why you are missing class: you have three absences, use them if necessary. You will be responsible for any work that you missed and should contact a classmate. If a serious problem arises that will force you to miss extended amounts of class, then contact me immediately so that we can work something out.
Required Materials
Over the course of the semester you will need:
- Coursepack
- We will not be using a traditional text book or reader for this class; rather, every week I will ask you to read an article or two related to either rhetoric or to the internet. These articles will be collected into a coursepack available at CopyMat in Chancey Hill.
- Handbook, style guide TBA
- I will order a handbook and style guide for the course. It will be available at X.
- One of the following books (I recommend purchasing from Amazon.com, talk to me before you order):
- Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life
- Mary Frank Fox, Deborah G. Johnson, and Sue V. Rosser, Women, Gender, and Technology
- James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Literacy and Learning
- Dan Gilmor, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People
- N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines
- Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
- Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture
- Judy Malloy (ed), Women, Art, and Technology
- Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing
- Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Rhythm Science
- Peter Morville, Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become
- Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good For You
- Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Collected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
- Steven Johnson, Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
- Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds
- Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of Commons in A Connected World
- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
- Lawrence Lessig, Code: Version 2.0
- Christopher Locke et al, The Cluetrain Manifesto
- Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less
- Robert Scoble, Naked Coversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
- Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things
- James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds
- Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Communication Changes Everything
- T. L. Taylor, Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture
- John Thackara, In The Bubble: Designing in a Complex World
- Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
- David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
- 3 Ring Binder w/ folder
- I will provide you with a number of handouts throughout the semester.
- Pens, paper, and other writing supplies
- D'uh
- Depending on your choices, you might require funds for media purchase
- If you write on video games, then you'll need to purchase video games. If you write on movies, then you'll need to purchase / rent movies. If you...
- A fully-functioning human brain
- This is perhaps the most obvious and most important. As freshmen, you will likely encounter new levels of time management issues and strain. Remember to sleep. Remember to eat. Falling asleep in class counts as an absense, so rest up.
Major Projects & Obligations
This semester you will be required to:
- Post to a blog
- As discussed in the course description, this course calls upon you to develop and maintain an active online presence. This presence will be based around the maintenaince of a weblog (blog) with three or four other students on a subject of your choice (sort of...). You will be posting writing to this blog a minimum of three times a week. Additionally, you will be posting at least one response each week. Total, that's at least four posts per week, or a minimum of 1,000 words a week. We will dedicate considerable classroom time to what a blog is and what constitutes a post, so don't worry if these things are unfamiliar. Just realize that you'll have to read and write something for this class everyother day. Your blogging will be assessed and assigned a numeric score (1-5) every week.
- Weblog Mission Statement
- Projected due date: Week 2
- Group Project
- Early in the second week of the course, we will ask you to spend a couple hours searching the web, using Google, del.icio.us, and other tools to research a topic in which you are interested. You will then get together with three or four other people to compare lists and draft a mission statement for your blog. This statment will end up being the first post for your group blog.
- Discourse Community Analysis
- Projected Due Date: Week Seven
- Individual Project
- After you having been posting for awhile, we'll ask you to write an analysis of your online discourse community. In this paper you will explicate the norms of the group you have joined and provide a novice with information about the community: where are the quality sites? Which sites should be avoided?
- Site Re-Design, Missions Statement Review
- Projected Due Date: Week Nine
- Group Project
- At the midway point of the semester, we will ask you to think about the visual layout of your site and to assess your missions statement.
- Book Review
- Projected Due Date: Week Ten
- As indicated above, I will ask you to read one book on blogging / new media this semester. I will then ask you to compose a 1,200- 2,000 word (max) review of the book. A book review is not a book report--you will not only summarize the content of the book, but also (and more importantly) you will evaluate and analyze the book.
- Argumentative Research Response Paper
- Projected Due Date: Week 14
- The topic of this paper will be (almost) entirely up to you: I will ask you for a 2,000 - 3,000 word (max) paper dealing with either 1) an issue surrounding new media or 2) how new media is changing a traditional media or practice or 3) how new media is engendering legal / political / cultural change or 4) whether or not I should offer this course again.
- New Media Project
- Projected due date: end of finals week
- Group project
- You will do something that says something about something somehow.
This looks like a lot. And it is. But, if you are smart, then you should be able to cross purpose assignments-- for instance, as you are reading your book, you can turn it into posts (assuming it relates somehow to your field, but just about anything can relate to anything else...). And, while you cannot, let me repeat: CANNOT, cut and paste posts into your research paper, you probably will be able to recycle and revise posts into more traditionally academic prose.
Assessment
| Blog Posts | 45% [three points a week x 15 weeks] |
| Mission Statement | 5% |
| Discourse Analysis | 10% |
| Book Review | 5% |
| Argument Paper | 15% |
| New Media Project | 5% |
| Readings & Quizercises | 15% [one point a week x 15 weeks] |
Conferences
You might have noticed that this is a four credit course. That extra credit directly relates to our conference time--reserved time for one on one (or two on one, sometimes four on one) instruction. If you check your schedule, then you will notice that you are in Heavilon 223 or 225 on either Tuesday or Friday. This is you conference time. We'll discuss this more in class.
Late Work & Revisions
Late work will be severely penalized—assignments will loose one letter grade for every day (not class session) late. Work will not be accepted after five days.
Revisions will only be granted in cases where a student has displayed effort—second chances are a reward, not a guarantee. Revisions constitute a major reworking of the logical structure and components of an argument (not the mere correction of surface changes). I will accept one revision of an assignment provided a student does the following:
- The student meets with either me or a member of the writing lab to discuss changes before revising.
- The student writes a one page cover letter detailing the changes they made.
Intellectual Property & Plaigarism
Plagiarism can be loosely defined as the appropriation of another person’s intellectual property without proper permission or citation—in other words stealing someone else’s work without giving them credit. I consider this the highest of academic crimes, and so does this university. Offenders will automatically receive a zero on the assignment and will be reported to the dean.
Given the electronic nature of this class, we will have to be especially careful in defining what constitutes plaigarism and how to properly give credit to borrowed or recreated material. Essentially, if you are using the "cut > paste" functions, then you need to provide quotes or format in a blockquote. You always need to give the name and location of the source (whether print or electronic). We will go over these procedures in class. More information can be found at the Dean of Student’s “Academic Integrity: A Guide for Students” page.
Disability
If you have a disability that requires special accommodations, please see me privately within the first week of class to make arrangements.
Disclaimer
Finally, I hope I haven't scared you off. If you've read this far, then I'm hoping you're an individual. I am fond of individuals. I am not particularly fond of students. Individuals are self-motivated, interested in challenges, and willing to take risks. Students are motivated by grades, interested in personal advancement, and often drop my course in the first two weeks.
I should conclude with a general disclaimer: my teaching style has been labeled “different.” I will not spoon feed you answers—in this class there truly is no spoon. Rather, I will provide you opportunities to ask questions, and answer them yourself. If I don’t frustrate you, then chances are you aren’t trying hard enough (or I'm not trying hard enough--but no one has ever suggested that that's the case...).
"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done...."
George Carlin
Napalm and Silly Putty
