Curator: Evan Donahue
Professor discussing place and use of websites and other technology in teaching
Koeber, Charles. "Introducing Multimedia Presentations And A Course Website To An
Introductory Sociology Course: How Technology Shapes Student Perceptions Of Teaching
Effectiveness." Teaching Sociology 33 (2005): 285-300.
Art student makes a website for an african culture public playground near her home and writes article about impetus, process, and result.
Colman, Alison. "The Kwanzaa Playground." The Kwanzaa Playground. 3 May 2000. 30 Sept.
2008
Website calling attention to displaced refugees resulting from israel's instantiation.
Sakakini, ed. "Nakba." Nakba. InterTech Co. 30 Sept. 2008
Company focused on offering training for design and maintenance of business website.
United Focus, ed. "United Focus." United Focus. 2008. United Focus. 30 Sept. 2008
Article concerning China's official policy stance towards web content.
"Chinese websites issue joint proposal for "civilized management" of Internet." BBC 11 Apr.
2006.
5 comments:
I know the assignment is specific to socioeconomic relations, and I'm not sure if you're at all interested in looking critically at some of the theoretical stakes of websites and digital information. I think that might be a productive route though, because those kinds of questions of physicality versus virtuality, communication, and technology underwrite the use and work of websites in all contexts.
There are many critical theory texts on these subjects (Manovich's "The Language of New Media", "The New Media Reader"); books frequently treat digital media at large, but I'm sure you could find some papers just on websites. BUT anyway, there is also art! Such as one of my favourites ever, Ken Goldberg's Telegarden! watch a youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbyy5vSg8w8). Which also has to do with notions of interactivity and the real relative to websites. (Also the fact that it was destroyed by a hacker who sent tons of "Water the Plants" requests, flooding the garden and lab, might be of interest!)
.Jenny.
Not sure how much technical knowledge you have of web development, but either way it may interest you to research the role browsers and specifications have played in the evolution of the web. The turn away from Netscape early in the decade and increasingly away from Internet Explorer today for failing to meet w3c guidelines is important—the web standards movement, the development of XHTML, etc.
The technical details, of course, aren't important or interesting to most people. But what is interesting is how the idea of the web being such an open, democratic medium needs to be mediated by the fact that companies like Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, Mozilla, and others have played large roles in defining what sort of technologies are supported and how the medium evolves.
And, of course, in the wake of the iPhone, I think you'll have to discuss the idea of the mobile web today—what sorts of implications always having access to websites, etc. brings along.
It might also be interesting to investigate the early days of the internet, and how it, like most everything else we have, came out of military research with ARPANET and CERN. Also, the distinction between the World Wide Web and the Internet could yield interesting associative fruit, web sites being the stuff of the web, with all kinds of non-HTTP protocols operating in the dark, as it were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
-Sam Dean
George Landow, a professor at Brown, was pretty involved in some early hypertext stuff here at Brown. You might stop by his office hours or pick up his book, Hypertext : The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Definitely an interesting read discussing the differences in reading print texts vs. hypertexts; also suggests some ways in which some websites limit hypertextuality because they don't allow for the reader to forge her own links.
patrick nagle
some ideas for you...
-take a look at computer science as a concentration- what tools does this institution see as vital to creating virtual space? check out the concentration requirements/course descriptions or talk to a concentrator
-http://gothamist.com/ gothamist claims to be "virtual place making," an example of the use of web extending outside of self
-could look at how websites create celebrities (blogs, myspace, etc). it's also interesting to consider people's view of these individuals' credibility as famous. ex: tila tequila
-Communities in Cyberspace
By Marc A. Smith, Peter Kollock
-parental control of the web with US govt involvement: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D9173AF932A15757C0A96F958260&scp=8&sq=web%20parental%20control&st=cse
-warehouses filled with modems/hard drives that enable websites to go up-- an interesting way of thinking about the virtual space taking up real space...tried to find a good source for this but no luck
-internet usage stats: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm; http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
-could be interesting to talk to someone like a grandparent to see what s/he sees websites functioning as/replacing/creating
amanda
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