Part of your participation and engagement in the course content will come through discussion forums. There will be three discussion forums in this class, each with one thread.  The first forum (thread) will cover material related to assigned videos:

For Discussion thread 1:

• Printing press and knowledge transformation (change)
• Guns, Germs and Steel (plant and animal domestication)
• Story of Stuff (consumption)
• Small is Beautiful (appropriate technology) (examples)
• The Promise of Biomimicry (Dr. Janine Benyus from the Biomimicry Institute)

For Discussion thread 2:

This one focuses on readings that lay out some of the ways that scholars and others have approached thinking about technology:

(open from April 26 – May 11 … access via Canvas)

• Arnold Pacey. 1990. Technology in World Civilization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (chapter 1, ‘An age of Asian technology’). (A corrective for those who might have thought the West invented everything important).
• Keith Griffin. 1979. Underdevelopment in history. Pp 77-90 in C. Wilber (ed) The Political Economy of Development and Underdevelopment (2nd edition). New York: Random House (in Canvas–development and colonialism provide a partial answer to the question in ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’).
• Thomas Hughes. 1989. American Genesis: A Century of Technological Innovation and Enthusiasm, 1870-1970. NY: Viking (chapter 5, ‘The system must be first’). (Hughes has a thoughtful discussion of ‘sociotechnical systems.’ Don’t be intimidated by the chapter length–lots of full-page pictures)
• Kenneth Jackson. 1989. The baby boom and the age of the subdivision. Pp 146-61 in Technology and Society in Twentieth Century America. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (another historically significant era, post-petroleum–think here of the energy and resource consequences of low-density residential patterns)
• William Catton. 1986. Homo colossus and the technological turn-around. Sociological Spectrum 6:121-47 (Catton was employing the concept of ecological footprint before it was fashionable of perhaps even coined).
• M.J. Peterson. 2008. “Appropriate Technology.” International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (August). (A useful summary of E.F. Schumacher’s ‘appropriate technology’ as a concept and how it can be applied. Schumacher coined the term and argued that high-technology was becoming a dehumanizing and nature-wrecking force)

This one involves a summary/analysis of readings, how you’re getting through those and what issues or questions you might have in the process. This discussion forum will open on April 26, and will close on May 11.

The third discussion thread focuses on the final paper–a reflection and journal on smart phone technologies and your use of them, and will open on May 11, closing on May 25.

For Discussion thread 3:

The discussions will be evaluated based on your thoughtful reflection and responses to the prompts.

(open from May 10 – May 25)

• Mary Grace Decourourez. 2024. What excessive screen time does to the adult brain. May 30, Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. (Like ultra-processed food, it may taste good, but the lasting effect may be less palatable)
• Eli Pariser. 2011. The Filter Bubble. NY: Penguin Books (chapter 2, ‘The Race for relevance‘). (to Paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, ‘It’s the sort of thing that people who like this sort of thing are going to like’)
• University of Oxford. 2024. Studies show that the way the brain learns is different from the way artificial intelligence learns. January 3, University of Oxford (News & Events). (Are you exercising your own algorithmic learning?)
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus. 2022. The reluctant prophet of effective altruism. August 8, New Yorker Magazine. (there might be an audio option in the upper right-hand corner, look for the headphone icon). 
• The Royal Institution. 2025. ‘We have to stop it taking over’: The past, present and future of A.I. with Geoffrey Hinton. August 26, The Royal Institution (YouTube). (Geoffrey Hinton is the so-called ‘Godfather of A.I.,’ he was working on neural networks decades ago)

FYI (Optional)

• Thomas Friedman. 2026. Anthropic’s restraint is a terrifying warning sign. April 7, New York Times. 
• Paul Mozur and Adam Satariano. 2o26. Anthropic’s new Mythos A.I. model sets off global alarms. April 22, New York Times.

