Week Six: Choosing a Topic; Writing the Proposal

Class
Today we will explore the topics you have chosen for your paper and for the Wikipedia assignment so that by the end of class everyone is ready for the next phase, to write a Research Essay Proposal and to complete one part of the Wikipedia assignment.

1. Research Essay Proposal
Definition: A document written by a scientist or scholar describing the ideas and steps for an investigation on a certain topic. It may be used to request financing for a project or as a required step before beginning a college dissertation.

• Instructions for our Proposal             
• Sample Proposal (with comments)

Individuals who qualify to write a proposal as of now: Shenise, David H., Valerie, Amanda, Soletia, Xiaoran, Juan, Jessica O., Harold

Don't have a topic yet? Check Dr. X's suggested topics:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Lh0qy-KJfcy7TPLLyy7ltiuenj20jAy-u9FOw6tKHc/edit?usp=sharing

2. Wikipedia Assignment
You must complete one of these three tasks on WP: create an article, add to an article (this includes adding citations using Citation Hunt), translate 1-3 articles (depending on the length of the originals).

Please join the WP class here:  https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/LaGuardia_Community_College/ENG103_The_Research_Paper_Digital_Literacy_(Spring_2017)?enroll=uyngidef

3. Library Workshop: Finding Appropriate Secondary Sources


4. Individual Work
Decide on a topic and begin writing the proposal. Find two readers to read your proposal this weekend. Those of you translating articles, please take the 10 min. Translation Training:  https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students/translating-articles

Assignments due

1. Research Essay Proposal: The first draft of the proposal is due on Saturday. April 29 by 9:00AM. Then you need to find TWO readers to comment on your proposal by Monday, May 1. Then you need to submit a revised proposal by Friday, May 5 by 9:00AM for my perusal.

2. Wikipedia Assignment: Depending on your choice, you must have some beginning text in your Sandbox or have created at least 3 reliable citations using Citation Hunt by the beginning of class Monday, May 1. 

Note: Those of you translating articles, please take the 10 min. Translation Training: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students/translating-articles 

Week Five: Free Culture, Commons-based Peer Production

Class 

PART I

1. Screening the documentary Killswitch: https://archive.org/details/Killswitch_201701.
    For details about the film, see THIS HANDOUT.

2. a) Discuss: Documentary, Open content/Open access, Free culture movement, Commons-based peer production, .

 Examples of Open Access Projects 

Project Gutenberg: a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats. 

The Internet Archive: a nonprofit digital library that  provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and nearly three million public-domain books.  Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures

     b) Watch: Creative Commons, "Get Creative": https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/getcreative/

Examples of Commons-based Peer Production: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons-based_peer_production#Examples

PART II

3. Join: Our Wikipedia class  https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/LaGuardia_Community_College/ENG103_The_Research_Paper_Digital_Literacy_(Spring_2017)

4.  Complete: Two Wikipedia training modules "Wikipedia Essentials" and "Editing Basics": https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students

For Wednesday, April 19 at 9:00AM

1. Complete all Journal Entries in your GoogleDrive document. Remember we are writing these in reverse order. 
2. Decide on up to 3 tentative topics for your Research Essay (approximately 12 pages) and post them to your GoogleDrive document.
3. Decide on up to 3 tentative topics for your Wikipedia work and post them to your GoogleDrive document. 

Week Four: Surveillance, Algorithms, Data Mining, and Profiling

Class

 I. Introduction: The World of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four 

"If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality."
 --Emmanuel Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, "Chapter 1: Ignorance is Strength." 

II. Privacy and Surveillance

• Luke Harding. “Mass surveillance is fundamental threat to human rights, says European report.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/mass-surveillance-threat-human-rights-council-europe 
• Class: ACLU. “Surveillance under the Patriot Act.” https://www.aclu.org/infographic/surveillance-under-patriot-act 
• Walter Kirn. “Little Brother Is Watching.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17FOB-WWLN-t.html 
• Honan, Mat. “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” Wired Magazine. November 15, 2012. https://www.wired.com/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/

III. Algorithms, Data Mining, and Profiling

• Tactical Technology Collective. “Living with Algorithms; Why should you care about algorithms?”https://vimeo.com/195498978 
• Tactical Technology Collective. “Serious profiling. Have you been profiled yet?” https://vimeo.com/195500780 
• Tactical Technology Collective. “Data Anonymization.” https://vimeo.com/195500135 
• Carole Cadwalladr. “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook   

A taste of what's to come: Killswitch (documentary trailer): https://vimeo.com/104911615

For next class

1. a) Get a Wikipedia account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
    b) Submit your information to THIS FORM.

