Dear Friends,
I was toying with several
ideas about this online class. Some of
you were also kind enough to give me very useful advice. But I didn’t have sufficient time to follow
their leads, and I do not know anything about your computer skills. As well, last semester I had one online
session with Blackboard, and students complained that I asked too much of
them. So, for this preliminary
experiment, we shall not have an online class, but an e-mail class. We shall go back and forth, you and I,
e-mailing to each other. If you tell me
next week that this experiment worked, we shall expand it in the future to a
full online format.
My e-mail: aa1674@wayne.edu
My phone for the duration
(only if you get stuck tonight): 248.427.1957
Remember: There are 20 of you and one of me, so I may
not be able to keep up. I shall take
your e-mails and calls as fast as I can—but that may not be fast enough!
Online Class
One, Section I: Improving our Internet Research Skills
1.
Go
to our class webpage: http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/cr/
(add this to your favorites now, please, on your home computer—that way,
you can access this class, whenever you want, without typing the entire address
over and over again).
2.
Visit
Readings for this class: http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/cr/content.htm
(add this to your favorites
now on your computer, please)
3.
How
do you pronounce (www.m-w.com/) the following
words: pandemic, Similar, Iraq?
What is the definition of pandemic? (simply cut and paste the
definition from Merriam-Webster online) Answer in red
font here. Likewise, what is the
definition of brutality? Answer in red font here
4.
Search
WSU people: www.ucomm.wayne.edu/~fsd/index.html
(add this to your favorites now, please).
What’s your classmate’s Alice Faye Dailey e-mail? Answer in red
font here What is Prof. James Michels’ middle name? Answer in red
font here What is Dr. Michels’ work phone number?
Answer in red font here
5.
ISP:
http://www.clas.wayne.edu/IS/ (add
this to your favorites now, please).
Is ISP3991 taught this semester?
Answer in red font here The professors are? Answer in red font
here
6.
To
find a WSU class: www.classschedule.wayne.edu/course_web/schedule/index.cfm
(add this to your computer’s favorites now, please)
7.
What
are the nearest buildings to WSU’s Undergraduate Library? www.campusmap.wayne.edu/ (add this
to your favorites now, please). Answer in red
font here.
8.
Library
catalog: http://elibrary.wayne.edu/(add this to
your favorites now, please). Replace
the keyword tab with title tab.
a. What is the Call # of Athenian
Legacies. Answer in red font. Which
library has it? Answer in red font Can it be checked out? Answer in red font
9.
Go
to: www.google.com/
(add this to your favorites now, please).
Now, go to advanced search,
looking ONLY at university sites (choose only EDU domain), and find out
possible answers to this question:
What’s another name for the country of Myanmar? Answer in red font
here please In size, that
country equivalent to which American
state? Answer in red font
10.
The
internet, of course, has numerous practical applications as well. Let me give you one example. The European currency is called the Euro,
the American currency is called the U.S. dollar. Today, you have to pay $1.41 for one Euro. But it is extremely interesting to explore
the historical relationship between the two currencies. Here is one way to find out.
a.
Go
to http://www.xe.com/
b.
Go
to TOOLS, and click on Currency Charts.
c.
This
will give you today’s fluctuations for the Dollar/Euro pair. What is the exchange rate right now? Answer in red here.
d.
Now
find TIME SCALE & PERIOD. Choose
DAILY, then 10 YEARS. Explain in words,
what happened to the exchange rate in the past 10 years, in rough outline? Answer in red here.
e.
Which
major political development in the USA most likely triggered the dollar’s
decline? Answer in red here.
f.
What
does that decline mean to you, if you plan to spend one month traveling in
France? Answer in red here.
g.
Now,
the real hard question: What are the
reasons for the decline of the once-almighty dollar? Answer
in red here.
OK,
edit your work now. Save it as YourNameOLSec1.doc and send it to me. Take a break, and, hopefully, within a few
minutes I shall send you some limited feedback on your work and the next
section.
1.
Listen
to and watch: Pretty Boy Floyd: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ao8kEib_TFs
2.
Read
the lyrics for this song in your coursepack, p. 17.
3.
Answer
these two questions, in red font of course: a. Which critical event made Floyd
an outlaw? answer in red font here b.
Woody Guthrie, the writer of the song, draws a comparison between
outlaws on one hand, and cops and bankers on the other. Which of the two, on balance, is more
decent, according to him? answer in red font hereWhy?answer
in red font here
4.
The
singer in youtube mentions the book Grapes of Wrath. Use Wayne State Library catalogue (http://elibrary.wayne.edu/) to find
out: Who is the writer of that
book? answer in
red font here When was the book
written? answer in red font here In a few
sentences, what is the book all about? answer in red font here
What is common to this book and to Guthrie’s song, Pretty Boy
Floyd? answer
in red font here
5.
This
song was written in 1939. Read the
following article, published today: http://counterpunch.com/roberts09252007.html Now answer in red font: a. Who is the writer? (see bottom of
article) answer in red font here b. summarize his article in one long,
complex, sentence. answer in red font here c.
Compare it to the Floyd’s situation, to the tasering of a Florida student we
saw in class. answer in red font here In
particular, is police brutality better or worse now in the USA than it had been
in Floyd’s days. answer in red font here
6.
Finally,
if you lived in Oklahoma at the time, and served as a juror in Floyd’s trial,
would you find him guilty or innocent? answer in red
font here Why? answer in red font here
OK,
edit your work now. Save it as YourNameOLSec2.doc and send it to me. Take a break, and, hopefully, within a few
minutes I shall send you some limited feedback on your work and the next—and
final—section.
We
shall begin to work on this project tonight, and continue working on it, as a
team, throughout the next few weeks.
Our goal is to develop a plan to improve the economic well-being of our
state. If we believe that our idea is
workable, we may submit our final proposal to Governor Granholm.
Our
research project will involve the question:
Can a conventional (not hybrid) car that is as cheap, safe, and reliable
as the Honda Civic, but that is three times as efficient, be constructed in the
State of Michigan? Can a 100-mpg car
be constructed? Will one of the big
three do this on its own, or will it take government action to bring this
about? Why hasn’t such a car been built
in the last 100 years? What would be
the impact of such a car on our economy, environment, health, and personal
quality of life?
In
this section, I only wish to open the question, and have you read a couple of
articles which introduce the subject.
Next week, in class, we’ll decide whether to continue developing this
cooperative research project, and how we can best go about it.
For
now, please read this article:
http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2003/Slong3/cultureenvironment.htm
Here, I’d like you to:
1.
With a close computer screen, summarize the main point of the article in one long
sentence. Red font here
2.
The author demonstrates his main point with the
example of the typewriter. Could we type much faster than we do now? Red font here How? Red font here Why don’t we do it?
Red font here
3.
Provide a detailed summary of the section about
Volvo. Red font here
4.
Find one other article or a book (if you took the
class Living in the Environment, Miller’s book with the same title
covers this subject in detail) that deals with this subject, provide the needed
link or reference, and summarize its main point. Red font here Prepare a presentation of your summary for next week’s
class.
Don’t
forget: Next week you will:
·
Give
an oral presentation on your car article
·
be
prepared for class discussion on questions 7-9 (p. 9), and read: Elephant
Ear (Aiken), She Sings Me to Sleep with Laughter (White),
Excerpts from An Open Heart (Dalai Lama)
Thanks
for your patience.
OK,
edit your work now. Save it as YourNameOLSec3.doc and send it to me. You’re done with today’s online class.