Techfoot

Recently I had a colleague contact me asking for a bibliography of recent influential texts that he could include in a three credit introductory course in technology for language students. Mike said that he was looking primarily for items that approached technology from a theoretical or philosophical perspective.

I went though my RefWorks bibliography of about 1366 references for courses that I’ve taught in Adult Education, Technology Planning and Emerging Technology, and came up the following list as a starting place. Since I happen to have the New Media Reader sitting on my desk, I strongly suggested that he start there.

Any ideas of others that have shaped your thinking would be appreciated.

References

Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more Hyperion.

Baase, S. (2008). A gift of fire: Social, legal, and ethical issues for computing and the internet (3rd edition) (3rd ed.) Prentice Hall.

Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

Dertouzos, M. L. (2001). The unfinished revolution : Human-centered computers and what they can do for us. New York: HarperCollins.

Duderstadt, J. J., Atkins, D. E., & Van Houweling, D. E. (2002). Higher education in the digital age : Technology issues and strategies for American colleges and universities. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Friedman, T. L. (2007). The world is flat 3.0: A brief history of the twenty-first century Picador.

Hafner, K. (1998). Where wizards stay up late: The origins of the internet Simon & Schuster.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide NYU Press.

Lessig, L. (2005). Free culture: The nature and future of creativity Penguin (Non-Classics).

Lessig, L. (2006). Code: Version 2.0 Basic Books.

Montfort, N., & Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2003). The new media reader. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press.

Negroponte, N. (1996). Being digital (New Ed ed. ) Coronet Books.

Shenk, D. (1998). Data smog: Surviving the information glut revised and updated edition (Rev Upd ed.) HarperOne.

Shneiderman, B. (2002). Leonardo’s laptop : Human needs and the new computing technologies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Talbott, S. (2007). Devices of the soul: Battling for our selves in an age of machines O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Vaidhyanathan, S. (2005). The anarchist in the library: How the clash between freedom and control is hacking the real world and crashing the system (New Ed ed.) Basic Books.

Weinberger, D. (2007). Everything is miscellaneous : The power of the new digital disorder (1st ed.). New York: Times Books.

Wright, A. (2007). Glut: Mastering information through the ages Joseph Henry Press.

Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?: Scientific American

M. Mitchell Waldrop’s excellent introduction to “open notebook” science in Scientific American fits nicely with some of the work we’re doing to support the Charles Center’s initiative on expanding undergraduate research at the College. My class last semester helped plan a web site that will help students in all disciplines make the process of their research more open and transparent. The site will use a series of Web 2.0 tools to build a community among students at William and Mary who are actively engaged in research.

Most students get lots of exposure to the end products of scholarly work, but they are much less likely get much exposure to complexities of producing that scholarly work. As Ron Gross noted in The Independent Scholar’s Guide:

Rarely do researchers or writers “let their hair down,” revealing that they started where each of us must start: with mere infatuation for a subject… Established researchers rarely portray the faltering steps by which they came to pinpoint their purposes, chose their subject, sharpen their skills. By the time the work of the scholar or scientist comes to our attention, it is usually well packaged as a finished monograph, a carefully-crafted article, a well-honed paper, a polished book, a museum worthy collection or display, a documentary on film or videotape, or as some other finished work. This final project seems to have sprung full-grown from the author’s head. So we get a misleading picture of how intellectual and creative projects get started.
Gross, Independent Scholar’s Guide, Introduction to Chapter Two: From Messy Beginnings to Finished Product

In open-notebook science, blogs, wikis, and social networking tools provide a way to share the everyday decisions that shape an actual research project–both the successes and the failures. Scholarly papers offer clear views of what has been accomplished, but generally don’t provide much insight into the things that didn’t work. Often those details are precisely the ones that can jump-start the work of other scientists, making the whole research process more productive and efficient. The OpenWetWare initiative at MIT, for example, has expanded well beyond its beginnings as a few graduate students refining protocols for getting DNA cultures to grow:

In short, OpenWetWare has quickly grown into a social network catering to a wide cross-section of biologists and biological engineers. It currently encompasses laboratories on five continents, dozens of courses and interest groups, and hundreds of protocol discussions–more than 6100 Web pages edited by 3,000 registered users.

The article raises some interesting issues for institutions that are trying to expand undergraduate research. Timo Hannay, head of Web publishing at the Nature Publishing Group summarizes his vision of scholarly publishing in a way that fits nicely with our goals for the technology integration program:

Our real mission isn’t to publish journals, but to facilitate scientific communication,” he says. “We’ve recognized that the Web can completely change the way that communication happens.” Among the efforts are Nature Network, a social network designed for scientists; Connotea, a social bookmarking site patterned on the popular site del.icio.us, but optimized for the management of research references; and even an experiment in open peer review, with pre-publication manuscripts made available for public comment.

Waldrop has posted the article in Scientific American’s Edit This section where readers get to collaborate with the author in giving the story its final form.

How to Read My Comments on Your Paper Drafts:

Every once in a while I read about some educational practice that makes such perfect sense I can can’t help but wonder why everyone isn’t doing it. Steve Greenlaw periodically directs posts in his blog specifically to his students. In a recent post he addresses the purpose of the writing students are doing in his freshman seminar.

“Writing is the tool most scholars use to think about ideas. You don’t write when you have your ideas figured out; rather, you write to figure out what you think. Writing, revising and rewriting is what scholars do. Completing the first draft of a paper is the beginning of your thinking; it shouldn’t be the end.”

When I read drafts, I try to read them as I would a colleague’s paper who is asking for help in improving their work. What that means is I’m not pointing out what’s “wrong” with the paper. Rather, I’m making suggestions about what isn’t clear to the reader, or what I think might make the paper stronger.

I had to contrast Steve’s message to his students with the one we’re sending to our graduate students. We’re in the midst of the comps season, and my colleagues and I are dutifully preparing questions for the two days of exams that will determine whether the students that we’ve spent the last couple of years (or more) working and learning with should be allowed to begin their dissertations. As I look at the fascinating questions my colleagues have prepared, two thoughts immediately pop into my mind.

First, I thank the design of the universe that I’m not being expected to answer them. The thought of having to enter a room with a computer and no notes and synthesize two years of thinking, reading and writing about leadership or planning or policy–much less all of them together–would be terrifying. (It might be interesting if we had a qualifying exam for those who are reading the comps–just a half-day in which we are expected to synthesize all the research in our fields since we took our last closed-book comprehensive exam. It might make it even harder to find readers than it is now.)

The second thought is to try to find some rational reason for subjecting students to this experience. Once they’ve jumped through this hoop, is there any professional situation where they would be expected to do this again? Comps were the most worthless step in my own doctorate–largely because the key research in the field suggested that the only thing timed exams measured was the the ability to take timed examinations.

As I understand Steve’s message to his students, he’s telling them that it’s worth learning the conversation that shapes professional writing because it will be at the core of their education. I can’t help but wonder what message our graduate students are getting from us through the comps requirement.