Course Project: Online Technology Conference

The final project is a presentation for an imaginary technology conference called in order to evaluate the impact of technology on culture. Students will pose questions of cultural concern in regard to new or emerging technologies and answer these questions in a multimedia presentation that uses scholarly research. The project will be completed in stages throughout the course and shared with the class in the final week. Students choose a new or emerging technology and ask the following questions about it (from Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century):

What is the problem for which this technology is the solution?

Whose problem is it?

Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?

What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?

What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?

What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies, and what is being gained and lost by such changes?

Students answer these questions by doing research in the UMUC library.  At least six scholarly sources must be employed to answer the questions.

Your exhibit will consist of a multimedia presentation on a particular technology and its relationship to culture. The exhibit will address the following issues regarding technology and culture:

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is for you to understand and articulate the relationship between technology and culture

Skills

The project will enable you to develop the following skills:

Identify, define, and evaluate the influence of technology on human culture

Analyze and evaluate specific relationships between technology and literature, writing, philosophy, religion, art, music, and posthumanism

Articulate cultural critiques of technology

Synthesize interdisciplinary scholarship in technology and the humanities

Demonstrate the ability to design and produce multimedia communication appropriate to a given research or creative context (purpose, audience, event, form, genre, medium)

Knowledge

The project will enable you to obtain the following content knowledge

Nature and function of technology

Nature and function of culture

Part 1: Project Topic

Choose a technology to question in your final project in preparation for your presentation at the Online Technology Conference and answer the following questions about it:

What is it?

Why did you choose it?

At this point, what do you think the answers will be? Why? 

What steps will you take to answer the questions?

What obstacles (if any) do you see in your way to answering the questions?

Your responses should be at least 200 words, in total, adhere to MLA style guidelines (Times New Roman and size 12 font, 1 inch margins), and should be carefully edited and proofed for standard use of English.

Due Date for Part 1: This submission is due during Week 2, with the final day of submission being the Sunday of the two week (11:30pm ET). Please see the Course Schedule for the exact final due date for this submission.