My philosophy on discussion forums

Because it is discussion, you also need to reply to others’ prompts. I’m not looking for rote or robotic responses, but genuine interaction and discussion. Much of this material will be new to most of you, and some of it might be distressing–sort of like realizing that the diet you’ve been on since childhood contained trace amounts of mercury. No the news isn’t poisoning your brain, but you likely haven’t been encouraged to put much thought into how much ‘processing’ of the news occurs before it reaches our sense. If I can’t tell whether you’ve even read the material, and most of the content is opinion uninformed by the course’s source material, you won’t receive many of these 50 points. Gratuitous posts (‘ditto!’) keep us going, I like to see people encourage each other, but they’re more a public service and act of kindness and collegiality than a source of points. If you’re aiming for an ‘A’:

1. At least one substantial and substantive posting in each discussion thread. You won’t be able to do that in a couple of sentences. I would expect 250-500 words. But keep in mind that all I will have to go on to assess your effort in these forums is the level and quality of your participation.
2. At least two substantive responses within each discussion thread to a post from someone else in class. By substantive I mean that you need to show me that you’ve been following the thread, gone through the source material (readings, any videos …) and have something thoughtful to say. So find posts that interest you and compose your replies. Posts need to demonstrate you have done the readings and read the lecture material. This is a discussion forum, not a posting board.  Treat it as such and you will get more points, and more learning out of the class.
3. Thoughtful postings. This covers the quality of your postings. I’m looking for some evidence of thought on your part. This is worth 5 points per week. Opinion is fine, as long as you demonstrate how it is informed by the assigned material for the week.

Here’s some guidance:

1. Do not wait to post until the end of the window for each discussion forum. This is part of the value of the online medium—everybody contributes, nobody gets to hide in the back of the class, everyone has a chance to shine. But if you’re waiting until the bitter end, there is no discussion, it’s simply a posting board. And I’ve already noted above that this is a chance to interact with your peers, to do what we normally do in the classroom (and the conversations can be pretty lively).
2. Model civility. We’re discussing ideas in this course, and mutual respect is a prerequisite. We certainly don’t have to agree—but we can disagree in a civil way, and use persuasion, logic and evidence to support our own ideas (too bad news doesn’t do more of this …). This is especially important in terms of your own professional growth—learning how to disagree with tact and grace. This is where we discuss, debate and exchange ideas. We’re here to encourage everyone to participate, but your participation shouldn’t discourage others from doing so.
3. If you’re writing a long post, use paragraphs to break up points and (warning!), to be safe, you might write it in a word document (and save as you go), and then paste it into Canvas—this will help you avoid the angst of losing a post you’ve spent considerable time composing.

Points will be based on the following criteria:

• Your reflection on the questions or the readings/lecture material. To receive full credit, you need to show you’ve not only been through the readings, but understood them and used them as evidence to support your views. I can’t emphasize this point enough. Some degree of chatter about a topic is fine, but not at the expense of what you need to do in the discussion boards.
• Your grasp of the topic. You don’t necessarily need to show mastery of each reading or topic. After all, you’re here to learn. But you do need to show effort, and you do need to ask questions where you’re unclear to clarify your understanding and show me you’re putting effort into understanding the material. Again, if you try to do this without referring to the readings or lecture material, I won’t even know if you’ve read it. So ‘I don’t get it’ doesn’t work. You can expand and discuss what you do get, for starters.
• Your ability to communicate your ideas. I expect clear, organized writing. Sentences, parts of speech, spell-checked, and all that. If you’re citing something, do it correctly, give us a web page. ‘I agree’ is okay, as long as it’s followed by a well-reasoned explanation of why you agree with a previous post (again, citing evidence). No textspeak.
• Bringing in outside materials or research. I encourage this, but I also want you to have evaluated these materials. If it’s the first .com site you found on Google, I’ll let you know if I think it’s a suspect source.

Each forum is worth 25 points, 75 total. For each forum:

• 5 points possible for proofreading your writing in the forum (grammar, spelling, coherence …).
• 15 points possible for following the guidelines above, making thoughtful contributions to the class.
• 5 points are subjective–I’m looking for evidence of intellectual effort here. That doesn’t mean graduate-level writing, it means demonstrating that you have read the material, tried to understand and apply it, and supported your points with evidence.

Required source material for completing the discussion forums