Humans, Technology, and Experience

2006-05-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

Blog Final Checklist
-41 points available
- 5 pt extra credit project

Project Description: Using your blog, create an online exhibit that presents to an average person “how X works?” Included in your exhibit should be the following:

1. Clear introduction to your gadget, with pictures and a brief history of its invention table(s) to organize pictures of ALL the important parts, their functions, their connections, and hyperlinks to important definitions. (5 pts)

2. A deeper presentation of TWO key parts. (total 8 pts)

a. Provide a close-up of these parts with labels (2 pt)
b. Give a fuller description of each part's purpose (2 pt)
c. What is it made of? Describe the role of conductors and insulators in this part. (2 pt)
d. What important sub-parts does this part have? What is their purpose?(2 pt)
e. How do all the sub-parts work together to enable it to function? (2 pt)

3. TWO Big Scientific Concepts that help explain how your gadget works: (8 pts)
a.

Define the general term used scientists to identify the concept you are presenting? (2 pts)
b. Additional terminology: What key terms that are used by scientists explaining this concept? Provide terms and definitions for each. (2 pts)
c. Diagrams and graphs you found that help explain this concept (2 pts)
d. List your sources (2 pts)

4. Design and perform a scientific experiment that illustrates how one the concepts works. (20 pts)
a.

What is the “testable” question that the experiment is trying to answer? (1 pt)
b. Describe how you will test the question above. Provide a diagram or photograph of the experimental setup. (1 pt)
c. Identify the VARIABLES (independent, dependent, and controls) being measured, with an explanation of how you will measure each of them. (1 pt)
d. Identify the Independent variable. (1 pt)
e. How was the independent variable measured? (1 pt)
f. Dependent variable: (1 pt)
g. How was the dependent variable measured? (1 pt)
h. List your control(s) (factors kept constant): (1 pt)
i. Why are these control(s) necessary? (1 pt)
j. Perform the experiment and organize your results (data) in a way that someone else could easily understand. Perform enough TRIALS to ensure you have reliable data. Use an table if necessary. (1 pt)

k. Graph your data if appropriate (if graphing doesn’t make sense for your experiment, use another VISUAL method for showing your results). Include your graph on your blog with the following analysis: (1 pt)
i. In words, what does this graph tell you about the relationship between _______________________ and __________________? (1 pt)
(independent) (dependent)
ii. If x represents _______________
and y represents______________, the equation for this relationship is:_____________________. (1 pt, if applicable)
iii. Using this equation, it may be possible to predict____________________ (1 pt if applicable)
(come up with an end to this statement that makes sense for your experiment)
iv. For example: (come up with an example that uses your equation to make a prediction. Show all steps to solving your example problem) (1 pt)
v. How might your results be innacurate? What possible errors could have occurred that would lessen your confidence in your results? (1 pt)
vi. How might you change the experiment to reduce or eliminate these errors? (1 pt)

l. Your conclusions. Do your results lead you to an answer to your original “testable” question? Why/why not? Explain thoroughly using your data to support your claims. (1 pt)

m. A list of at least three further questions you still have after performing the experiment. (1 pt)

n. How does your experiment connect to the gadget you took apart? Explain in atleast one paragraph. (1 pt)

o. Provide links to other resources for further reading. (1 pt)

p. Include a bibliography that shows all your sources. (1 pt)

Extra Credit: Build a new gadget that applies the findings of your experiment. (5 pts)

1) Include pictures and explanation of your new gadget.
2) Explain how your new gadget works using the concepts you have explored.

Work where you are!

2006-05-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are still working on the background concepts for section 4, please try to wrap up your research and move on to designing and performing an experiment.

For those of you who are designing your experiment, you should check in with me to see what equipment you will need, and whether or not you have identified the "testable question", independent, and dependent variables.

Perform your experiment and keep good records your data!

Possible experiments for folks...

2006-04-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

In this section (section 4) of your online exhibit, you are designing an experiment to explore or illustrate one of the two key concepts that explain how your gadget works. Below I have listed some possible starting points for you...but please don't take these as your only option!

Matthew and Ashley: Check this link out about creating a magnetic recording using magnets. Here's another one that allows you record music on a metal wire.

Krystal and Matthew: Look here for an interesting idea on building an electric motor.

Charles and Alexis: Try here for an experiment idea on the strength of an electromagnet.

Steph: Here's an interesting one on CDs and DVDs using a laser. Here's another.

Damian: Here's an experiment on computer speed. Here's a whole page of computer science related experiments, if you want to browse.

Charles: Here's an experiment on wire thickness and electricity flow. Here's another testing the resistance of various materials.

Diana: Here's some digital art...I'm still working on an experiment idea...let's talk.

Links to help with section 4

2006-04-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

1. Copy and paste the post on April 11th into a post, and use it to structure your work on section 4 of your online exhibit.

2. The following links may be helpful as you do background research on the two scientific concepts that you will be exploring in section 4.

Interactive Concept Maps

Wikipedia Topics

Yahooligans Science and Nature

How Stuff Works

The Physics Classroom

Circuit: a site built by a high school student about computers...

