SOCI221/2AA

Sociology of Cyberspace

 

Meeting 2: September 15, 2014

Logistics

  • Online texts
  • Need to be on campus, in most cases
  • Can download all at once Can do VPN http://lar.me/vpnconu
  • Also coursepack volume, H–1132, library…
  • References on Moodle

Work for the Course

  • Contributions (degree of engagement, putting yourself in…)
  • Reflection posts (working with material, sharing insight…)
  • Activities (hands-on, put into practice…)
  • Exams (define concepts, explain position, contrast terms…)

Podcasts

Cyberspace Mindmap

Getting to Know One Another

Discussion

What can sociology provide in the study of Internet?

Exercise

Online History

  • Try to remember your first time online.
  • What did you do, then?
  • What has changed, since then?
  • Pair up and discuss
  • Quick post

Call Me Alex

Alex’s Info

  • Alex@Ethnographer.ca
  • http://Enkerli.com
  • Office H-1125-28
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00–2:30p

Alex’s “Cyberspace” Biography

  • Twenty Years Online
  • Pre-1993: Dabbling
  • Since 1993: Intense
  • Social media involvement
  • Geek ethnographer
  • Social Web course
  • Community manager

Alex’s Teaching

  • Diversified teaching
  • Constructivism
  • Applied work: participatory action research
  • Emphasis on appropriation

Active Learning

Gym Analogy

  • Own project
  • Effort, practice, and improvement
  • Personal trainer, not coach, drill sergeant, or employer
  • Ask questions

Peer Learning

  • Mutual help
  • Culture of sharing (“gift economy”)
  • Diigo
  • Interactions
  • Peer assessment
  • Forums

Teaching as Community Management

  • Building learning environment together
  • Community?
  • Enabling action
  • Learning network

This Course

Sociology of Cyberspace

What Do We Mean by “Cyberspace”?

Social dimensions

  • Geek Culture
  • Digital divide
  • Inequality
  • Class
  • Gender
  • Race
  • Democracy
  • “Digital Natives”

Social dimensions

  • Education
  • Digital literacy
  • Diversity
  • Digital ethnography
  • Posthumanism
  • Appropriation
  • Communities
  • Social identity

This Semester

  • Somewhat hands-on
  • Exercises
  • No need for technical skills
  • Critical thinking

Coursepack

  • All texts available online
  • Diverse
  • Deep sociology
  • Average of two texts per week
  • Study smart: skim then focus
  • Texts as toolbox
  • Find something to share, to discuss

Course Policies

  • Contributions
  • Regular attendance expected
  • Online submissions before class
  • Late penalty
  • No extra credit

Contributions

  • What do you bring to the course, apart from what’s expected?
  • Active
  • Not necessarily “vocal”
  • Not necessarily in-class
  • Partly self-assessed (October 13)

Reflection Posts

  • Sociological insight
  • Active reading: toolbox, conversation starters
  • Making links
  • Outside sources (including videos, tweets, pictures…)
  • Aggregate grade (on 20) by Alex, at the end
  • Ok if miss one

Qualitative peer-assessment

  • Excellent: ~90%
  • Very Good: ~80%
  • Good: ~70%
  • Average: ~60%
  • Not Good Enough: ~50%
  • Disappointing: ~40%

Activities/Exercises

  • Some start in class
  • More hands-on, informal
  • Also qualitative peer-assessment
  • Aggregate grade (on 10) by Alex, at the end
  • Ok if miss one

Exams

  • Essay-type questions, but shorter
  • Compare and contrast, support argument…
  • In-class midterm (October 20)
  • University-scheduled final

Coming Up

Context Is Key

Required Texts

Vannevar Bush

As We May Think

Pre-Internet

  • From destruction to knowledge
  • Technology and the mind
  • Prospective
  • Memex
  • Partial inspiration for the Internet

Historical Background

  • Time depth
  • Technological details
  • Plumbing analogy
  • Skip sections
  • Focus on sections 6 (The Role of Documentation) through 9 (History of the Future)
  • Explicit issues: key people, communication between humans, defense, fits and starts, adoption patterns…

Between the Lines

  • Where did it happen?
  • Who made decisions?
  • Society shapes technology or technology causes social change?

Copy of SOCI221/2AA Meeting 1

By Alexandre Enkerli

Copy of SOCI221/2AA Meeting 1

Slides for the first week of class in Alex Enkerli’s SOCI221/2AA Sociology of Cyberspace course at Concordia University.

  • 1,534