Text: Annual Editions: Computers in Society, 2005-06, Paul De Palma, editor, McGraw Hill/Duskin, 2004.
Spreadsheet with Course Grades
Suggestions for Group Projects
Guidelines for Writing Documents Writing Center
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
| Date | Group | Chapter | Topic |
| Jan 24 | Overview of course, creation of groups | ||
| Jan 26 | A | 1 | Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change |
| B | 2 | Whom to Protect and How | |
| Jan 31 | C | 3 | P2P and the Promise of Internet Equality |
| D | 4 | The Computer and the Dynamo | |
| Feb 2 | E | 5 | The Productivity Paradox |
| F | 6 | As Silicon Valley Reboots, the Geeks Take Charge | |
| Feb 7 | G | 7 | At Bell Labs, Hard Times Take Toll on Pure Science |
| H | 8 | Playing the Search-Engine Game | |
| Feb 9 | A | 9 | Free to Choose |
| B | 10 | Brain Circulation: How High-Skill Immigration Makes Everyone Better Off | |
| Feb 14 | C | 11 | Software |
| D | 12 | Letter from Silicon Valley | |
| Feb 16 | E | 13 | They're Watching You |
| F | 14 | Security vs. Privacy | |
| Feb 23 | G | 15 | Searching for Answers |
| H | 16 | Is That a Computer in Your Pants? | |
| Feb 28 | A | 17 | Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It, |
| B | 18 | From Virtual Communities to Smart Mobs | |
| Mar 2 | C | 19 | Lure of Data: Is It Addictive? |
| D | 20 | Want to Rule the World? | |
| Mar 7 | E | 21 | Making Meaning: As Google Goes, So Goes the Nation |
| F | 22 | The World According to Google | |
| Mar 9 | Midterm Exam | ||
| Library Research Document Due | |||
| Mar 14 | G | 23 | The Copyright Paradox |
| H | 24 | You Bought It. Who Controls It? | |
| Mar 16 | A | 25 | Bad Documents Can Kill You |
| B | 26 | Why Women Avoid Computer Science | |
| Mar 28 | C | 27 | Point, Click…Fire |
| D | 28 | The Doctrine of Digital War | |
| Survey Document Due | |||
| Mar 30 | E | 29 | Star Wars by '04? Forget It. |
| F | 30 | As Goes Software… | |
| Apr 4 | G | 31 | Homeland Insecurity |
| H | 32 | Code Red For The Web | |
| Apr 6 | A | 33 | The Virus Underground |
| B | 34 | The Spam Wars | |
| Apr 11 | C | 35 | Spammers Can Run but They Can't Hide |
| D | 36 | The Level of Discourse Continues to Slide | |
| Apr 13 | E | 37 | Immigration And The Global IT Work Force |
| F | 38 | The Quiet Revolution | |
| Apr 18 | G | 39 | Dot Com for Dictators |
| H | 40 | Kabul's Cyber Cafe Culture | |
| A | 41 | The Hackers' Lure | |
| Apr 20 | B | 42 | Japan's Generation of Computer Refuseniks |
| C, D | 43 | Humanoid Robots | |
| Apr 25 | E | 44 | The Real Scientific Hero of 1953 |
| F | 45 | The Race to Computerise Biology | |
| Apr 27 | G | 46 | Why Listening Will Never Be the Same |
| H | 47 | Minding Your Business | |
| May 2 | Presentation of Group Projects |
When a group has been assigned a chapter to report on, one member of the group should write a 1 or 2 page summary of the chapter and prepare 1 or 2 Powerpoint slides describing it. The other members of the group should find related material either in print or on the Internet pertaining to the topic in the chapter.Each one should also prepare a 1 or 2 page summary and 1 or 2 Powerpoint slides. The group will then make a presentation during the class time and hand in the written summaries. If we run out of time for the entire presentation, the remainder will be presented during the next class session.
Summaries should be double-spaced and brief. One page is preferred, but two are allowed. Three pages will not be accepted. The slides should also be brief with no more than 4 or 5 bulleted items per slide. The summaries will be graded for both grammar and content. After they have been returned with corrections, the corrected versions should be copied into html and posted on a group website. These websites may be either on a server chosen by the group or on a Pace University server. For the latter, either get a website through DoIT or on matrix.csis.pace.edu.
The group project will consist of a library research paper, a survey, a statistical analysis of the survey results and a conclusion. The entire project is due at the end of the semester. It should both be presented in class and posted on the website. At the end of the semester, zip up the entire contents of the website and send them to me. I will then post them on my website. No one in the group will receive a final grade until all the material has been posted on the site.
Grades will be determined by two written exams, a midterm and a final, all the presentations during the semester and the final project. Each one of these categories will count for 25% of the grade. All written materials, including exams, should be double-spaced. If your handwriting is hard to read, please print on your exams. Grammar will count on all documents, but spelling will only be graded on papers prepared ahead of time.
Additional Resources:
Herman T. Tavani, Ethics and Technology, Chapter 2, Wiley, 2004.
MLA Citation Style, 6th ed. (2003), http://www.pace.edu/library/pages/instruct/guides/mla6.htm
I. Lee. A Research Guide for Students. http://www.aresearchguide.com/ Feb. 4, 2004.
ACM Code of Ethics, http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html
John L. Sullivan and Richard G. Niemi, editors, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, Sage Publications Inc., 1983.
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
Link to Postman's Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change