Binary Numbers and Chips

Topics and Ideas on Designing Experiments

science made simple: a description of the experimental design process
Sample electricity and magnetism experiments: This looks like an excellent site!

How to Organize Section 4 of your "Online Exhibit..."

2006-04-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

Introduce the underlying scientific concepts that are essential to understanding how your gadget works.

Concept 1:

Define the general term used scientists to identify the concept you are studying.

Additional terminology: What key terms that are used by scientists explaining this concept? Provide terms and definitions for each.

Diagrams and graphs you found that help explain this concept

List your sources

Concept 2:

a. Define the general term used scientists to identify the concept you are studying?

b. Additional terminology: What key terms that are used by scientists explaining this concept? Provide terms and definitions for each.

c. Diagrams and graphs you found that help explain this concept

d. List your sources

Design and perform a scientific experiment that illustrates how one the concepts works.

a. What is the “testable” question that the experiment is trying to answer?

Describe how you will test the question above. Provide a diagram or photograph of the experimental setup.

b. Identify the VARIABLES (independent, dependent, and controls) being measured, with an explanation of how you will measure each of them.

Identify the Independent variable.

How will the independent variable be measured?

Dependent variable:

How will the dependent variable be measured?

Control(s):

Why are these control(s) necessary?

c. Perform the experiment and organize your results (data) in a way that someone else could easily understand. Perform enough TRIALS to ensure you have reliable data. Use a table if necessary.

d. Your conclusions. Do your results lead you to infer an answer to your “testable” question? Why/why not? Explain thoroughly using your data to support your claims.

e. A list of further questions you still have after performing the experiment.

Pulling it all together

2006-04-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Using your blog, create an online exhibit that presents to an average person “how X works?” Included in your exhibit should be:

1. Clear introduction to your gadget, with pictures and a brief history of its invention

2. Table(s) to organize pictures of ALL the important parts, their functions, their connections, and hyperlinks to important definitions

3. A deeper presentation of TWO key parts.

Provide a close-up of these parts with labels
Give a fuller description of each part's purpose
What is it made of? Describe the role of conductors and insulators in this part.
What important sub-parts does this part have? What is their purpose?
How do all the sub-parts work together to enable it to function?

4. Introduce the underlying scientific concepts that are essential to understanding how your gadget workss. Design and perform a scientific experiment that illustrates how one the concepts works. Follow this link to see a fuller treatment of how this section should be organized.

Meet Neil Postman: Technology Critic

2006-03-31T10:42:00.000-08:00

Bio:

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was a prominent American educator, media theorist and cultural critic. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University.

Inspired by the values of Classical and Enlightenment culture, Postman was something of an old-fashioned humanist, who in the face of extraordinary technological change in contemporary society held firmly to his beliefs that there is a limit to the promise of new technology, and that it cannot be a substitute for human values.

Postman was born and spent most of his life in New York City. In 1953, he graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia. He received a master's degree in 1955 and a doctorate in education in 1958, both from the Teachers College, Columbia, and started teaching at New York University in 1959.

In 1971, he founded the program in media ecology at the Steinhardt School of Education of NYU, attracting a large audience for his lectures and writings over the years. In 1993 he was appointed a University Professor, the only one in the School of Education, and was chairman of the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002. Among his students are noted authors Jib Fowles, Dennis Smith, and Paul Levinson.

Postman wrote 18 books and more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Time Magazine, The Saturday Review, The Harvard Education Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Stern, and Le Monde. He was also on the editorial board of The Nation.

Perhaps his best known title is Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), in which he deplored the dominance of US culture by the medium of television, his assertion being that by its very nature, television confounds serious issues with entertainment, demeaning and undermining political discourse by making it less about ideologies and more about image. Postman also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only passive information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He draws on the ideas of media guru Marshall McLuhan, to form a theory on how different media are appropriate for different kinds of knowledge, and describes how oral, literate, and televisual cultures value and transfer information in different ways. He states repeatedly that the 19th century was the pinnacle of rational argument, truly being an Age of Reason. In this period, where the dominant communication medium was the printed word, says Postman, complicated truths could effectively and usefully enter the cultural life of the nation without oversimplification. Amusing Ourselves to Death was translated into eight languages and sold some 200,000 copies worldwide.

Quotes from Postman’s Books

Quote 1: from Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York, Vintage Books, pp. 22-48.

“I don't think any of us can do much about the rapid growth of new technology. However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology. The "forum" that I think is best suited for this is our educational system. If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it. [1]

Anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.

The invention of the printing press is an excellent example. Printing fostered the modern idea of individuality but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and social integration. Printing created prose but made poetry into an exotic and elitist form of expression. Printing made modern science possible but transformed religious sensibility into an exercise in superstition. Printing assisted in the growth of the nation-state but, in so doing, made patriotism into a sordid if not a murderous emotion.

