Welcome to PSY 700, Critical Thinking, Spring 2009

Course description
PSY 700 is specifically designed for the new student in Media Psychology. Critical thinking and argumentation are essential to competent professional practice, particularly in commenting on the use, misuse and impact of digital technology and social media on individuals and society. Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding and application of critical thinking to well written, research supported professional arguments. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to evaluate claims, evidence, and conclusions and to develop coherent, well-articulated, convincing, formal arguments, particularly as they apply to the impacts of technology and social media.

Course overview
We all live in the tEcosystem, that secondary ecosystem that people have created that consists of digital technology, connectivity and the communication they facilitate. In many ways we have fused with the tEcosystm and are as dependent upon it as we are on the air we breathe. To be conscious digital citizens and critical thinkers we need to understand the implicit and explicit biases in the technology we adopt and information we consume, in much the same way that we need to understand the characteristics and quality of the air we breathe.

This course provides a number of activities and exercises designed to challenge and expand your perceptions of media, and at the same time help you develop perceptual tools to help you see more clearly and evaluate more effectively the technology and media that populate your digital landscape.

Materials
Nearly all of the materials needed for this class are found on the Internet. So, there are no books or media that you have to buy.

Books. However, I recommend, but do not require, that you read the following:

• Here Comes Everyone: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky
• Taming the Beast: Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungle, by Jason Ohler
• Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics, by Morley Winograd and Michael Hais

DVDs. You will be watching the following Front Line documentaries in this course. I have provided links for you to watch them on the web for free. However, I recommend that you purchase them, or at least rent them, as you will enjoy your viewing experience much more. I own them and watch them at least once/year:

• The Persuaders
  
• Merchants of Cool

If you are going to buy them, do so now so you can watch them for the assignment.

You will also be watching the documentary:

• This Film Is Not Yet Rated

I provide an online source for watching this, but you may still want to buy it or rent as it will be a much more enjoyable viewing experience on DVD than it will be streamed from the web.

Course schedule following NSO
You will finish this course on your own, and electronically with your colleagues, after NSO. There are three sources of information about your course work:

1. Week by week assignments. Detailed description of what is due on a week by week basis; this is available as a list in the right hand column of this blog
   
2. Weekly course topic matrix- a quick reference showing weekly topics and due dates
   
3. Course syllabus- The entire syllabus, including NSO and beyond NSO actitivies and assignments, as a Word file

Due each week. This course lasts ten weeks beyond NSO. Each week requires the following:

1. Input. Watching, reading and/or listening to material. Try to finish this by Wednesday.
   
2. Conversation. Joining an electronic forum (to be announced) and responding to a weekly question. The questions are included in your syllabus. Also, you will respond to two comments posted by your colleagues (for a total of at least three conference messages per week). Ideally, you would join in after you have completed your activities. Conversation concludes over the weekend.
   
3. Output. Updating your blog according to the criteria included with each activity. This needs to be completed by Sunday Evening.
   

Grading. Grades are straightforward:

• Forum Discussion: 0-3 for our forum discussion; if you posted three substantial messages, then you get a 3. It goes down from there.
• Blog posting: 0-3 If you have posted 2-3 paragraphs of substantial reflection and critical thinking, and you have used the VDT approach to posting, then you get 3 points. It goes down from there.
• Final project (2-3 page mission statement). Grading is also based on a 0-3 point scale.
  

Can you redo your forum postings to increase your points? No. The discussion comes and goes too quickly to make this possible.

Can you redo your blog posting to increase your points? Yes. I wish you would.

* "man thinking" image from Clipart.com, through a paid subscription)

NSO Activities

You begin this course at NSO, and then continue on afterword for ten weeks. You can download the entire syllabus, which includes what happens at NSO, through the syllabus link in the right column, or by clicking here: Psych 700 Syllabus.

The same information about NSO activities that appears in the syllabus also appears below.

Activities at NSO, Spring 2009
This is a list of the basic activities during our three-hour NSO. Explanations follow:

1. Intro to course, each other - 30 min.
2. Create a blogfolio - 30 min.
3. Perception exercises - 20 min.
4. Seeing technology’s Connections/Disconnections - 45 min.
5. Creating a research framework - 45 min.
6. Time left over? - What's your mantra
   

NSO Activity #1- Introduction to course, each other (30 minutes)

NSO Activity #2- Create a blogfolio; address visually differentiated text (VDT) (30 minutes)
All of your work will be posted on or through a blog you create using one of the many free, publically available blogging resources. Can you use FaceBook? Ning? Other non-blog options? Yes. The goal is to create a portfolio space for yourself that is embedded in the flow of the public internet. We will take some time in class for you to create your blog so you are up and running and can start posting immediately. And we will address presenting text on a blog using visually differentiated text (VDT) format.

NSO Activity #3- What do you think you see? (20 minutes)
I am not going to detail this activity in this document, for fear that I may spoil it. It will include looking at material from the web and reading something from Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You.

Note: it is afternoon and I am writing this after we used the materials this as a class, so this won't be ruined for you! I am including them on our class site in case you want to refer to them later:

• Passing the ball (Daniel J. Simmons). The theme of this exercise is "the bias of focus."

We also read the following:

• pages 18-20 from Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson. I strongly recommend you read the entire book. The theme of this exercise is "the bias of tradition."
  

Post on your blog, using the heading “Media perceptions.” What do you glean from this activity? How did it challenge how your look at the world around you? What are your “take-away” realizations as a result of this activity? As always, feel free to note any biases you suspect in the materials that were used. Also, be vigilant about using visually differentiated text in your presentation.

NSO Activity #4- Seeing technology’s connections and disconnections (45 minutes)
Technology connects and disconnects. The connections are often obvious, immediate and shiny, while the disconnections are often delayed and camouflaged. After all, it was difficult to foresee that the microwave oven would actually obsolesce the need for family dinner by enabling ever younger children to cook meals by themselves. Yet, that is exactly what it has done.

In this activity we will address a way to assess technology’s potential impacts, and then discuss a few technologies in terms their connective and disconnective properties.

Post on your blog, using the heading “Technology’s connections and disconnections.” What did you glean from this activity? How does it change how you view the technology in your life? What are your “take-away” realizations as a result of this activity? As always, feel free to note any biases you suspect in the materials that were used. Also, be vigilant about using visually differentiated text in your presentation.

NSO Activity #5- Creating a research framework (45 min.)
The success of your dissertation will rest heavily on your ability to form a clear research question and articulate the process needed to answer it. In order to do this you need to see clearly what you want to do and build a structure and path to get you from question to answer.

This activity addresses the steps of the research process and then requires you to create a research structure for studying an aspect of your energy consumption.

Post on your blog, using the heading “The research process.” What did you glean from this activity? How does it change how you view research? What are your “take-away” realizations as a result of this activity? As always, feel free to note any biases you suspect in the materials that were used. Also, be vigilant about using visually differentiated text in your presentation.

Time left?
NSO Activity #6- What's your mantra?
Guy Kawaski, a futurist and great keynote speaker, has this to say (in so may words) about mission statements. If you ask most people who work in an organization what the organization's mission statement is, they couldn't tell you. That's because it is too long, too complicated and too uninspirational. Companies need mantras - 12 words or less that boils down their essence so well that any employee would understand it and state it if asked.

Here's my mantra as an educational technologist:

• To use technology effectively, creatively, wisely...and funly.

It works fairly well for my life as a media psychologist as well, with slight changes:

• To use media and technology effectively, creatively, wisely...and funly.

What's your mantra as a media psychologist?

Beyond NSO - Weekly course topic matrix

Course and topic schedule, after NSO