Week 2 – Monday

Agenda – Evolution of Digital Communication

• Housekeeping
• Review Assignments
• MultiMedia
• Lecture/Discussion

Housekeeping

• Introductions
  Reminder of policy on absences
  You are responsible for all assigned readings and materials presented in class lectures. You should be aware that missing class could adversely affect your performance on assignments and homework. It is your responsibility to obtain all materials missed by working with other students (do not expect the professor to provide this information). It is also your responsibility to complete all assignments, even if you missed the class where the assignment was made. Material is available online.
• email
  Please use clear subject lines and include “COM300″ — send to kegill@u…..edu.
  If you have an urgent question, say so in the subject line. I try to return email within 24 hours M-Th. Please sign the email with your first name.
• Gradesheet
  Points are recorded on a gradesheet hosted at GoogleDocs. You should be able to find your points by looking for the last four digits of your UW student number. Generally speaking, I update this every-other-week, based on the reading/questions summary available each Monday.

Review Assignments

• Lab assignment – media use
• Readings/Questions
  (1) Length
  (2) Open-ended questions!
• Posts of note: Chad (insightful, length spot-on), Cindy (personal link), Jamie (link to work), Katarina (subject line!)
• Questions of note:  Glenn, Katarina, Madeline, Stephen
• Please do NOT send me an email telling you that you’ve made a blog post. No need — I read them with Bloglines (more details Wed in lab).

MultiMedia

• Needle Telegraph
• Telegraph Cable Across The Atlantic
• Titanic “SOS”
• Morse Code Beats Text Messaging
• Epic2015

Lecture (PPT, Slideshare)

Reading Discussion

• Break into discussion groups
• There are four questions
• Discussion – reach as much consensus as possible (there are no “right” answers)
• “Report out” and group discussion

1. What are some positive and negative aspects of communication technology development? Immediate information, consumerism, world market, impatience?
2. With the economic downturn post Internet proliferation, newspapers are shutting-down en masse. Why didn’t they keep innovating?
3. Fidler quotes Thoreau: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things.” How well does Thoreau’s warning align with your beliefs?
4. Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society.  How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?

Wednesday Lab (tentative)

• Net Technologies (alphabet soup)
• RSS
• Slideshare
• PPT
• Review the 1st essay assignment
• Practice Commenting on one another’s blog posts