2. Watch: “Jimmy Wales: The Birth of Wikipedia.” http://www.ted.com/talks/jimmy_wales_on_the_birth_of_wikipedia

3. Read the three texts, but do different work for each:

• Read and do 6Ws: Aaron Swartz. “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto.” https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt 
• Just read: William Cronon. “Scholarly Authority in a Wikified World.” February 2012 https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2012/scholarly-authority-in-a-wikified-world
• Read and answer the questions: “Theories: Wikipedia and the production of knowledge.” https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Theories_Wikipedia_and_the_production_of_knowledge.pdf 

Week Three: Reliability and Misinformation

Class

1. The problem: What's legitimate information? What is dubious information? How can we tell the difference? Why does being able to tell the difference matter?

Evaluate and report:

A. Here is a sample of the homepage for Slate.com. Identify which of the numbered items is a news story, and which is an advertisement. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Egjt-4g-yZaUgza0pnTEM0TGs/view?usp=sharing

B. Does this post provide strong evidence about the conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant? Explain your reasoning.  http://imgur.com/gallery/BZWWx

What about the original posting? https://twitter.com/san_kaido/status/603513371934130176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

C. Why this tweet might and might not be a useful source of information?https://twitter.com/moveon/status/666772893846675456?lang=en

More on the Fukushima Mutant Flowers

• As  reported by The Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3171748/Land-mutant-daisies-Radiation-causes-flowers-grow-strangely-near-site-nuclear-plant-suffered-meltdown-tragic-tsunami.html
• As reported by Weather.com: https://weather.com/science/nature/news/mutant-flowers-japan-fukushima-famous
• As reported by National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150723-fukushima-mutated-daisies-flowers-radiation-science/
• As fact-checked by Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/nuclear-mutant-daisies/

Discuss (in pairs) and report:

A. What is and is not "fake news"?

• Satirical news from a site like The Onion (“Dolphin Spends Amazing Vacation Swimming With Stockbroker”) 
• The daily clickbait in our social media feeds (such as the one written by the "new yellow journalists" Paris Wade and Ben Goldman).
• Outright invented news, like pieces that claimed, just before the election, that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald J. Trump, or that Donald Trump had once said that “Republicans are the dumbest group of voters.”
• Erroneous interpretation of a fact that is distributed without fact-checking (as with the  Fukushima Mutant Flowers). 
• "Native advertising": Advertisement passing as news (as in Slate.com).  
• News that shows a highly partisan bias. 

 B. Are some of these forms of unreliable news more dangerous than others? Which? Why?

C. What happens when mainstream media is labeled “fake news” by those who see certain stories as hostile to their interests?

2. How do the internet and web help and hinder fake news? 

Reflect, write a journal entry, and report: In a recent letter to the world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee reminded us that he imagined the world wide as "an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries." In what ways do the specific characteristics of the internet and the world wide web, especially in its 2.0, 3.0, and mobile versions contribute to the boom of fake news? Use the readings from the first class (Postman) and second class (Rosenzweig and the rest) as well as Eli Pariser's TED Talk “Beware online ‘filter bubbles’” to support your views.

3. Possible solutions

A. Discuss (in pairs) and report: The different handouts on dealing with fake news we gave you last class (pages 49-53 of your reading packet and C.R.A.A.P handout). What surprised you? What did not?

B. Write, then "Give One, Get One": Of all the advice given by these handouts, what makes most sense to you? Divide a sheet of paper into two vertical columns. Label the left side “Give One” and the right side “Get One.” Write down your ideas on the left-hand column on your paper in list form. Walk around and find a partner to share items from your list. For example, Partner A shares his/her responses until Partner B hears something that is not already on his/her list. Partner B writes the new response in the right column on the paper, along with Partner A’s name. Once Partner B has “gotten” one, your roles switch. Repeat this process with other peers until time runs out.

