Read Frederick Douglass’s speech on the Dred Scott decision. As you read, highlight at least 5 things you think would need to be explained to someone reading this with no background knowledge. Your annotations can include (but aren’t limited to) unfamiliar names and places, historical events, or ideas and concepts.
Category: Assignments (Page 2 of 2)
During the week of February 24, meet with me to discuss ideas for your final project. This is a brief, 15 minute meeting where we can make sure your project is feasible, talk through what sources or data you might need, and discuss potential tools you could use.
Pick an item of significance to you. This should be something that you can bring to class on the 24th. Create some metadata for it, including a robust description that explains its significance to you and how it might speak to broader histories.
Metadata to include:
- Title
- Creator
- Date
- Format
- Description
Add your metadata to a blog post, which (in total) should be at least 200 words. Add the tag “Digitization” before you publish. Don’t forget to bring the item with you
We’re reading a couple of articles this week that are a little more dense than usual. As you work through them, make sure to annotate them. Your annotations might include underlines and highlights, definitions of unfamiliar words, marginal notes about how the text relates to something you’ve read elsewhere, or sometimes even just stars and question marks. I recommend Zotero for this, but you can use whatever system (digital or on paper) that works for you.
When you read an academic article, you don’t have to grasp it all the first time through! Annotations are a good way to help parse complicated arguments and scaffold the text for the next time you read it.
You don’t need to submit your annotations, but you should come to class prepared to discuss the text. Be ready to talk about at least two or three observations or questions you have about the texts. If conversation lags about a reading, I might ask you to share one of your annotations.
Write a brief review of the AI fiction you chose to read or watch. Your review shouldn’t merely summarize the work — in fact, it should contain very little summary at all! Instead, your review should engage with the substance of the work. There are some guiding questions below, but feel free to incorporate other kinds of analysis as you see fit.
- What assumptions does the creator make about the world, technology, and human beings?
- What arguments is the creator making about the relationship between people and technology?
- What is the vision of AI presented in the text? (Again, you’re analyzing rather than summarizing here! Don’t just say what the AI does, say what those actions mean for the abilities, nature, and ethical weight of the AI.)
- How does this AI work draw on or inform other AI fictions we’ve encountered?
You’re encouraged to incorporate various kinds of media into your review. In the case of a movie or tv show, that might include GIFs or clips; but you can be as creative as you’d like here: memes, infographics, mind maps, audio, or anything else that helps you convey your ideas.
Your review should be a minimum of 300 words, posted to the class website as a blog post with the tag “AI fiction.”
Fiction options:
- A Murder at the End of the World (tv show, currently on Hulu)
- Robin Sloan, Sourdough (novel, available at Edwardsville Public Library in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook)
- Mrs. Davis (tv show, currently on Peacock)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey + Interstellar (movies, 2001 on Tubi and Interstellar on Netflix)
- The Imitation Game + WarGames (movies, both on Max)
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (novel, available at Edwardsville Public Library in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook)
- Artificial Intelligence + I, Robot (movies, Artificial Intelligence on Pluto and I, Robot on Hulu)
- Karel Čapek, Rossum’s Universal Robots + Metropolis (1927) (play and movie, both freely available)
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (novel, available at Edwardsville Public Library in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook)
Choose at least three events from the history of computing that you think constitute significant moments. You may use any source you like, so long as you cite it. Write a brief description (a couple sentences) for each event noting why you think it’s a milestone worth noting.
Add your events (one per line) to this spreadsheet.
If your event duplicates someone else’s event, that’s ok! But your description of it should be your own.
Read the article and watch the video about the Cahokia AR app: https://cahokiamounds.org/augmented-reality-project/. You do not need to buy the app!
Write a blog post applying what we’ve read and discussed about audience, accessibility, and representation to the Cahokia app. What does the app do well? For what audiences does it enhance access and accessibility? What groups does it exclude? Your blog post should be at least 200 words. Add the tag “Cahokia” before you publish.
Find two resources that you think will be helpful for this course. They can be related to the topics you identified in your interest statement, or they can be general resources about digital humanities, technology, tech ethics, etc.
Add the two items to the class Zotero group. Your entries should include the essential metadata (or as much of it as possible) for the type of item.
Take a look at the course schedule in the syllabus. What topics, readings, or assignments look the most intriguing? What might you want to pursue further as the semester goes on? Write a blog post on this website of about 150 words about some of your initial interests in this class. Add the tag “Interest statement” before you publish it.