week 5 : 1 november

personal technologies

Reading for This Evening

  • Guest speaker (Chris Pirillo) and group discussion of The World is Flat
  • Student blogs of note this week:
    • Alex - "It’s interesting to think that in a single century we’ve completely eliminated the concept of the work day. There is no more “day” because work can now take place infinitely.... I just don’t think we’re as far as we think we are… and is it really helping the general populous anyway?"
    • BrianG - "Postman is a luddite who's worst fear is Technology. The author of "Ecologizing Mobile Media", Howard Reingold, buys Postman's argument and suffers from the same false modesty that plagues Postman."
    • Craig - On Howard: "When everyone that calls you on a regular base knows you only have a cell phone, the expectation of a return response is different than home phones because they think you are always ‘home’. "
    • Drew - "So the world is flat. I don’t deny Friedman’s premise is correct. But if this is a fait accompli, what do we lose?"
    • EricaS - "I can't help but wonder if Friedman isn't blinded a bit by his overriding believe in capitalism and the greatness of a global economy and the flattening of the world... I'm wondering why there is so little dialog about making the whole world politically "democratic" and economically "capitalist"."
    • Jyostna - on life in India
    • Meg - "He is a great story teller and his anecdotes are as fascinating as they are illuminating. Where he flounders is when he strays to far from technology, remaking the history of the world to fit his theories."
    • Tom - on Wal-Mart
  • Assignments for Next Week:
    • Reading Assignment. Reading summaries are due 8 am Monday before Tuesday's class unless otherwise noted. ONLY GROUP 5 has the assignment of identifying supplemental readings.
    • Speaker & Class Feedback
    • First paper due Wednesday 9 Nov @ 6 pm via eSubmit.
      Reminder: the proposal is a planning tool; it is not graded (except completed/did not complete). Deviations from the proposal do not affect your grade, although they can affect the time required for the three papers in total. I have prepared a template you can use for the paper.
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