This course addresses emerging issues about digital literacies such as the rhetoric of technology, technological competency, technology and information ecologies, critical awareness of technology and human interactions, judicious application of technological knowledge, user-centered design and technology, networking and online communities, ethics and technology, and culture and technology.

 

This purpose of this class is to help you develop a foundational competency within a landscape of functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies. In the simplest terms, the aims of functional literacy will help you learn to do things with computers; critical literacy will help you recognize and challenge the politics of computers and other technologies; and rhetorical literacy will help you understand the persuasive nature of technology in a social context.

 

By creating an environmental and technological theme through Scott Russell Sanders’ Terrarium, we will explore various computer systems and programs. More than a tool, I hope you will come to understand technology as a cultural artifact and as hypertextual media through various projects. You will also learn some specific software, but more so, I hope you will learn how to critically think about the technology you encounter as well as to critique and reflect on your technology use and perspective. Although we will learn some specific software programs, you should not consider this course to be a hands-on class.

 

Course Objectives.

• To understand technological competence within a broad framework of society

• To reach critical awareness of technological design

• To evaluate software application capabilities

• To analyze situational literacies in relation to technological projects

• To understand how technology shapes and is shaped by culture

• To develop a rhetorical approach to software use decision