Another way of saying this is that a new technology tends to favor some groups of people and harms other groups. School teachers, for example, will, in the long run, probably be made obsolete by television, as blacksmiths were made obsolete by the automobile, as balladeers were made obsolete by the printing press. Technological change, in other words, always results in winners and losers

URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman

In this quote, Postman claims that “technological change always results in winners and losers.” He points to the printing press as an example. How does Postman think society changed as a result of the printing press? Who are the winners and who are the losers according to Postman? What changed as a result?

According to Postman, what is the relationship between technology and education? Does Postman think technology is a threat to education? How? Can education be used to stem the rapid advance of technology? How?

Do you think the rapid advance of the internet has resulted in winners and losers? Explain how you think it has changed, or will change, the nature of human interactions.

Continue Researching KEY Components…

2006-03-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Choose what you think are the two most important or interesting parts of your gadget and begin a new draft post where you will collect research (quotes, facts, pictures) that will allow you to provide your readers a DEEPER analysis of how these particular parts work.

For example...…if I were taking apart a walkman, I might choose
1) the electric motor
2) the read/record head

For each component, you will need to go into depth to explore HOW IT WORKS…

Name of component:

1) Sketch the component and label its parts, or take a digital picture with the labeled parts.

Sketch or Picture URL:

2) What is the purpose of the component?

3) What is it made of? Are there conductors and/or insulators present? Why are these materials important to the functioning of the device?

4) If there are important sub-parts, what are they? What is their purpose

5) How do all these sub-parts work together? Explain the concepts that are underneath the operation of this device.

NYC is Blog City!

2006-03-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Using the AM New York article entitled “Blog City,” create a post that does the following…

According to the author, why has New York become such a popular city for Blogging? Use at least one quote from the article to support your claims.

What motivates people to keep their own blogs? Use at least one quote from the article to provide an example. (use the Blockquote tool in your toolbar to indent the quote.

Choose one New York-based blog from the article that you find interesting, and give a paragraph summary of what the blog is about. Who is the author? How long have they been blogging? Why do they blog? Inside your paragraph, provide your readers a link to the blog.

Optional fun stuff:

a) Register your blog at nycbloggers.com This will probably result in visitors and comments on your blog.

b) Go to amNY.com and send them your favorite blog Humans Technology and Experience (htehome.blogspot.com).

Go deep!

2006-03-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Choose what you think are the two most important or interesting parts of your gadget and begin a new draft post where you will collect research (quotes, facts, pictures) that will allow you to provide your readers a DEEPER analysis of how these particular parts work. For example...if I were taking apart a walkman, I might choose the electric motor, the read/record head, or maybe the integrated circuit...use the worksheet to structure your research. Keep track of your sources!

Follow up on yesterday's writing...

2006-03-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Return to your summary of the Richard Sclove text from yesterday and add your responses to the following:

What is Richard Sclove's view of our modern society's relationship with technology? Why might democracy be threatened by blindly adopted technology? Give quotes from the text to back up your analysis.

How does the Amish relationship with technology differ from ours, and that of the Ibeican's? Give examples that illustrate this point.

What is the lesson Sclove thinks we must learn from the Amish if we are to remain a true democracy? Use quotes from the text to support your description.

Once you have finished your post...choose what you think are the three most important or interesting parts of your gadget and begin a new draft post where you will collect research (quotes, facts, pictures) that will allow you to provide your readers a DEEPER analysis of how these particular parts work. For example...if I were taking apart a walkman, I might choose the electric motor, the read/record head, and the integrated cirtcuit...you will be designing an experiment to test one of these objects...so choose carefully.

Richard Sclove on the Amish, Spanish Waters, and Technology

2006-03-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Choose two quotes that "speak to you" from the reading below. For each:

What you think it means.
Whether or not you agree with it and why?

3. Based on the quote, what changes society should make (according to the author).

The following is a chapter in the book, Democracy and Technology
by Richard E. Sclove
New York: Guilford Press, 1995.

CHAPTER ONE: SPANISH WATERS, AMISH FARMING
Two Parables of Modernity?

I wish to...persuade those who are concerned with maintaining democratic institutions to see that their constructive efforts must include technology itself.
--Lewis Mumford[1]

During the early 1970s, running water was installed in the houses of Ibieca, a small village in northeast Spain. With pipes running directly to their homes, Ibiecans no longer had to fetch water from the village fountain. Families gradually purchased washing machines, and women stopped gathering to scrub laundry by hand at the village washbasin.

Arduous tasks were rendered technologically superfluous, but village social life unexpectedly changed. The public fountain and washbasin, once scenes of vigorous social interaction, became nearly deserted. Men began losing their sense of familiarity with the children and donkeys that once helped them haul water. Women stopped congregating at the washbasin to intermix scrubbing with politically empowering gossip about men and village life. In hindsight the installation of running water helped break down the Ibiecans' strong bonds--with one another, with their animals, and with the land--that had knitted them together as a community.[2]
Is this a parable for our time? Like Ibiecans, we acquiesce in seemingly innocuous technological changes. Unlike many Ibiecans, we celebrate these changes: whiter teeth, lower cost, or else greater convenience, abundance, safety, or amusement. The automobile, for example, embodies a distinctively American conception of freedom. People speed through city and countryside toward adventure and opportunity. However the results of our many individual decisions to purchase automobiles also include gridlock, air pollution, suburban sprawl, the decline of downtown centers, and dependence on insecure sources of imported oil. Did we choose these results? Do they express people's freedom or perhaps, ironically, limit it?

