module for week 14 (thanksgiving break week)

module for week 13 (week of 11.15)

module for week 12 (week of 11.8)

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New Instructions: Unit 3 (weeks 10-12)

Course Module for this week, Week 11

Course Module for Week10

Instructions for Visual Essay Download Instructions for Visual Essay

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Producing a "Finished" Draft of Your WEC Item Discussion

While this is a "final" draft, this means it is the stopping point for our purposes -- your post will still be a work-in-progress. (It is one that you can pick up on and use for your final project for this course if you like, or that future students can study as they build on the ideas you have presented).

There are five basic components:

1. A picture of the items you are discussing. If the picture you took with your phone works okay, you can upload that. If you need a better copy, let me know and I will make one for you or you can give it another try in-class on 10.18.

2. Your discussion: part 1. In writing up your thoughts, you will be introducing the idea of the Whole Earth Catalogs to someone who doesn't know anything about them. What you will be offering is your perspectives on how the WECs may reflect the attitudes of the people who would have purchased and read them. Your discussion will be speculative, but it will be based on what you've learned about the historical context for the WECs from the reading, your own responses to looking through the catalogs, and your ideas about the item(s) you selected to examine.

You have your preliminary thoughts to work from, and the worksheets. You also have the posts from previous students to consider, and the drafts that your colleagues in our class are making.

3. Your discussion: part 2. In discussing your item(s) you are welcome to use the web to find further information about your area of discussion -- both as an artifact from the past and how it may have survived into today or not. Here you will provide links to where others can also view this information.

4. Your discussion: part 3. Historians who are trying to understand the introduction of the personal computer and what this new technology meant to the people who were interested in it see the early culture of the invention of the personal computer as closely related to the environment in which the WECs were born and thrived.  This part of your discussion should contain your speculation and comments about how this theory can be supported by what you've researched. You should also be sure to point out ways in which you think there are aspects of the WEC world that do not get reflected in the early personal computer culture -- these can be ideas, values, concerns, hopes, plans, expectations, etc. that occur to you based on your impressions.

5. Create a dividing line on your page for this last section: For this last portion you will excerpt portions of the reading that you think are helpful in understanding the context for your discussion above. You should have somewhere from 3-6 excerpts.

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Supplemental material:

Some historical artifacts from the personal computer period that might help you think about the comparisons:

> A collection of early advertisements: as a slideset Download slideset

>An online exhibit about the introduction of the early personal computers

Links to an external site.

Early television ads for the mac Links to an external site.

Link to more recent mac vs. pc ads Links to an external site.

and just for fun:

The medieval helpdesk Links to an external site.

Links to an external site.

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Start of Week 8

In the link to the Week 8 module, you'll find the summary of the instructions for where you should be at with your posting for Monday October 17th, and links to the files to the reading that can be downloaded.

Let me know if you are having any problems accessing anything or posting at the wiki.

Our final module for this unit is Week 9.

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Start of Week 6

1. Thanks so much for finishing up your first essays! I will have them graded by our next class session.

2. There was no tackk post assigned for this week, since you were working on your essays. There was an online reading/viewing portion as usual though, with the links listed in the week 5 module. The assignment was to explore some of the kinds of science that children would encounter in the 19th century everyday world (a counterpart to our look at optical toys in class last week), and included information on fossil discoveries in the 19th century and astronomical discoveries.

3. There is a question sheet to go with the week 5 online assignment. Download There is a question sheet to go with the week 5 online assignment.

5. I haven't forgotten the posts on where science news intersects with your daily lives. I'm going to do a separate slideset on these, and I'll post it here when it is complete. We'll discuss it on October 4th.

6. Info on the Week 6 online assignment that will be due by Monday, 10.3 at 10:00 p.m.

7. Now that you are finished with The Victorian Internet, there are two sets of readings we are focused on. The first topic area is about how ideas and news about science circulate in everyday life.

The second topic area is what we might call "Hippies, Hackers, and the Technologies of the Personal Computer Revolution circa 1980." We will be working on both these areas in the coming weeks, in-class together and in the online portion of the course.

