About the Class

Created Tuesday 04 January 2022

The class is designed to serve as an introduction to important technical ideas and concepts in IT through the lenses of the past, present and future. It is not only designed to teach you technical specifics, but to provide you with a mental toolbox to be able to understand underlying causes and shapes of IT in general.

Ideally, in-class discussions are the "center" of the course. Most weeks — after my lecture, students will be expected to engage in thoughtful discussion about the week's topic. Most weeks, a small number of students will be "on-call," meaning that they will lead the discussion. Students not on call will be expected to write a short response assignment after the discussion. These will all be "pass-fail" in order to stimulate discussion.

Individual assignments will focus first on general topics, leaning into more technical assignments. As both the primary operating system of the "cloud" as well as presently the only way to have true freedom in computing, the Linux Operating System and related tools will be a big topic for us.

Finally, there will be a culminating group project designed to bring together both the theoretical and the technical. Student groups will be expected to work on and document a solution to an IT opportunity or problem; given the abundance and advancement of development tools, especially so-called "AI," the precise parameters of this assignment may change.

Basics

About Me
How we communicate

In Class
Email
Collaborate if needed
Discord?

What we do DURING CLASS TIME

In-class time will consist of LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, and "LABWORK"

LECTURES

Because they're FASCINATING, duh.
And also to prep you for Quizzes and Discussion Work

DISCUSSIONS

Okay, fine, these are more fascinating. Led by you!

LABWORK

In Class Time dedicated to supporting Individual and Group Work.

Assignments

Discussion work

Discussions are usually student-led by an "on-call" student. Thus, each week you will either

Complete a short response to the weeks topic (approx 500 words or more)
Have been "on-call" and therefore exempt from the above.

Each student will be on call at least once; students who prefer "on-call" to writing may have the opportunity to lead multiple times.

Take Home Assignments

Intro assignment (In class, per team)
Individual Tech assignments (Two or more, per individual)

NOTE: For this, you will eventually need access to a Linux computer or system, possibly virtual, that you have "root" on. If you don't get this, don't worry, all will be explained in detail.

Quizzes

Two of these, multiple choice. They will be "take-home" and "open-material" to be completed over a weekend. These are the only assignments that explicitly should not be done in a group. You are on your honor to consult no other live human beings, and the "curve" will incentivize you not to consult with fellow students.

Final Project

Optionally with a self-selected team, you will work on and document a self-hosted, internet enabled, idea or service of some kind. Note: While some of the following may be helpful, this is not primarily marketing, justification, or theorizing. The actual tech work is the important part and the deliverable is there to show me that you did the work.

Final Project Presentations

These are literally and completely optional. I mean completely. I mean not only will they not HURT your grade, they cannot HELP your grade either. You're literally getting up because you have something cool to share and for no other reason.

CONTENT: strongly subject to change

UNIT I - How we got here

Hardware
History of Computing
The Modern era
How Software Works
Algorithms and Milkshakes**
AI

UNIT II - Where are we going?

Freely Available Information***
Anonymity
Social Surplus
Social Media
Privacy

*and that website that can literally just write papers for you
**and imaginary internet money and overpriced cartoon monkeys
*** no seriously, why not just right click and save the overpriced cartoon monkeys?

Backlinks: FSU Courses:LIS3353