Course Numbers:
1. CS 4830 sec. 005 call# 84114 Computer Science Undergraduates
2. CS 7000 sec. 005 call# 84113 Computer Science Graduates
3. ENVD 4352 sec. 801 call# 84224 Boulder Campus Undergraduates
4. URP 6686 sec. 001 call # 74194 Denver Campus Graduates
Times: Tuesday, 4:00 - 6:30 PM
Locations:
Lectures: Experimental Smart Classroom (Stadium Classroom 350)
Experimental work: L3D Laboratory, CS 122, Engineering Center and SIMLab, ENVD 215, Environmental Design Building
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 the framing of problems through an approach that:
The approach 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:
Through this approach participants can expect to leave this course with the following capabilities:
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:
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.
Projects
In addition to the active participation in the sessions, students are expected to work on two types of projects: (1) a semester project and (2) a set of two or three short projects. These projects will frame the topics of the course by using the world-wide-web. A handout will be provided and disscussed during the second session (September 3rd).
Notes
August 27 | |
---|---|
Topic: | Introduction / Designing the Complex System |
Presentation: | Abuja - A Case Study |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings: | E.G. Arias, Designing in a Design Community: Insights and Challenges, in Proceedings of DIS?95, Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems (Ann Arbor, MI), New York, pp. 259-263. G. Fischer: "Making Learning a Part of Life" |
Other Activities: | |
Class business | Introductions Course Overview and Objectives Questionnaire about the student?s background |
Hands-on | Exploring Simcity, Scurk, GMSimulator, Simtower |
Website | http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/courses/InfoSoc-96/ |
September 3 | |
---|---|
Topic: | Visions of the Future |
Guest Presentations: | Gimme - Capturing group communication (S Lindstaedt) EWIS - extensible structures (J Ostwald) |
Videotapes: | Knowledge Navigators, Starfire |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" G. Fischer et al, "From Domain Modeling to Collaborative Domain Construction" |
Other Activities: | |
Class business | Student Project introduction |
Hands-on | Being a Surfer on the Web (Corrina) |
Field visit | Child?s Play Workshop at L3D |
Website | http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/childs-play.html |
September 10 | |
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Topic | Learning Webs and Communities of Practice |
Guest Presentations | Webquest (C Perrone) Microagensheets - Java and the WWW (J Ambach) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings |
Illich?s article on Learning Webs; Manuel Castells, "The reconstruction of social meaning in the space of flows" |
Other Activities | |
Hands-on | Making your own waves on the Web ---> creating home pages, use of Pagespinner (Corrina) |
Class business | Discuss Student Project Write |
Website | http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~corrina/mud/" |
September 17 | |
---|---|
Topic | Distributed Cognition and Joint Human-Computer Systems |
Presentation | |
Videotape: | Computers in Context |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | section in D.A. Norman, Things That Make Us Smart, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA |
Other Activities: | |
Class business | Student Project Write-up due |
Hands-on | to be announced |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Field visit |
September 24 | |
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Topic | Distributed Constructionism |
Presentation | Design as Communication - A New Look at Educational
Media and Teacher/student roles (Repenning/Arias) or Agentsheets and Visual Agent Talk (A. Repenning) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | M. Resnick, Distributed Constructionism, International Conference on the Learning Sciences 1996, pp. 280-284. Repenning, A. and J. Ambach, "Tactile Programming: A Unified Manipulation Paradigm Supporting Program Comprehension, Composition and Sharing," Visual Languages 1996, Boulder, CO, 1996 |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Lemmigs, Fishtank and LegoSheets |
Website | http://www.designlab.ukans.edu/~ambler/legochallenge.html |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
October 1 | |
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Topic | Seeding, Evolutionary Growth and Reseeding |
Presentation | to be announced |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | G. Fischer et al., Seeding, Evolutionary Growth and Reseeding: Supporting Incremental Development of Design Environments, Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI?94, pp. 292-298 |
Activities: | |
Hands-on | Redesigning the Web - from an Information Dissemination Medium to a Collaboration Medium |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
October 8 | |
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Topic | The Reasoning Behind Design |
Presentation | The Lunar Habitat Information System (R. McCall) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | H.A. Simon, "Sciences of the Artificial" chapter six: "Designing the Evolving Artifact" |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Activities to be announced |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
