- Prior to the first class:
- If you have not previously done so create your Bethel Computer Account: Go to (https://directory.bethel.edu/account) and follow the directions. If you have problems call the help desk at 651-638-6500 or me at 651-638-6313.
- Review the Course Web Site at (http://www.bethel.edu/~kisrob/ens305kx/). Make certain that you can access the course Blackboard site. If you have problems call the help desk at 651-638-6500 or me at 651-638-6313.
- Complete the Introduction Assignment at or Prior to the first class: Post an introduction to the Introduction Forum on Blackboard. Some possibilities might be to tell a little about yourself, your hopes for the course, and maybe an experience that you have had with technology. (You can edit your posting if you want to change it at any time. Only class members can see these postings. Click on the Discussion link in Blackboard or after logging into Blackboard on the Discussion link on the course home page.. Click on the Forum Link and then Click on the Main Thread entitled Introduce yourself to the Class. (Note: I recommend writing your Blackboard posts out and typing them up prior to going on-line. Then enter the Blackboard Site for the course and "Copy" your text and "Paste it into the response box. If you have problems, either call me at 651-638-6313 or the help desk at 651-638-6500. If you get ? in place of ""marks, see the Blackboard FAQ available via the ?Help button at the top of every Blackboard page <http://www.bethel.edu/its/is/teaching-technology/blackboard/>.)
 Week 1 :
- Complete the readings for week 1 (see the schedule).
- Complete Focus Response 1 by posting your answer to the Focus 1 Forum in Blackboard on or before Nov. 5.
- Focus Response 1 (Due on or before Nov. 5): Edward Tenner in the opening chapters of his book, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences develops a scheme to label what he calls revenge effects and then goes on to show how the area of human health demonstrates his point. Clearly using ideas from the readings (I suggest you reference an idea when you use it), write your first "focus essay" addressing how you "feel" about the "rightness" of Tenner's concept of the "revenge effect" or is he simply a paranoic, hypochondriac, luddite. What life experiences contribute to your perspective?
- Visit the online TechnoTalk Discussion forum and Post a message at least two days during the week.
Week2:
- Focus Response 2 (Due on or before Nov. 12): I have called this "week" Visions of Technology. Too often we look at technology through rose colored (although anymore they may be blueberry or platinum or...) glasses and do not have any basis or "method" by which to evaluate technology into which our lives are intimately embedded. So Monsma in Chapters 4 - 5 brings out the call of God to "do technology"— the cultural mandate— as well as the contrasting moral of "responsible technology" and "normative principles". "Visions" of technology have changed through technological times. The development of Risk Analysis is one of the models that can help us to seek balance (?) in our examination and acceptance of technology. So for this week's focus theme I propose that you develop a model of the way that you evaluate the technology that plays a role in your life and compare and contrast that model with the "normative models" of Monsma and the "risk models" from the other readings, as well as to the visions of technology through the "ages". Finally address how you think we should best evaluate technology when technology is changing so fast that we even find a definition difficult to pin down.
- Work on your Project Synopsis that will be due on Nov. 16, posted to the Project Synopsis site under the discussion tab.
Project Synopsis Paper Due November 16. Follow the expectations for this 500 word summary of what you plan on doing for your course project. Post to the synopsis forum in the Blackboard Discussion area.
- Visit the online TechnoTalk Discussion forum and Post a message at least two days during the week.
Week 3:
- Focus Response 3 (Due on or before Nov. 19): Technologies that Change the Environment: Tenner talks about hidden environmental, physical, and technological costs that are increasing in our society. ...Monsma examines our focus on wealth. The authors in the "Good in Nature and Humanity" get us to pause to think that there are other important goods to consider. If all of these "prophets" are right; What are the symptoms of this disease (or what is the disease)? Why aren't more of us paying attention? What are the solutions? and What can I do? are all questions that pop into my mind. As you read these readings (and as you are working on your projects) and based upon your observations of the workplace, environment, existing economic models, and the way you live and see others living, what do you see as the problems that need to be addressed (What are your questions?) and what do you think might be the "road" to solutions to these problems. Is Technology the solution, or the problem? Has our technology transformed us, or do we transform our technology? [Keep a transportation —you could expand this to a technology diary; cell phone, computer, TV, etc. time log if you wish— diary for the week to help you address these thoughts with some real and personal data, see links below!]
- Complete your transportation and technology diary by logging your technology use and travel for one week.
Web Diary | Excel Diary | PDF Diary for Transportation (and if you modify it for technology use overall)
- Visit the online TechnoTalk Discussion forum and Post a message at least two days during the week.
Week 4 Online:
- Complete the online lectures/lessons for week 4. Class does NOT meet on November 30.
- Contribute your Class Technology concept to the Cyber-revolution online session contribution area in the Blackboard Discussion area. Select/submit your topic by Nov. 28 and submit your contribution on Nov. 30 when we would normally meet for class (or before).
- Focus Response 4: (Due on or before Dec. 3): CyberTechnology: As we foray into "technological worldviews" we really will just scratch the surface. The readings this week broach many ideas about where the new "cyber" technologies are taking us and what the revenge effects might be. Groothius pessimistically wonders if the computer is not a new "gnosticism" in a bodiless/depersonalized new technological world, where we are drowning in a sea of information as he summarizes in T.S Eliot's words:
Where is the Life we have lost in the living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Stephen Talbot pines that Something in our culture works powerfully against a sensitive, participative understanding of the world.....The computer [and I think we would fairly have to add the house, the automobile, the TV, the cell phone........] undeniably inserts a distance between people [and Creation] that must be overcome. Of course he goes on to say that part of our responsibility is to see that "real" experiences with the "real world" are a part of our and our children's experiences, for if they are not, what then of the "virtual" outcome?
Tenner again lists a litany of physical, mental, and productivity issues that have arisen in our modern technological workplace.
What do you percieve as the benefits, the hazards, and the "right ground" as microcircuitry brings us closer and closer to the visions of "Buck Rogers", H.G. Wells, and even "1984". Will the cell phone, the computer, and the internet totally transform society? How and where might we end up if it does?
- Visit the online TechnoTalk Discussion forum and Post a message at least THREE days during the week.
- Continue work on your project. Presentations will be given next week during the last class.
Week 5:
- Project Executive Summary (Due on or before Dec. 7): Post an executive summary of your project to inform the class what you have done and how you have met the project expectations. Also put all of your references and links (if you want them to be "hot" make sure they are on a separate line with a space in front of the URL and that they are complete - Example: http://www.bethel.edu/~kisrob/ens305kx/project/project.html)
- Project Presentation (Due Dec. 7): Present an oral overview of your project and how you have addressed your work on how a given technology might be "transformed".
Completion: Project final updates/changes and Focus Response 5 Due no later than Dec. 14:
- Focus Response 5 (Due on or before Dec. 10): Monsma (and others) tackles what we should do, with disscussion about sufficient design and normative principles for design that if followed might put us on a better road. The Soujourners articles look at Christian principles and responsibilities. So, based upon your reading of these materials and upon your exposure to "other views" of technology in this course, where do you think technology is/should be taking us as we move into the early years of a new millenium? How will such views influence life as we know it in the future? What role should Christians play? What is transforming technology?
- Visit the online TechnoTalk Discussion forum and Post a message at least two days during this final week of the course.
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