8. In terms of staying on task with the assigned reading from 9.13 to 10.4, if you can have the assigned essays from the Blum book and Chapter 1 Download Chapter 1

9. As noted in the module information, there are two clusters from Blum, Best American Science and Nature Writing. (Remember: you will not be reading the entire book, so paying attention to the specific chapters listed in the modules will remind you which ones are on the schedule. I will also be posting these reminders on the homepage.)

The overarching theme for the first cluster is "Living creatures/organisms and how information is processed":

• Carr, "The Great Forgetting"
• Dobbs, "The Social Life of Genes"
• Jabr, "Why the Brain Prefers Paper"
• King, "When Animals Mourn"
• Koerth-Baker, "Danger! This Mission to Mars Could Bore You to Death!"

The overarching theme for the second cluster from the Blum book is "Pressing up against the ecosystem limits for Homo sapiens and other species":

• Bagley, "Mixed Up"
• Harman, "A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA"
• Johnson, "O-Rings"
• Kolbert, "The Lost World"
• Nobel, "Ants Go Marching"

10. There is a handout that contains suggested questions to think about when reading the essays in the Blum book Download There is a handout that contains suggested questions to think about when reading the essays in the Blum book

11. And here again are the links to Chapter 1 Download Chapter 1

(You will need this information for our next unit, where we will be doing a research project together on sources regarding technologies and the early digital era circa 1980.)

12. Okay, that's everything I think (!), laid out as closely to step-by-step as I can. If there are parts that aren't clear (or you've found an error) be sure to let me know: kpandora@ou.edu

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Start of Week 5:

1. Your tackk post for this week is on the notes you took about how you came across news about science this week (if you did). The specific instructions are in the module for week 4.

Your tags should be: 

hsci2133_fall_16
profpandora@ou
sciencenews

2. Reading questions for the articles in the Blum, Download Reading questions for the articles in the Blum,

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Start of Week 4:

1. You'll have finished up your first round of commenting (for instructions see below in Week 3) on your colleagues' tackk posts.

2. You'll have read The Victorian Internet in prep for the essay questions Download essay questions

3. The slideset for week 2 and 3 recaps some key points and introduces some new ones. [in the modules link]

4. The 3 weeks of the Unit 2 module are available at the link to the left.

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Week 3, Thursday check-in: I am finally back on track!

(I am finally back on track -- thank you for bearing with me given my migraine problems last week. Slidesets will be posted this evening.)

1. Here's the link to module 3. (I'll post it in the Thursday reminder, but you can always access it from the link to the module category on the left.) Your main task is to finish reading The Victorian Internet. Take some notes as you read along about events you find interesting, aspects of the history you'd like to know more about, questions about what the author is saying or about what is happening, and so forth. This will give you a good running start into drafting your essay.

If you have a copy, bring it to class next Tuesday. We'll discuss aspects of "telegraph culture" and I'll pass out your essay question.

2. We're finishing up the intro to blogging this week with the online lab assignment being adding some comments to the blog posts on Einstein and Franklin.

Note 1: This means that if you are missing a post, now's the time to catch up and get it done!

Note 2: Just fyi, you can always go back and edit your post -- to correct any errors you notice, polish up your expression a bit, and add commentary (if you do the latter, it's helpful if you also indicate that -- by writing "addition" or "update" or something like that, so that folks who have read it earlier aren't confused that they missed something). 

3. As of right now, there are seven blogging participants -- what I'd like you to do is to leave a total of seven comments, one for each of your class colleagues. You can choose to comment on either the Einstein post or the Franklin post (you're welcome to do both, but that's not required!)

For ease of access, here are the tackk "handles" you should subscribe to, so they show up in your feed when you login to your tackk account. (I've included mine in the list here as well. You can always comment on posts I make as well, but that's not required!) You can check your "following" list to make sure you have them all.