October 15 | |
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Topic | Beyond the Gift Wrapping Approach of Technology |
Presentation | Sketching- Solving the Problem is the Problem (M. Gross) or The Communications Initiative - communication as design and design as communication at CU (M. Dubin et al) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Linking the physical to the virtual |
Student Project | Progress reports by teams and discussions - I |
Website | http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/presentations/gf-wlf/ |
Field visit |
October 22 | |
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Topic | Learning on Demand and Critiquing |
Presentation | What learning should be - A conversation with Nora
Sabelli of the National Science Foundation and Designing Systems to Support LOD (M. Eisenberg /G. Fischer) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | G. Fischer, Supporting Learning on Demand with Design Environments, International Conference on the Learning Sciences 1991, pp. 165-172. G. Fischer et al., The Role of Critiquing in Cooperative Problem Solving, in ACM Transactions on Information Systems, pp. 123-151 |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Hypergami |
Website | http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/hypergami/ |
Student Project | Progress reports by teams and discussions - II |
Field visit |
October 29 | |
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Topic | Domain-Oriented Design Environments |
Presentation | Designing Useful and Usable Systems (The UU Group) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | G. Fischer, Domain-Oriented Design Environments, in Automated Software Engineering, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, pp. 177-203 |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | to be announced |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
November 5 | |
---|---|
Topic | Creating Shared Understanding |
Presentation | Playing to support collaborative design: the role of participatory tools (E.G. Arias / H. Eden) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | E. Arias, "Bottom-Up Neighborhood Revitalization: A common language for participatory decision support" Wilson, "Planning Games" Snow "The Two Cultures", HCI Journal: "Context in Design", and GEE, "The Process of Choice" -- select one of four sections |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Designing and playing games (SIMLab) |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
November 12 | |
---|---|
Topic | Organizational Learning and Organizational Memories |
Presentation | Can Organizations Learn? Conversations with NYNEX |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | Senge "The Fifth Discipline" Steven Whitehead: "Auto-FAQ: an experiment in cyberspace leveraging" |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | to be announced |
Website | http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ostwald/symposium (Website of L3D May-96 Workshop) |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
November 19 | |
---|---|
Topic | Agents |
Presentation | to be announced |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | Christoph Thomas, Gerhard Fischer:"Using Agents to Personalize the Web" Social Filtering ? People Helping One Another Know Stuff (People Helping One Another Know Stuff (PHOAKS) |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | |
Website | http://www.atg.apple.com/personal/Tom_Erickson/Agents.html http://weblab.research.att.com/phoaks/ |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
November 26 | |
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Topic | The Next Generation of Things that Make Us Smart |
Presentation | to be announced |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | Don Norman, ?Things That Makes Us Smart? |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | to be announced |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
December 3 | |
---|---|
Topic | Sustainability and Evolution |
Presentation | The Boulder county Healthy Communities Initiative (C. Schmidt et al) and The Ecological Footprint (Wm. Rees) |
Roundtable | discussions on presentations / readings |
Readings | Robert Fishman, "Beyond Suburbia: the rise of technoburb" Constantin Doxiadis, "Ecumenopolis, world city of tomorrow" Christopher Alexander, "A city is not a tree" |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | Playing sustainability games --- The Eco Footprint, Tax the Farmer, and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Simearth |
Website | |
Student case study | |
Student Project | |
Field visit |
December 10 | |
---|---|
Topic | The Future has to be Designed and Invented |
Presentation | The Revenge of the Nerds (Video) |
Roundtable | The course and its future |
Readings | Postman "Technolopy" Drucker: "The Age of Social Transformation" E.M. Noam, Electronics and the Dim Future of the University, Science, Vol. 270, No. pp. 247-249 |
Other Activities: | |
Hands-on | |
Website | find and explore web sites relevant to this theme |
Student case study | |
Student Project | Date, place and time for final presentations to be announced |
On Learning
On Design and Planning
On Technology
On Information Spaces (evolved by communities of practices and interest)
On Sustainability
On Evolution
On Organization