Of course, the automobile's adverse effects were never intended, any more than Ibiecans hoped to dissolve their former way of life. Ibiecans did not foresee the extent to which earning money to own a washing machine would mean becoming enmeshed in the external cash economy. They did not plan to remake themselves into wage laborers and consumers nor did they plan to gradually transform their town into the suburban appendage of an encroaching urban center. For many Ibiecans, the loss and pain proved profound. One farmer, compelled to sell his beloved but now useless donkey, withered into permanent silence. For Ibiecans, as for everyone else, the combined result of many individual technological choices is often not what anyone anticipated.
Modern industrial nations have, of course, outdone rural villages in evolving social processes for coping with technologies' unwanted effects. On the one hand, a modest scholarly industry, steeped in economic ideas, stumps for policies to accelerate technological innovation[3]. The objective is to enhance national economic growth, productivity, and international competitiveness, based on the assumption that as long as an innovation sells profitably, it is a social blessing. But newspapers also grant front page coverage to controversial technological developments--to industrial disasters or to unsettling advances in genetic engineering, automation, and weaponry. The United States has an Environmental Protection Agency to regulate technologies' impact o n the environment. The Office of Technology Assessment forecasts technological trends, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is responsible for worker safety, the Defense Department supports innovations in military hardware, Congress provides oversight and legislative initiatives, the courts offer redress for grievances, and various private and nonprofit groups strive to advance their views of the public good.

But here, too, there is something missing, something so vast that it is easy to overlook: virtually the entire range of technologies' psychological, cultural, and political effects[4]. For example, when it comes to technology, newspapers, public-interest groups, corporate leaders, and governmental bodies normally address one or more of the following four questions: Is the technology at issue technically workable? What are its economic costs and benefits, and how are they distributed? What are the associated environmental, health, and safety risks? Are there implications for national security?

These are, undeniably, important questions. Yet as a group they are incomplete, failing to grasp technologies' profound role in altering the course of history and the texture of daily life. Consider the difference it would have made had our forebears learned to pose these questions--and then act responsibly on the answers--throughout the first century-and-a-half of industrialization. The world today would be somewhat cleaner and safer; thus, in certain significant respects, we would be better off. However, our societies would still have done nothing directly to comprehend, not to mention to guide or perhaps alter or avert,such major, technologically influenced developments as establishing the home as a place where a woman labored alone, the birth of the nuclear family, changing sexual mores, suburbanization, the development of public schools and romanticized childhood, the withering of craftsmanship, the shift from an agrarian/cycli experience of time to a linear one, the creation of hierarchically managed national and transnational corporations, or the evolution of modern political parties[5].

In short, with attention confined strictly to these four questions, the momentous cultural developments associated with the Industrial Revolution would have come and gone without anyone noticing. Yet these questions, which are incapable even of distinguishing actions that perpetuate an agrarian social order from those promoting revolutionary political and cultural transformation, are the very questions now imagined adequate to guide us wisely into the next century.

This complicity in technological decisions that haphazardly uproot established ways of life is as perplexing as discovering a family that shared its home with a giant, seizure-prone elephant and yet never discussed--somehow did not even notice--the beast' s pervasive influence on every facet of their lives. It is even as though everyone in a nation were to gather together nightly in their dreams--assemble solemnly in a glistening moonlit glade--and there debate and ratify a new Constitution. Awakening afterwards with no memory of what had passed, they nonetheless mysteriously comply with the nocturnally revolutionized document in its every word and letter. Such a world, in which unconscious collective actions govern waking reality, is the world that now exists[6]. It is the modern technological world that we have all helped create.

Could it be otherwise? Are the social effects of technology truly so complex that no one could possibly foresee them, much less act cogently to guide them? Not necessarily. To demonstrate this, one can contrast both Ibiza's and contemporary American society's style of technological politics with that of an alternative social order.

The Old Order Amish immigrated to the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. With established communities in some 20 American states, their U.S. population is now over 100,000 and growing. To the outside society they are known as a religious subculture distinguished by old-fashioned clothing, horse-and-buggy transport, and an antiquated lifestyle that rejects modern technologies. The actual story is more complex and instructive.

The Amish are a pragmatic people who accept the reality of social change and do not reject all modern technology. Hence, theirs is not a primitive folk culture that lacks awareness of alternative possibilities. On the contrary, they represent a society that is conscious of the larger world in which it is immersed and that self-consciously guides its evolution[7]. The Amish have, for example, repeatedly adopted innovations in farming technology, sometimes sooner than their non-Amish neighbors. They will hitch a ride in a non-Amish car, charter a bus and driver, or perform sums using a battery-powered hand calculator. They are also skilled technological innovators who have been known, for instance, to devise a system in which a diesel tractor powers an air compressor that, in turn, pumps refined fuel to a set of indoor lighting lamps. On the other hand, most Amish communities forbid personal ownership of automobiles, telephones, radios, or televisions; the use of tractors in the field; and electric hook-ups from power company grids to private homes and buildings.

