Note: This takes the place of the short paper originally proposed in the syllabus. Please see the syllabus on the course site for information about how your grade on this series of steps will factor into your grade for the course.

Description: Discussions in the second part of the semester will focus on the social implications of technologies that involve computation and/or computers in some way. For this assignment, you will 1) do preliminary research on the social implications of a technology that interests you, 2) select one medium-length reading that you find both informative and thought-provoking related to this technology that will be assigned for a specific discussion day in class, 3) lead the expert group portion of jigsaw discussion for this reading in class, and 4) one week after class discussion, turn in a 300-500 word analysis of the ethical dimensions of this technology drawing from your reading, class discussion, and additional thought.

Details:

Step 1: Preliminary research

Due: in class, Friday, April 5

Engage in library session with Prof. Kevin Engel on research techniques for finding potential readings and selecting one of them to assign as reading for the classes.

Your selected article:

• Does not have to be a scholarly article, but could be.
• Should be of medium length (5-15 pages).
• Should be both informative and take a critical (asking why, challenging assumptions, bringing new context) approach. So, an encyclopedia article would not be appropriate, most news articles would not be appropriate, but a long-form essay from the New York Times could be.

Example:

Topic: Fake news spread through web publishing and social media

Article:

Higgins, Andrew, Mike McIntire, and Gabriel J.x. Dance. “Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory.” New York Times, 25 November 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/world/europe/fake-news-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-georgia.html.

Step 2: Submit selected article with citation and brief annotation

Due: Friday, April 12, by end of regular class period = 10am (in order to facilitate me distributing the readings for Monday)

Via email or attached document, submit a full MLA citation for your article, including the URL if available, and a 3-4 sentence annotation explaining what the topic is and why you selected this particular article.

Step 3: Lead the expert group portion of jigsaw discussion on assigned class day (selected randomly): have prepared key points that you think your classmates should take away from the piece, present these briefly to your fellow experts, open it to questions and discussion, and then take charge of synthesizing key points to be shared with the teaching group phase.

Due:

April 15: Sean H., TJ, Luis

April 22: Charles, Zaria, Georgia, Gray

April 29: Kate, Gabriel, Sean L.

 

Step 4: One week after the class discussion of your reading, submit a 300-500 word written analysis (sentences, no bullet points) of the ethical questions raised by this technology.

Your written analysis:

• Must include citations for all referenced articles in MLA format.
• Must have a title.
• Should not simply be a summary of your reading.
• Should be in a more formal academic style than your reflective essays and blog post responses. (Think of the style you would normally use in an academic paper.)
• May still, though, use the first person.
• Should employ some of the vocabulary of ethics we have read and discussed in class.
• Should not try to propose a single correct answer to the ethical questions.
• Should make an argument about what you see as the most important ethical question to be addressed and why, given what you now know about the technology and its impacts.