Content and Global Objectives

What will the information society of the next millennium be like, and how will individuals and organizations behave? While it is clear that the future will be different from the past, at the present there is really no consensus as to how technological innovation in information and communications will affect the shape of our society in the next millennium:

"By the mid-twenty-first century, cars will be computers, buildings will be computers, entire cities will be computers, all wreaking profound changes on the form and functioning of our environment and the ways we will seek to understand and change it."

Michael Batty, Keynote Address

4th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Management, 1995

"The mental processes of composing memos and documents, of making medical and business decisions, of negotiating and persuading, of formulating plans, and communicating ideas will not soon be captured and imprisoned in a machine ... How to do this has proved more difficult than technologists expected."

Tom Landauer, The Trouble with Computers, 1995, p. 142

The pursuit of these concerns is the objective of the course. Focusing on the concepts of learning and design and their integration with technological innovations, the course will frame and seek resolution to questions such as: What will the physical and information spaces defining communities be like? Can we design them? What role can education play in their design? How should we view learning and its role in the design and evolution of both technological change and societal outcomes? The course will investigate themes such as: design in physical spaces (e.g., cities) and in informational spaces (software) and the relationship between them; (virtual) communities of practice. and it will explore fundamental concepts such as: evolution, design and sustainability, descriptive and prescriptive elements in design, and the role of breakdowns and symmetry of ignorance.

Approach and Expectations

The course will represent an opportunity to rethink learning and design through an approach that:

_ supports learning through design experiences,

_ helps learners build on their own interests, and

_ fosters the collaborative construction of knowledge

During the first month of the course , we will use the textbook by Herbert Simon "Sciences of the Artificial" to provide a foundation for the topics discussed later in the course. The rest of the course will focus on "megatopics" such as: design, learning, evolution, sustainability, open, evolvable systems, and the 'gift-wrapping' approach of technology. Two special session will be included: (1) a discussion forum by the students of the course, and (2) a roundtable discussion with a set of distinguished visitors.

The approach taken for the course will allow students to engage in authentic, self-directed learning activities, and embed learning and design activities in the context of real world activities. To account for the interdisciplinary nature of real world problems, students with different background knowledge, from a variety of disciplines and different educational backgrounds will be brought together to participate in cultivating the "emergent community". To this end, engagement in hands-on experiences will play a central role since it introduces reflection-in-action, and uses diverse background skills of class members in order to help each other learn. Different types of systems being researched at the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D) will be introduced to attain this hands-on experience such as:

• Intersim, other physical games and simulations and Simcity
• Browsing the Web and Search Engines
• Agentsheets, Visual Agent Talk (VAT) and Behavior Exchange
• Organizational Memories and Organizational Learning (e.g., Gimme and Webnet)
• User-extensible WWW structures (e.g., Webquest and Dynasite)

Through this approach participants can expect to leave this course with the following capabilities:

_ an understanding of how to research, work, learn, and collaborate in designing solutions to their concerns in shaping the future,

_ an awareness of learning on demand within communities of learners, and

_ an experience on how to "master" new, personally meaningful media and technologies.

Prerequisites and Requirements / Grading / and Other Policies

You do not have to be a computer expert to join. If you are interested in the role of technology in our society, and if you are a creative, critical and self-motivated graduate or undergraduate student who believes in interdisciplinary learning and is concerned with the shape and the shaping of our future society you should join us.

Grades will be based on:

1. a meaningful class participation,

2. the quality of the contributions made to the overall learning,

3. the quality of the process and outcomes of the semester project, and

4. the contributions to any other course activity which leads to the attainment of an enriched learning experience in the course's expectations, such as smaller assignments.

All assignments are due at the beginning of class on the deadline date. Late assignments will not be accepted. Members of the course should be aware of university and department rules governing student behavior as related to originality of work.

Project

In addition to the active participation in class and the small homework assignments, students are expected to work on a semester project. A handout about projects will be provided and discussed in an upcoming class meeting.