To a casual observer, the resulting pattern of exclusions and adoptions seems capricious. However, the pattern is the result of a remarkably sophisticated style of technological politics. The exact decision making process varies somewhat from one Amish community to the next and from one decision to the next. In essence, each local Amish community--acting collectively rather than as a set of discrete individuals--asks itself how the adoption of a technology would affect the community as a whole. Innovations that would tend, on balance, to preserve the community, its religion, and its harmonious relation with nature are permitted. Those that appear to threaten the community and its values are rejected. In either case, the decision is reached through a process of public discussion and democratic ratification[8].

"What would be the impact on our desired form of society if individuals, or the community, were to adopt one set of technologies rather than another?" The villagers of Ibieca had no tradition of asking such questions or even an established forum for making the attempt. Nor do we. But isn't it striking that the Amish, who prohibit formal schooling past the eighth grade, have nevertheless managed for several centuries to make technological choices that shrewdly advance their chosen cultural and religious commitments? In this regard, their technological acumen surpasses that of the villagers of Ibieca as well as the combined capability of modern nations' scientific, commercial, and policy making establishments.

Reconsider, then, our society's ineptness at guiding technological change. Might it have less to do with modern technological complexity than with a failure to evolve institutions through which we could begin to act upon appropriate questions? The potential list of neglected questions concerning technology is long. It could encompass the entire domain of technologies' social aspect--the political, cultural, sociological, psychological and spiritual. Moreover, one might need to integrate such issues with others more familiar--matters of technical feasibility, economics, environment, health, and defense. Finally, it might be necessary to consider not only the social dimensions and impacts associated with single technologies but also the combined effect s that emerge from a complex of coexisting technologies.

Were we to do this it might emerge that technologies, everyday tools and helpers, are implicated in a plethora of modern ills: loneliness, narcissism, disempowerment, insecurity, stress, and alienation. Stated more concretely, technology appears to contribute indirectly to problems ranging from urban poverty to teenage pregnancy, child abuse, racism, continued subordination of women, militarism, the marginalization of the elderly, high crime rates, and drug abuse. Ultimately, technology is implicated in perpetuating antidemocratic power relations and in eroding social contexts for developing and expressing citizenship.

Technology is not the cause of such ills, but it contributes to all of them. To continue neglecting technology's broad social dimensions virtually guarantees remaining ineffectual in addressing our deepest social problems and sources of personal malaise. It will not do, moreover, to imagine that other kinds of social reforms--be they conservative or radical--must precede significant reform in the technological domain. "First transform society, then tackle technology." That refrain overlooks ways that existing technologies help constitute the present social order and so constrain social transformation. Until technological concerns are fully integrated into programs of social transformation, such programs will be stunted or abortive.

Several qualifications are in order. First, insofar as technology is not the sole contributor to social problems, one ought not to shift attention to technology at the expense of other contributing factors. Concentrated economic power, poverty, racism, sexism, ethnic intolerance, and so on matter too; it is thus vital to explore the relationship between technology and these other factors.

Second, it is wrong to conclude that "technology is evil; let's get rid of it." We can no more eliminate technology than cease to be human. However, third, neither must we merely adapt compliantly to whatever technologies happen along. An adequate approach to technology must involve procedures for addressing a broader, more appropriate set of questions. However, these must lead to the possibility of eliciting alternative technologies more compatible with the kind of society or communities in which people wish to live.

Among the panoply of questions concerning technology that escape attention, perhaps the most important one involves how technology bears on democracy. Democracy provides the precondition for being able to decide fairly and effectively what further questions to ask and what actions to take in light of the answers. Thus if technologies were more compatible with one or another vigorous variant of democracy, we might be better positioned to debate what other issues most urgently require attention. Conversely, it is vital to explore the extent to which the failure to come to terms with technologies' political ramifications represents an expression of antidemocratic social power formations, as embodied partly in current technologies themselves.
For a preliminary illustration of the importance of seeking compatibility between technology and democracy, turn again to the Amish. The Old Order Amish ask themselves how a particular set of technologies would affect their community. However, it happen s that their communities already embody a relatively robust species of local, democratic self-governance[9]. Hence, implicit in the question of how to preserve their community is the crucial subsidiary concern that any permitted technologies must be compatible with preserving the Amish community's already-democratic nature.

The Amish have, for instance, prohibited private ownership of automobiles. This is in part to inhibit a dispersed settlement pattern that would interfere with Amish-style extended families and neighborliness[10]. Such neighborliness is pleasurable and also necessary to economic mutuality and to perpetuating Amish culture. Furthermore, it contributes to a kind of mutual understanding, social commitment, and routine of gathering that, in turn, facilitate participatory and consensual democratic decision making. Were the Amish to purchase automobiles, they would be jeopardizing their ability to continue governing themselves democratically with respect to technology and otherwise.

