Session 1

Technology Today

820:240

Environment, Technology, and Society

Exercise: Beginning to Think about Technology and Life

Goals

1. To think about technology in several different ways.
2. To think about how technology affects our lives.
3. To acquaint yourself with members of the class.
4. To learn what many of our sessions this semester will be like.

Tasks

1. Make a list of at least three different appliances, tools, or systems that use on a regular basis to do some job. This can include at most one computer program. Make sure that the systems on your list are as different from one another as possible. Then, rank them along two dimensions: ease of use and cost.

2. Organize yourselves into groups of three people. Make sure that your group contains two people you don't already know. Introduce everyone in the group. Make a master list of the appliances, tools, and systems on your individual lists.

3. Discuss the dimensions that you used in Step 1 to rank your systems. In what ways do ease of use and cost correlate positively with one another? In what what ways are they opposed?

4. As a group, identify two dimensions different from the ones from Step 1. Try to make them as different in perspective as possible. Rank the systems on your master list along each of the new dimensions.

5. Select a spokesperson. If your group is asked, the spokesperson will present informally the results of your group's work to the class.

At the End

1. Turn in a write-up showing your master list of tools, a summary of your discussion of the dimensions you used to rank the systems, and your group's rankings along each of the dimensions.

Summary from Exercise

What is a tool? Some of you listed cell phones, microwaves, Internet Explorer, computers, cars, refrigerators, ... I mentioned a really simple tool, the common wood pencil.

Tools are diverse in nature. This semester, we will consider systems that have been created for human use or consumption as broadly as we can. Because I am a computer science professor, we will sometimes favor computing-related technologies--but they are so common and affect all of our lives in so many ways that this should be of interest to us all.

Comparing systems across categories (e.g., household appliances versus computer systems versus technical devices versus buildings) can be like comparing apples to oranges. So, understanding tools and their interfaces may require a lot of task- and domain-specific knowledge.

One can view software systems in many different dimensions: ease of use, age, reliability, aesthetic value, complexity, robustness, learning curve, time to complete a (typical) task, portability, cost, maintenance, user support, hardware requirements, availability.

A couple of great points from class today:

• "Cost" is not specific enough as a criterion/ Do we mean cost to buy, cost to operate, cost, to maintain, or what? We could compute an expected total cost that includes the cost to buy and the present value of the cost to mainrtain and operate the system in the future. That may be our best cost criterion. (But how often do we all forget one or more of the elements of this calculation when we are considering a purchase??)

• "Ease of use" is similarly unclear. Consider computer software. What counts as easy to use for *you* may be quite beyond *your mom*. Who the user is -- the demographics of the user population -- is quite important in assessing any tool's usability!

People do not always agree with one another when assessing the world.

A Quick Course Introduction

I am Eugene Wallingford, and I'll be your instructor for Capstone. Please call me "Eugene". This course will probably differ from any other course you have had, and it will certainly differ from other sections of capstone in several ways.

Some of the guiding ideas of this course will be:

• I will do little or no lecturing. I will sometimes introduce a topic; I will always try to answer any questions you have during an exercise; I will always participate in the discussion we have after you do an exercise; I will often summarize the results of an activity at the end of class; and I will comment on issues that you think are germane to the course. But I do not plan to lecture.

• We will do a diverse mix of exercises in class.

• We will integrate the various themes of the course -- indeed the many disciplines and modes of thought found at in a university -- throughout the semester. Knowledge and experience do not reside in easily-labeled compartments, no matter what your school experience tells you.

Today is representative of what our class sessions will be like this semester. Our primary goal is that you learn to think about the interrelationships among environment, technology, and society from different perspectives. A secondary goal is that you become more independent as learners.

• It turns out that this second goal is really part of achieving the first! Each individual is responsible for his or her own learning. You don't learn what the professor lectures; you learn what you do and what you integrate into your existing knowledge.

• As mentioned earlier, we will do a diverse mix of exercises in class. These exercises will require you to do something, often in conjunction with a group of classmates, and then reflect on the result and the process that led to it. We'll try to do different things. If there is something that you'd like to see us try, please let me know!

• This approach may seem uncomfortable at first. What is different is often threatening. When doing problems in the absence of a preceding lecture, you will occasionally feel lost. Be assured that lecture is usually a worse alternative. You can usually learn the same material as well by reading it and studying it. But then you are stuck doing homework problems at home, in isolation -- and you'll sometimes feel lost. It is sometimes more comfortable to be lost all alone, but it is rarely more productive than being lost together.

• This approach places different burdens on you and me than the more traditional set-up.

  • You must read -- really read -- assigned material. You must wrestle with it. You must come prepared to discuss what you do and don't understand about it. You must ask questions, of me and your classmates. You must participate actively in class exercises, in the spirit of trying to learn something and not in the spirit of "just getting it done".

  • I must read -- really read -- assigned material. I must wrestle with it, trying to tease out key points and processes. I must prepare insightful exercises that give you enough guidance to be educational but also enough flexibility to be useful to you, in your current state of knowledge, and everyone else, in theirs. I must be prepared to answer many questions of fact and opinion. I must be able to help you find answers to questions of fact when I do not know the answer. I must be able to help you find a way to experience issues for which their are no pat answers. I must serve as a consultant in class and pay attention to your work without trying to "give away" answers.

The course is different, but it should be interesting and more productive -- if you let it!

The course syllabus is on-line in this web space. Read it. Re-visit it occasionally if I announce changes. The course web page and the course e-mail discussion list will be our primary means of communication outside of class time.

I e-mailed you the URL for the course web page right after class.

Quick Comments from the Syllabus

Check out the grading criteria. You can read about all the parts of your grade on the course web. A couple of details:

• The papers will be short (2-4 pages) and either reaction pieces or analysis pieces, so they won't require library research.

• The presentations will be fifteen minutes long and will address one of the topics we consider in weeks 4-15 of the semester. Come prepared to commit to presentation topic next session.

• The project gives you the latitude to explore some topic of interest to you in greater detail, including topics that may lie outside the narrow bounds of what we do in class. Begin thinking about your project topic now, so that you'll be ready to propose something in a couple of weeks.

Our textbook is on usability -- and cognitive psychology, and epistemology, and design, and people. I think you'll enjoy it.