• @donnyl Links to an external site.
• @bnna97 Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.@LovellySunny Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.@CDPeralta Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.@Jessica2020 Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.@MOChaser96 Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.@trevmorris12 Links to an external site.
• @profkatherinepandora Links to an external site.

4. Here are some guidelines for making comments. As we get further into the semester I'll also ask you to nominate any comments you received on your posts as being particularly thoughtful and good -- which will help us refine further how to master the art of commenting :-)

In some ways, writing good comments is harder than writing a blog post itself. It’s akin to going to a party or a reception where you don’t know many people, or don’t know them well, and joining in on conversations already underway or taking the initiative to approach someone and strike up a conversation – something that often doesn’t come easy except maybe to those who are happy extroverts or who already have lots of experience navigating these kinds of social exchanges.

So it’s not a mystery why comments like “I thought this was interesting” or “I agree with you” are more common than not. What we’re aiming for here, though is something more substantial – it will be much more meaningful for the author as feedback, and it will also add value to the post itself for others who read it. So a first rule of thumb is to try and explain why you thought a point was interesting or made sense to you. This is how we can help extend the conversation, and that’s where some of our most interesting ideas this semester will emerge – when we go beyond the first steps of responding (in writing the post).

In thinking about the “why”, one tack to take is to ask yourself what the tone of your response was – did something in the post make you laugh? Make your forehead frown? Make you go hmmmm? Or feel curiosity – about the point or how the idea came about? Or feel familiar – reminding you of maybe a film you saw, or something someone said that was similar, but about a different topic? Maybe a feeling of slight surprise, because it was a new idea you hadn’t come across before?

You can also add your own “take” or “viewpoint” – you don’t have to only agree (or agree with everything). It could be that what they discuss reminds you of an example that is related to their point, or may suggest a new direction or dimension to the points they make that they hadn’t raised. But you can! You can draw on your own experiences, or something we may have touched on in class (or from your other classes), and also reference your own blog posts and those of others.

You can also ask questions – either to clarify something that you may not quite understand that was in the original post (and if you didn’t understand it, it is likely that there are others who are in a similar position), or that may take the topic in a related but different direction. It could be a question that you think you have an answer for that you can share, but it can also be a question that you don’t have the answer to, but still think is interesting to think about – so please, go ahead and make it part of your comment!

You can also respond to other comments – that is part of the conversation that the blog post sparked, so they are important to read and think about as well.

An especially valuable form of comment is when the commenter shares a link to something else on the web or can be found elsewhere (an article, an image, other comments, etc.) that is relevant.

And, special note: You, as the original blog author, can also respond to comments! Just like someone who makes a post values getting feedback from real, live people, those who leave comments also like to know that what they say has been heard.

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[Note: info on #8 has changed.]

Every week I'll post an announcement (on Sunday or Monday) that sums up where you should be at prior to our upcoming Tuesday meeting and any other deadlines for the upcoming week. This is that announcement for our first week :-) 

1. Remember, the instructions for each week are contained in the module boxes; the link is at the left. You've finished up week 1/module 1! Congrats! To see what is on tap for week 2, click on the module category link, and then the module 2 box.

2. Your first task was to look at the first set of links I laid out below, for some initial short readings and other items to begin getting a feel for some of the course concepts and the weekly pacing of the class. If you haven't had a chance yet to go through them all, go ahead and catch up with that.

3. You'll also need to have access to a copy of The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, as the reading for that begins this week. The module tells you what pages to read this week as prep for our meeting in week 3 (Tuesday, Sept. 6th). Let me know if you are unsure about locating the book or have any other questions about the reading.

I've portioned out the reading and activities each week to try and keep the workload as equal as possible across the semester. You can always read ahead of the guidelines if that fits your schedule better at certain points during the semester.

4. You've set up your tackk.com account, and have spent a bit of time learning how to set up your posts.

5. You've located your Einstein image and posted it and your commentary to your first tackk. Remember that a "tackk" is just a word for the page that your post creates (each post creates its own separate page, unlike other blogging platforms where the posts stack up vertically on top of each other with each posting).