This does not mean that everyone should become Amish or impulsively discard their automobiles. Nor should one overlook features, such as smallness and cultural homogeneity, that distinguish Amish society from the U.S. mainstream. It is doubtless easier for the Amish to achieve consensual decisions than it would be for the citizens of a large, culturally diverse city. But for immediate purposes, the problem of achieving consensual answers is of much less concern than our failure even to begin debating crucial questions--in this case, concerning technologies' political and cultural dimensions.

In short, the "nuts and bolts of democracy"--ordinarily a metaphor denoting concern with the nitty-gritty of democratic politics--must grow to encompass a literal concern with nuts and bolts. Currently, there are few institutions through which citizens c an become critically engaged with choosing or designing technologies. Should we commit themselves to evolving such institutions and to adopting only technologies compatible with democracy? Until we do, I shall argue, there can be no democracy worthy of the name.

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE
1. Lewis Mumford (1964). "Authoritarian and Democratic Technics." Technology and Culture, 5, no. 1 (Winter): 1-8. p. 7.
2. Susan Friend Harding (1984). Remaking Ibieca: Rural Life in Aragon under Franco. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
3. See, for example, Committee on Industrial Support for R&D, National Science Board. 1992. The Competitive Strength of U.S. Industrial Science and Technology: Strategic Issues. Washington, DC: National Science Board. and Lewis M. Branscomb (ed.) (1993). Empowering Technology: Implementing a U.S. Strategy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4. I use the word "technology" broadly to encompass material artifacts (including buildings) and the social processes and knowledge accompanying their development and use. I use "technologies" (plural) to connote the disparate social effects associated with different artifacts and practices.
5. The technological dimensions of some of these transformations are discussed in Joel Colton and Stuart Bruchey, eds., (1987). Technology, the Economy, and Society: The American Experience. New York: Columbia University Press.
6.See also Langdon Winner (1986). The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 10
7. Marc A. Olshan (1981). "Modernity, the Folk Society, and the Old Order Amish: An Alternative Interpretation." Rural Sociology, 46, no. 2(Summer): 297-309
8.Olshan (1981) and Donald B. Kraybill (1989). The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eric Brende's generous readiness to share his essays-in-progress and his personal experience living with an Amish family also greatly helped my understanding of Amish technological decision making.
9. Amish community decisions are made collectively, normally following the weekly religious service. Religious-political leaders are nominated by adult community members and chosen by lot. Amish society is not fully egalitarian sexually; women participate politically but are ineligible for formal leadership positions. Adult membership in the community is voluntary, in the sense that one becomes an adult member upon choosing, during late adolescence, to undergo baptism into the Amish church. Earlier adolescence typically includes an informal period of communally tolerated "acting out," in which Amish teenagers may adopt non-Amish clothing and hair styles, listen to popular music, drink alcohol, or purchase automobiles. Thus, the choice to become an adult member is informed by some experiential knowledge of alternative lifestyles in the non-Amish world. Today, upwards of 80 percent of all Old Order Amish children choose to remain Amish as adults (Kraybill 1989).
10. Olshan (1981, p. 303).

Conductors and Insulators...

2006-03-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Last class we experimented with batteries, bulbs, wires, and a number of different materials (foil, cardboard, wax paper, etc..) to try to better understand the basic principles at work in most electrical technology...

Your assignment is to post web definitions for the following words:

Make sure to include your sources.

How can YOU define these in your own words based on our experiment with batteries, bulbs, wires, and different materials? How can you test to determine whether a material is a conductor or an insulator? How do you know when a circuit is a CLOSED circuit?

How do these concepts apply to your object? What parts are made of conductors? Insulators? How did you know? Are any circuits are present? How can you tell? Use pictures to explain, if you want.

What do you think a semiconductor is? Predict the meaning....Then look it up. Are there anny semi-conductors in your object. Where? What parts are made of semi-conductors and what special roles do they play?

Reflections on Amish Technology Practices

2006-03-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Post your reflections on the Howard Rheingold article from Friday. Questions to focus your writing:

1) Who are the Amish and why do they avoid certain technologies?

2) According to Howard Rheingold, how do the Amish go about adopting a new technology? What criteria do they use to decide whether or not to allow it?

3) Do you think we should be more careful about which technologies to allow into our lives? Explain your opinion. How should we decide this? Give examples of positive and negative technologies to illustrate your ideas.

Howard Rheingold on Amish Technology Practices

2006-03-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Read Howard Rheingold's article on Amish technology practices.

Bio of Howard Rheingold

Helpful links on the Amish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish
http://www.800padutch.com/atafaq.shtml

Your priorities...

2006-03-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

Next week, I will be going through your posts to arrive at a grade for the first marking period.

Many of you have incomplete posts, or posts that need some revision. Go back through the assignments on the home page and check to see that you have completed each assignment to a high standard.