Other ways to fact check information

Fact-checking sites:

• http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/  
• http://www.snopes.com/
• http://www.politifact.com/
• To check the authenticity of images, reverse-Google them to find their origins: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808?hl=en

Browser plug-ins:

• BS Detector (Chrome, Firefox, Safari): http://bsdetector.tech 
• Fake News Alert (Chrome): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fake-news-alert/aickfmgnhocegpdbfnpfnedpeionfkbh  
• This is Fake (Chrome, for Facebook feed): https://www.thisisfake.org/

For next class

George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Chapter 1. (in reading packet)

Choose one reading and answer the 6Ws for it:

• Luke Harding. “Mass surveillance is fundamental threat to human rights, says European report.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/mass-surveillance-threat-human-rights-council-europe 
• Walter Kirn. “Little Brother Is Watching.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17FOB-WWLN-t.html 
• Carole Cadwalladr. “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook   

Week Two: The Internet and The World-Wide Web

Class

1. The Internet

a. Report (in groups on the whiteboard): The 6Ws for the four books reviewed by Roy Rosenzweig in “Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors and Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet.” (And for Rosenzweig himself).

b. Watch: Andrew Blum. “Discover the physical side of the Internet.” (TED Talk) https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_blum_what_is_the_internet_really

2. The World-Wide-Web

a. Watch: Stuff of Genius: The World Wide Web

b. Define (in groups): What is the web? How does it work? What is

• a browser
• a search engine
• a server
• a protocol
• a path
• an IP address
• the cloud
• hyperlink(ing)
• net neutrality

c. Comprehend: The Development of the Web

• Web 1.0: Static, hyperlinked pages such as Internet Shakespeare Editions
• Web 2.0: Interactive pages, such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Amazon.com
• In the works: Web 3.0: Categorized web that "learns" about itself and its users (see Semantic Web in the next discussion). 

Watch: Michael Wesch. “Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

d. Explain (in groups): The Types of Web:

• The Surface Web
• The Deep Web/ Invisible Web/ Hidden Web
• The Dark Web
• The Semantic Web
• The Internet of Things

For next class

1. Read/Watch:

• Damon Brown. “How to choose your news.” (Ted Ed video). http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-choose-your-news-damon-brown
• Harvard Library Research Guides takeaway on fake news
• The CRAAP Test (handout)
• “Does the site measure up?” Cornell University Digital Literacy Resource. http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/privacy/dpl5200.html
• Pew Research Center. “Trust Levels of News Sources by Ideological Group.” http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/pj_14-10-21_mediapolarization-01/
• Eli Pariser. “Beware online ‘filter bubbles.’” (Ted Talk)  https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles
• Terrence McCoy. “For the ‘new yellow journalists,’ opportunity comes in clicks and bucks.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-the-new-yellow-journalists-opportunity-comes-in-clicks-and-bucks/2016/11/20/d58d036c-adbf-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.331cfd8747bb 

2. Complete Journal #2. Instructions HERE.

Week One: Welcome to ENG103!

Class

1. Read/Discuss: Syllabus / Class purpose / Schedule and Research Topics / Packets 
2. Join: Google Drive/Google Groups
3. Read/Watch/Discuss/Write using the 6Ws (HANDOUT):

• Neil Postman. “Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change.” 
• Sherry Turkle. “Connected but alone?” (TED Talk). https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together 
• Michael Wesch. “Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g  

For next class

Everyone read/watch:

1. Roy Rosenzweig. “Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors and Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet.” 
• For this reading ou will also have to write a journal entry on one section of the article. See instructions in this HANDOUT.
2. "World Wide Web in Plain English." https://youtu.be/0U6Hb3bf_jg 
3. “Net Neutrality”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U 

Also, read the specific text assigned to you to report on it for next class:

1. “How the Web Works-In One Easy Lesson.” http://mkcohen.com/how-the-web-works-in-one-easy-lesson : David A, Edyson C, Nicole C, Shenise C, Jonathan C, 
2. The Deep and Dark Webs: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-deep-dark-web-and-how-do-you-access-it:  Brian G, David H, Valerie H, Brianna C, Amanda J, Eric P, Segundo P, Tatiana V,
3. Jonathan Strickland. “How Web 3.0 Will Work.”: Soletia L, Xiaoran L, Jessica M, Paulette M, Frank G,
4. Tracy V. Wilson. “How Semantic Web Works.”: Lely N, Jessica O, MD U, Shaan V,  Ann Velasquez
5. Bernadette Johnson. “How the Internet of Things Works.”:  Juan N, Harold P, Melanie Q, Joseph T,  Mercedes M,