Overview

• Preliminaries.
  • Admin.
• Context
  • Quick summary: Where we've been.
  • Quick summary: Where we're going.
• Exam
  • Exam purpose.
  • Exam format.
  • Terminology.
  • Exam questions.

Preliminaries

Admin

• No note takers this week!
• Only two students submitted possible questions for the exam. Those students will receive extra credit.
• Next week we have a visit from James Lee in English. He'll be talking about his work in the digital humanities.
  • Do I have volunteers to summarize the main points? I'll still do my best to take notes. (MK and DP on Monday, MK and ? on Wednesday)
• Extra credit:
  • Convocation noon Wednesday, JRC 101.
  • Institutional identity chat, noon Thursday or noon Friday, location TBD.
  • More?

Where We've Been

• Three main aspects to the course
  • Develop ways of thinking about technology
  • Applying them in the context of a variety of technologies of interest to (faculty) on campus
  • Applying ways of thinking to a technology of our own choice
• Now: All the tools
• Now: Stone tools, Flintlocks, Food

Where We're Going

• Digital humanities: How technology is transforming the way we think about understanding writing
• Biotechnology
• Intellectual propety and Entrepreneurship
• Biopiracy
• Papermaking
• Theatre
• Social media

Why Exams?

• Encourages you to think more deeply about the material
  • Evidence that review sheets help you do long-term retention (and do better on exams)
• Grading
• NOT
  • It's fun to torture students
  • To distinguish students

Exam format

• Two parts
  • Short (factual) questions
  • One essay exam
• Study, part one. For each author/subject
  • Primary claim
    • Teich tells us
    • Look at the end/conclusion
    • Look near the beginning
  • Additional ideas
    • Section headings?
    • Eboards
    • Personal notes
  • What questions would the author encourage you to ask about a particular technology?
• Study, part two. Identify commonalities and differences.
• Study, part three. Identify terms.
• Study, part four. Review eboards and notes.

Terminology

• List terms that we learned or used this semester
• Common terms
  • Technology
  • Engineering
  • Science
• Specific
  • Technological determinism
  • Laissez innover
  • Affordances
  • Signifiers
    • Natural
    • Artificial
  • More terms from Norman
  • Marxism - A way to understand the relationship between those in power and those without power, and the ways of control
  • Social construction
  • Technocratic
    • A social organization that values technological development as an important signifier for progress
    • A social organization in which those who create the technology have the power

Exam questions

Administrative

• Can we type the review sheets? Yes.
• Can we use six-point font? Yes.
• Can we copy and paste into the review sheets? I'd prefer that you didn't.
• Can we collaborate on the review sheet. You won't learn as much.

Time Use

• What's the best way to spend our time?
  • Review readings (last page or so, highlighted)

Other issues

• A hidden theme of the course: What it means to read an article