You should have done the following posts so far:

1. Reflections on the Samsung Experience
2. HTML Primer: Adding Permanent Links to the Sidebar
3. Strategies for Web Research and Citations
4. Taking Stock: What are the parts and how are they connected?
5. Learn how to make a table...
6. Let's put encycolpedia links into our tables...

Let's put encycolpedia links into our tables...

2006-02-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Create hyperlinks in your table for KEY vocabulary that takes users to a definition of the word or a web encyclopedia article.

There are two ways to create a hyperlink (text that "clicks" to another page) in Blogger:

1) Using the link button just above the compose window.
2) Writing the html code for a link.

When someone clicks a links a link, it normally takes them to a different site within the same browser window. Wouldn't it be nice if your readers could keep your site open and see the link in a new window...?

Here's how: In the fist part of your link code, add the code "target=newpage" (without the quotes after the URL but inside the bracket).

Now try it with your table!

Keep Taking Apart...and Building...

2006-02-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

Continue deconstructing your object, labeling the parts, and using the internet to research how it works. Once you have completed your research for several parts, add the information to your online table.

Learn how to make a table...

2006-02-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Begin a table in a NEW POST to present the different parts you have researched. Use the table and instructions below as a model.

Tables help to present information in an organized way. Because your online exhibit will be presenting a great deal of complex information, you will need to develop the ability to create tables in HTML.

Here's a sample table. Look below to learn how to create the HTML code for one...

Part Name	Picture	Function	Important connections and/or sub-parts
Antenna		Sends and recieves high frequency radio waves due to vibrating electrons inside a wire, which release and receieve electromagnetic waves. This antenna is actually internal to the phone	The antenna is connected to the main circuit board
blah	blah	blah	blah

Click here to see the table by itself, and select "Source" from the View menu of your browser. A text file should pop up with the code for the table...study it carefully, then copy and paste it into a post and make changes...

Look for the tags < th $gt and < /th $gt. What do these mean?

What do the tags < td $gt and < /td $gt do?

How is a picture placed inside one of the cells?

Taking Stock: What are the parts and how are they connected?

2006-02-14T09:20:00.001-08:00

Use a table to keep track of the important components (parts) of your gadget and to map the connections. Give a name to each component, or look up the conventional name. What is the function of this part? (if you don't know, just leave this blank for now) What other components is it connected to are the important connections between these parts?What smaller parts is this part made of?

Use labels to keep track of the numbers you have assigned. Take pictures of the labeled components, so you can eventually provide a key to your readers.

Let The Deconstruction Begin!

2006-02-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

Congratulations. You have chosen a peice of modern technology to "deconstruct."

Choose amongst the two possible activities to perform today:

1) Using a laptop, begin web research to collect background information about "How X works" (X = your technology) according to others. Use the headings below to track your research in a NEW POST.

URL:
Author:
Credentials/Credibility:
What I learned from this site:
Cool picture(s) I might want to use later:
Quotes I might use, with the exact URL:

2) Using a laptop and the toolbox, begin taking the object apart. Take digital photographs of the process. Try to separate what you think are its important "parts" and photograph these. Use Andrew, the web, and the electronics manuals to try to identify the industry names for these items. Do your best not to destroy or lose any of the peices as you take the object apart.

Have fun!

Make-Up Day...

2006-02-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

Collect the following information for at least TWO more sites that provide solid information about the HISTORY OF THE INTERNET

URL: Here you will copy and paste the website address from the "Address" window

Author: Most credible internet sources will provide the name of the author(s) somewhere on the site. Provide this here.

Credentials/Credibility: Here you will make a brief statement about the credibility (believability) of the source based on what you know about the author or about the organization publishing the information. If you can't find anything about them on the site, try searching their name. Think critically about WHAT THEIR BIAS MIGHT BE!? Describe your thoughts about this.

Content of Interest: Give a brief overview of the information contained in the site.

Cool picture(s) I might want to use later: Collect pictures from the site that might be of use later on in publishing your report.

Quotes I might use, with the exact URL: Collect key quotes from the site that might be useful in creating your report.

Here are the same headings for you to cut and paste as needed.

URL:
Author:
Credentials/Credibility:
Content of Interest:
Cool picture(s) I might want to use later:
Quotes I might use, with the exact URL:

Please re-read yesterday's assignment to remind yourself of 4 basic web research skills you should be consciously using!

Strategies for Web Research and Citations

2006-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Assignment: Create a post to document your research on the history of the internet using the four strategies below. Describe each source for your readers. For an example, see my sample blog.

Before you begin your research and your post, read the following:

According to Andrew, good web research requires some of the following skills:

1) Savvy Search: Ability to use search engines, with an experimental attitude towards trying search word combinations will return the most focused and useful results to answer your questions.
2) Fast Filter: SCAN QUICKLY FOR THE INFORMATION YOU NEED, and INGNORE THE INFORMATION YOU DON'T! Decide quickly whether a web-page or link is likely to help you.