It looks like most of you are done, and your choices look really interesting! We'll use them to move our discussion forward on Tuesday about images and their social impact.

6. How will you have access to seeing everyone's tackk posts? Two ways. The first way is that I'll be gathering them together into tackkboards, by using the tags you've attached to the posts to put them into a collection. Here is our first tackkboard, using the #einstein_post tag.

https://tackk.com/board/einsteinpost Links to an external site.

If you don't see your tackk, it is probably because you either forgot to use the einstein_post tag, or the spacing tripped you up (it did for me!) In between words where there is a space you need to be sure to use the space sign, by pressing the Shift key + the "short line that appears at the bottom of a word" key, which is probably next to the +/= key near the top right of your keyboard.

To correct your tag, open up your post and click on the pencil (to unlock the post for editing). Then click on the little ribbon tip poking out of the top right hand side, which will slide out the workboard. Delete your first incorrectly set up tag, and type in the new way with the persnickety space thing taken care of. [This could also be a problem for the hsci2133_fall_16 tag, if you just pressed the space bar but didn't put in the actual sign for the space. If that's the case, go ahead and correct that as well.]

Once you put in a tag, the next time you create a post the software will generate suggestions for you -- although you will need to tag each post always with hsci2133_fall_16 and profpandora@ou you will not have to manually type them in each time -- just accept the suggestion to use those previous tags again. Each post will also have a special tag related to the content.

The profpandora@ou doesn't have the space problem, so yay for that!

7. The second way to see the class tackk posts is to subscribe to the streams for each class member. Click on the post to bring it up, and at the bottom left there will be a button for "follow." Click it and you're set. You should make sure to follow everyone, as this will be the easiest way to access the posts.

8. [NOTE: I slipped this by accident into the update note for this week -- it is actually for week 3, due Sept. 6th] I should never try to do two things at once. Thanks for your patience!

You've done (or will do!) a read-through of the white lab coat thinkpiece for our Tuesday class), and bring the printed out copy that has your half-dozen or so annotations (places you mark in some way to note a point you like (or not) or a question you have about what's being said or another idea that it gets you thinking about, etc.). In responding to the readings and the posts what we will be doing is a form of analysis called annotating (it is good prep for putting together your thoughts as a comment). So we'll give the annotation thing a practice run and also extend our discussion about cultural symbolism.

9. If convenient, it will be helpful to bring a device to class on Tuesday to access the web with (tablet, laptop, phone,e etc.) as we go through any questions about the online work and also see what you've done. I think the IT folks have got the monitor speaking with my chromebook, so in any case we should be able to have that visual display to consult.

10. If you've sent me a specific query via email, I'm off now to answer those!

See you tomorrow, and thanks for pulling all the different pieces together this week to get launched!

professor pandora

welcome to scipop 2016! 

Over the course of this semester we'll take a close look at lots of different ways in which science intersects with popular culture. We'll study how science & scientists have been portrayed through the media from the scientific revolution to our own time. We’ll consider how science fiction writers, science journalists, computer game designers, television producers, filmmakers -- and the crowds on youtube, tumblr, twitter, and buzzfeed -- announce, introduce, dissect, explain, question, reimagine, remix, and mash-up scientific ideas. 

We'll explore what our current obsessions with sharks and other sea creatures reveal about how ideas about nature and science are shaped by and circulate through our social worlds. We'll consider other cultural touchpoints along the way such as dinomania and kid's bedrooms, math phobia and middle school, whether or not we've made peace with Pluto being demoted as our solar system's ninth planet, and what the flying spaghetti monster has to do with evolutionary science.

We’ll compare the telegraph’s influence on ideas about science and the making of the modern world in the nineteenth century with ideas about the introduction of the personal computer in the late twentieth century – and we’ll work on an original research project together as a class that examines a set of unusual artifacts that resulted when 1960s hippie culture collided with silicon valley's engineering culture: the Whole Earth Catalogs  Links to an external site.from the 1980s.
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