Question: Course Project: Online Technology Conference

The final project is a presentation for an imaginary technology conference called in order to evaluate the impact of technology on culture. Students will pose questions of cultural concern in regard to new or emerging technologies and answer these questions in a multimedia presentation that uses scholarly research. The project will be completed in stages throughout the course and shared with the class in the final week. Students choose a new or emerging technology and ask the following questions about it (from Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century):

1. What is the problem for which this technology is the solution?

2. Whose problem is it?

3. Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?

4. What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?

5. What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?

6. What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies, and what is being gained and lost by such changes?

Students answer these questions by doing research in the UMUC library. At least six scholarly sources must be employed to answer the questions.

At the end of the session, you turn in a final presentation based on 5 earlier assignments. It will be a multimedia presentation on a particular technology and its relationship to culture.

Part 3: Project Outline

This week you create an outline of your project. Next week you will use this outline to guide you as your create your presentation. The outline should roughly follow the six questions posed above in the overview of the final project plus an introduction and conclusion.

This outline should be substantive. For each of the above six questions, include a paragraph description (each paragraph should be no more than 150 words) of the what you intend to explore in your final project. Refer to ideas from the resources you include in your annotated bibliography. Cite them in your text and in a list of references for the outline.

Your overall approach may change as your reading on the subject continues, but the process of outlining will help you see the scope of what you have left to research and write.