This semester the course will focus on
the future, especially the future of communications. We will
begin with a vision of the
Global Brain from
a 1982 book and video by P
eter Russell.
As the semester progresses, each student will do research and writing
and make class presentations on future visions and trends in a specific
area.
The SAKAI quiz on this
week's readings and class materials opens on January 31 and
closes on February at 3:30 p.m. on February 4. You may take the
quiz three times and the highest
score will count. To find the quiz, go to SAKAI, click on Communications,
then on Tests and Quizzes. To get your grade, you may need to
click on Assignment
Gradebook. SAKAI will tell you which items you got wrong.
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Assigned Reading and Video:
- Methods
and Approaches of Future Studies
- The Brief Penguin Handbook, Chapter One.
- The Sociology Department's Plagiarism
Policy and the College's Policy
on Academic Integrity.
- Video The
Global Brain to be shown in class. The transcript is
available.
- Notes on
McLuhan
- "From
Two Small Nodes, a Mighty Web Has Grown."
- Part One of the Tanscript of the
Triumph of the Nerds.
- A History
of the Computer.
Class notes, suggested readings and links to materials discussed in
class. These will be updated as the classes are
completed:
- Review of some recurrent
problems with English grammar.
- Trailer for An
Inconvenient Truth.
- World Future Society: Forecasts for the Next 25 Years.
- Wikipedia on The
History of Communication.
- Theories of Marshall
McLuhan.
Understanding McLuhan
- Triumph of the Nerds, Web
site. We will begin watching this video this week, leading into
next week. We will also read the transcript.
We will study this video in detail, with some attention to the
difference between the print and video media. You may wish to
print the transcript and follow along with the video.
- J.C.R.
Licklider's classic articles "Man-Computer
Symbiosis" and "The Computer as a Communication Device"