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?

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

Your exhibit will consist of a multimedia presentation on a particular technology and its relationship to culture. The exhibit will address the following issues regarding technology and culture:

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is for you to understand and articulate the relationship between technology and culture

Skills

The project will enable you to develop the following skills:

1. Identify, define, and evaluate the influence of technology on human culture

2. Analyze and evaluate specific relationships between technology and literature, writing, philosophy, religion, art, music, and posthumanism

3. Articulate cultural critiques of technology

4. Synthesize interdisciplinary scholarship in technology and the humanities

5. Demonstrate the ability to design and produce multimedia communication appropriate to a given research or creative context (purpose, audience, event, form, genre, medium)

Knowledge

The project will enable you to obtain the following content knowledge

1. Nature and function of technology

2. Nature and function of culture

Part 1: Project Topic and Resources

1. Choose a technology to question in your final project in preparation for your presentation at the Online Technology Conference and answer the following questions about it:

• What is it?

• Why did you choose it?

• At this point, what do you think the answers will be? Why?

• What steps will you take to answer the questions?

• What obstacles (if any) do you see in your way to answering the questions?

Your responses should be at least 200 words, in total, adhere to MLA style guidelines (Times New Roman and size 12 font, 1 inch margins), and should be carefully edited and proofed for standard use of English.

2. Create an analytical annotated bibliography of resources you will use for your project. These must include at least six scholarly resources. Each source should be at least 150 words.

General assistance with annotated bibliographies and MLA citations can be found on the UMUC website at the below links.

• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

• MLA Citation Examples

• The Purdue Online Writing Lab(Purdue OWL) also has good resources on writing Annotated Bibliographies, including how to summarize, assess, and reflect:

• Overview