Category Archives: Syllabus

Week 5: Your Time to Shine!

Quick Hitters

This week the stage is yours … Teams Right Shark and Too Disruptive get to present their synthesis of the first four classes with an emphasis on Community. I am really excited to see how you pull together the notions of community that we’ve discussed in the first block of the class. I did my assigned readings, did you?

Before we dive into the presentations we will look at a few quick items and talk a little bit about what they might mean to us going forward. I know that you are all hard at work on your videos and I promise I will let you wrap up early so you can take some time work more on those. Next week we will be looking at those as we also kick off the “identity” phase of the class. But enough about next week, let’s get to work on discussing the first big artifact of the class!

Out of Class

Readings

Assignments

  • Continue working on your Team Videos and post them to the course site via a YouTube or Vimeo embeds with a short overview of what technology you focused on and why you chose to explore it by noon on 3/5/2015
  • Weekly Create using Phoster or another like app for the iPad that illustrates your initial thoughts on identity. Post your artifact and share a short thought in the post about why this speaks to our next theme. Due by 5 PM on Tuesday
  • Weekly Team Post … what were the biggest takeaways from the readings? Please cite at least two core ideas from both The Medium is the Massage and The Web is a Customer Service Medium and discuss them in the context of both community and identity. Do you feel differently about your team video now that you have read McLuhan’s work? Due by 5 PM on Tuesday

Week 4: Preparing for the Synthesis!

Quick Items

Today

We will be doing lots of team work this week. I will be asking you to work within your teams to construct a couple of artifacts. We will start with an informal presentation by each team of their work on rounding out the SWOT analysis of the iPad in education exercise we did last week (Right Shark & Too Disruptive). I want to push you to the front of the room so you get comfortable for your synthesis presentation next week. After we talk a bit about that work, I am going to ask you to individually identify your three top thesis from the Cluetrain manifesto and why and post them to the course blog … then do the same as a team, but I want you to add in a reflection/refraction with/about the Cluetrain New Clues piece — this time synthesizing your work together and make a single post. That will provide a nice basis for a discussion of those readings. The remainder of time will be for you to work together on the Synthesis Post and Presentation … if you have questions, I will be available.

Out of Class

  • I am not assigning any readings for next week as you should be doing that in your synthesis posts (be judicious)
  • Continue working on your Team Videos and post them to the course site via YouTube or Vimeo embeds with a short overview of what technology you focused on and why by noon on 3/5/2015
  • Construct your team’s first synthesis post, post questions for the class to consider, post any readings you want us to do (or videos to watch, etc) by 5 PM on Tuesday
  • Weekly iPad Reflection by 5 PM on Tuesday
  • Give me some early feedback

Next Week

  • Present Team Videos
  • Present your first Synthesis

Week 3: Community, The Bloomsburg Daily, and the SWOT

This week we will be our first real deep dive into community. Now that you’ve experienced a little bit of Wenger we need to unpack what you learned there. Let’s talk about your reactions to the chapter you read and discuss some of the big issues embedded in his writing. I am going to ask you to write your own definition of community in teams and post it to the blog.

After that we will take a look at the curious case of The Bloomsburg Daily. We will look at it through the lens of community and disruption.

The second half of class we will be conducting a SWOT Analysis in class around the question of the iPad as an enabler within the context of higher education — teaching, learning, and community engagement.

BTW, we will be done early today!

In class

  • Define Community
  • Conduct SWOT Analysis

Out of class

  • Readings:
  • Begin working on your Team Video project: This will be due in two weeks — by noon on 2/25/2015
  • Complete the iPad survey
  • Leave a comment on the other team’s definition of community
  • Team Post: Select one strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat from the class SWOT activity and expand upon each to make a persuasive argument. See post holding our SWOT outcomes. Due Tuesday 5:00 PM.
  • Weekly iPad Reflection: How are you utilizing the device now across all of your courses and academic life? Due Tuesday 5:00 PM.
  • Weekly create. Due Tuesday 5:00 PM

Week 1: Welcome, Overview, and First Assignments

So this is it. Week 1 … we are getting set to embark on quite the semester together. We will be spending three hours each week together having conversations about how technology is shaping the world around us — and in particular, how is it impacting us here on college campuses. Much of our time will be spent having conversations about the things we will be watching, reading, and making — in other words, I expect you to come ready to share what you are thinking about. Even today is influenced by a once very disruptive force — radio. After listening to an episode of Reply All, a podcast from Gimlet Media, I decided to completely redesign our time together today … and BTW, there will be a lot of that, so get used to it!

I want you to feel comfortable in exploring new thinking with our class … the class will only be as good as we make it together! And we are off!

  • Introductions and course background
  • Syllabus review
  • Meet our technology: Twitter and course hashtag #CDT450, Google Drive, Yammer, Diigo, Course Blog, the iPad, and (maybe) NoteBowl
  • Disruptive Conversation
    • Explore the notion of disruption and disruptive technologies
    • Explore the three themes of the course — community, identity, and design
    • Explore a story and unpack disruption through the lens of our three themes
  • Establish our shared “Weekly Create Post” guidelines and assessment model

Out of Class Assignments

What is disruptive innovation?