ISTA 160 Final Exam Study Guide Fall 2010
Suggested Study Strategy:
The syllabus should have all the readings and assignments listed here. Lecture notes are in Course Materials.
Review the chapters and main readings. Make sure you are familiar with the readings enough to know what it covers and main points. I will offer further guidelines below.
Read the assignments, and review what you wrote and my feedback. Read the lecture notes after you do the readings and discover the
links between the two.
Review the videos we covered in class (from the lecture notes and on the syllabus).
We covered a lot of ground. There will be an in-class exam on Dec. 6th and a take-home exam on D2L due in the dropbox a week later on Mon., Dec. 13th by 5pm.
Digital Explosions
Readings: Bits Chapter 1: Koans and Consequences Assignment 1: The Past and the Present
Know the Koans and their consequences. It is set up as an
Introduction to the book, but there a many examples of how Koans are related to today’s technology and the Internet.
Your Brain on Computers
Readings: Your Brain on Computers (NY Times Series)
Articles in this series examine how a deluge of data can affect the way people think and behave, including recent articles on high school students.
Video: Life on the Virtual Frontier, Ch. 1: “Distracted by Everything” Assignment 2: Multi-tasking
Read the NYTimes series and re-watch the video. The idea that of switching form task to task is distracting and can cause problems learning. Assignment 2 dealt with that as well.
Ethics in the Digital Age Readings:
Ethics is a main part of this course. The Good Play Project provides a useful framework for thinking about how the new digital media
affects what we do and how we manage our lives online. The focus is on young people, but it is not exclusionary
The lecture notes and our discussion on D2L give us a glimpse into these issues.
Privacy
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 2, “Naked in the Sunlight: privacy lost, privacy abandoned” boyd, d. & Hargittai, E. (2010). Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?
Demead, K. (2009). Is Online Privacy a Generational Issue? Wired, Oct. 1, 2009.
Gallaugher, J. “Facebook Case”
Video: Spying on the Home Front (PBS, Frontline, 2007)
Mostly read Chapter 2, but know the implications for privacy on many of the topics we discussed, including Facebook, Google, cookies, digital footprints, and spying. Know what privacy is and what it means, and why privacy is an issue that touches so many areas of our lives.
Does the Internet Make Us Dumb Readings:
Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation, 2008, 90-116, 133-139 Review by Lee Drutman, LA Times
Motoko Rich, Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? New York Times July 27, 2008.
Video: Life on the Virtual Frontier, “Teaching with Technology” (Chapter 4) Assignment 3: Debate: Does the Internet Dumb us Down
1. Is Prof. Bauerlein correct? Which parts of the argument do you think is valid? Why or why not?
2. In the short synopsis of the book, which parts of the argument do you think is questionable? Why?
3. Did you watch the video? What effect does teaching have on a student's ability to learn? Is the Internet the problem? Why or why not? You can also refer to the article about Woodside High School (NYTimes).
Video Games and Violence
Readings: John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital, Chapter 9 Aggressors 209-221.
Further readings:
• If You're Looking for a Scapegoat, Try NRA - Los Angeles Times (5/21/99) by Jann Wenner
Assignment 4: Discuss values of video games and Aggressors reading
This topics covers lots of ground; much of which is covered in
Protecting Children, Censoring Speech
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 7: "You Can’t Say That on the Internet: Guarding the Frontiers of Digital Expression"
Communications Decency Act, Section 230 Harmful Words and Free Speech
Adult Material
What are the laws about regulating speech on the Internet? What has been tried before, is constantly tried again, but fails in the courts? What are the main concerns about protecting speech
against minors (this includes everything from labeling to prohibition e.g., some school districts ban books.). Know what Section 230 protects. First Amendment topics discussed include cyberbullying, and offensive speech at a soldier’s funeral.
Digital Citizenship and Staying Safe Online Readings
All readings are typically 1-2 page pdfs and can be found in the Readings folder, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity:
National 2008 Cyberethics, Cybersafety, Cybesecurity Baseline Study Key Findings
The 2010 State of K-12 Cyberethics, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity Curriculum in the U.S. Survey, an extension of the 2008 survey Online Security and Privacy Study
What college students can do to protect their cybersecurity. Stop. Think. Connect: The First Global Online Safety Campaign Videos: Stay Safe Online Videos, It Gets Better Project and others
Our discussion focused on what it means to stay safe online,
including the Stop. Think. Connect message, and current statistics, efforts underway to educate and empower a digital society on how to use the Internet safely. A great deal of time was spent on
cyberbullying issues and why so many gay teens are committing suicide.
The Power of Search
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 4: “Needles in the Haystack: Google and Other Brokers in the Bits Bazaar”
Those Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed (Robert J. Lackie, pdf)
Google Street View (in class) Assignment 5
Intellectual Property
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 6: "Balance Toppled: Who Owns the Bits?"
http://www.chillingeffects.org
Preface and Introduction of Lessig's book, "Remix" Free Culture
Video: Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity (Ted Talk, 2007).
Copyrights and who owns the rights to published works is always going to be a battle when the technology allows us to easily rip, mix and burn. How are current laws around copyright being challenged. How is the Internet changing the way publishers of original works display their works and also receive monetary incentives for their creative works?
Copyrights and Patents
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 6: "Balance Toppled: Who Owns the Bits?"
Litman, J. Ch. 2 The Art of Making Copyright Law
Samuelson, P. Preliminary thoughts on copyright reform. Litman, J. Ch. 10, The Copyright Wars.
Terdiman, D. Web could unclog patent backlog
Explain what is meant by the refrain and give an example: - Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
- The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it. - Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past. - Ours is less and less a free society.
More discussion of copyrights and reform of the copyright law. Patents were summarized in our lecture notes and covered in the Bits Chapter as well as on the chillingeffects.org website. New crowdsourcing ways to combat patents in the public domain. Know the difference between copyrights, patents, and fair use
The Future of Journalism
Readings: Clay Shirky, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (excellent article on the current state of newspapers)
Palfrey and Gasser, Born Digital, Chapter 7: Quality (pp.155-183).
Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news, Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2010, and Olbermann’s response.
Related Links: ProPublica Center for Public Integrity, Texas Tribune
discern it in what you read. Non-profit news orgs offer a fresh, investigative journalistic appeal that main media are looking to for news.
Broadcast Censorship and Global Internet Filtering
Readings: Blown to Bits, Chapter 8, "Bits in the Air Old Metaphors, New Technologies, and Free Speech"
Zittrain & Palfrey, Introduction: Tale of Two Internets from Access Denied Faris and Villeneuve, Ch. 1: Measuring Global Internet Filtering from Access Denied
We began with a discussion of broadcasting and the government’s need to control the radio spectrum, how gets access, and for what purpose. The result is that there are no limits on spectrum use. The rest is politics.