3) Question Quality: Be highly aware and critical of the quality of information, based on the source type (.com, .org, .edu, etc.), and the credentials and citations (and bibliography) provided by the author. (Ask yourself: Who is paying for the creation of this information? Are they trying to sell me something? What side of this issue is this organization on? What are their interests in holding their position?)

4) Leave Breadcrumbs: Keep track of where your information came from, so you can back yourself up with sources and give credit to other authors and web publishing sources when you publish. Learn to "Add favorites" and cut and paste choice quotes, along with the URL and the DATE!

Of these 4 skills, number 4 is the most important for staying out of trouble for two reasons:
Reason 1: Claiming credit for another's work is considered ACADEMIC DISHONESTY or PLAGIARISM, and the internet makes it extremely easy to get caught! Plagiarism usually results in expulsion from college and a zero on an assignment or a class.

Reason 2: Other people will judge the quality of your work and the truthfulness of your claims on the basis of the quality and repuation of your sources. If you list NO SOURCES for your research facts and influences on your ideas, many serious readers will assume you are just an OPINIONATED FOOL! To earn your stripes in a world of mass information, you have to show that you are willing to carefully study and give credit to those who have already carefully studied your question.

HTML Primer: Adding Permanent Links to the Sidebar

2006-02-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

Next we're going to learn a little bit about HTML, the most basic programming language used to create web pages, so that we can change our blog templates to include links (not the kind seen in the picture) to the course home page and our classmates in the sidebar.

1. Follow the links above to learn more about HTML and how to write the code that creates links to other web pages.

2. Once you have read a little about creating links in HTML, you are ready to take the challenge on your own, go to this link and apply what you have learned as you follow the instructions! Create a link for the course homeblog first, followed by links to each of your classmates' blogs. Look to the right for an example of what this should look like when you view your blog.

hint #1: once you're inside the template menu, scroll
down
until you find the code label (!-- Begin #sidebar --)

hint #2:
Underneath this, you will be writing code (you should have learned this when
reading for step 1) you need to place permanent links in the sidebar.

3. Create a blog posting in which you summarize the meaning and function of HTML and breifly explain how a web link is created in HTML. You may cut and paste text and images from other sources, as long as the text is blockquoted (" button) and the source URL is included. (what's
a URL?)

Polishing Our Blogs!

2006-02-05T18:47:00.000-08:00

Today most of us are going to start by revising our blog postings from Friday using the "Edit Posts" menu tab. Make sure every question has a thoughtful answer, that the text has been spell checked, and that you have used formatting (color, italics, or otherwise) to make it clear what's a question and what's an answer. CDs with photos from our trip will be made available, and everyone should upload at least one photo to enhance their post! Remember, you have a potential audience of several BILLION people.

Reflections on the "Samsung Experience"

2006-02-02T16:15:00.000-08:00

For our first class, students went on an excursion to the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, where we visited the Samsung Experience. This space is an exhibit of Samsung's bleeding edge technology, including many products that will not be on the American market for several years.

Students were asked to reflect on the following questions:

1) How is new technology presented to us by the companies that create and sell it?

a) Observations: What images, language, textures, colors, shape, size, and other design features do you observe in this space?

list key images you observe:
list key language you hear or read:
describe textures you feel or see:
describe colors or color schemes you see:
describe common shapes you see:
Size. Does it seem to matter, and in which products?
Other observations:

b) Inferences: What are we being asked to believe about ourselves in relationship to technology? What values are behind the technology? Justify your inferences based on observation. State any prior assumptions you are making:

2) What is your reaction to the “Samsung Experience?” Describe any shifts that occurred in your emotional and physical state when you arrived. Try to explain the cause of these feelings.

3) Of the different products you have observed, which do you think has/will most change the way humans live in the future? Name it and explain your thinking.

Click here see what Samsung had to say about the opening of the Samsung Experience in their press release.

Essential Questions

2006-02-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

How can we question and deepen the relationship we have with the technological world we inhabit?

What’s inside the "black box" of our everyday conveniences?

What are the essential components of a given technology, and what functions does each perform?

What math and science concepts were applied to design a given device?

What benefits do diverse technologies bring to human beings?

What dangers come inherent with technology?

Is technology values-neutral? (i.e. Can technology change the values of a community?)

When should communities decide to limit or prohibit the use and development of new technologies?

Welcome!

2006-02-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome students!
This is course blog for a high-school class titled Humans, Technology, and Experience.

In this course you will be asked to research the science and engineering that explain the gadgets of our everyday lives, and to explore the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions of their effect on the human experience. Students will use Blogs to keep an online technology journal, in which they will gather research information, respond to class readings, and make weekly reflections in which they explore the ways in which technology mediates their lived experiences. Students will create evolving art/science installations that requires them to disassemble a modern piece of technology and create an online exhibit that identifies the underlying parts, and explain the scientific and mathematical concepts that enable it to function. Students will then reconfigure their object as sculptural artwork and develop a series of poems and reflective essays to provide aesthetic comment to its influence on the human experience.

I am excited to be embarking on this Expedition with you!

Best,

Andrew