Everyone in the class is expected to read every required reading. The readings listed for each lecture should be read prior to coming to class. However, there is also an opportunity to specialize and develop deeper expertise in the areas that interest you most. The class contents are divided into four sections – 1) the relationship between technology and society: theories, frameworks, and evidence 2) technology in organizations and work practice studies 3) networked sociability 4) the global view: culture and ethics

Being on-call: You will sign up to be “on-call” for one of these four sections. What this means is that during class time I will cold call students who are “on call” to talk about the readings. Come prepared to give a short summary of each reading and its main points and raise some relevant questions (these could be areas of uncertainty in the text, questions the text raised about things happening in the world, or the relationship between this reading and other readings in the course so far). GSIs will be keeping track of how well you do when you are on call and will also be noting voluntary participation by students who are not “on call.”

Reading (and writing) groups: I encourage you to develop reading groups to discuss the readings since this class does not have a separate seminar or section. You might form groups with other students who are “on call” with you to make sure you’ve gone through the readings thoroughly and understood the nuance of some of the arguments. You might alternately form groups with students who are on call in different sections to benefit from each members expertise in different sections.

Participation in our photo pool: In addition there are a couple of mini assignments that involve capturing photos as another mode of thinking about course concepts. You can use a camera phone or digital camera. If you do not own one of these devices, buddy up with another member of the course … there should be enough smartphones among us and class camaraderie for everyone to be able to contribute. Photo topics (to be explained in class):

1) actants in everyday life

2) affordances and constraints: why/when/where/how do we use paper vs. screens?

These photos will be posted to our Flickr photo group. You can contribute photos yourself directly to the pool or e-mail them to Elisa if you do not wish to create or use an existing account (either Facebook, Google, or Yahoo). You should be able to view our public photo pool without signing in.