Sem2 Option 1

I have come up with TWO OPTIONS to choose between.

Option One is a series of workshops for you to deliver on themes relating to hard aspects of new technologies.

Option Two (which I favour, to be honest) is to take you into a related world which you will have to increasingly deal with on a personal and professional level throughout your career.  In fact, you may well find yourself part of the solution to what seems set to be the planet’s major preoccupation: living within the planet’s ecological means to support us all. 

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OPTION N°1.  WORKSHOPS

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Obviously you have to decide who you will partner with AND select a topic WITHOUT DUPLICATION.  

I have tried to make the topics germane to your course and the context in which you are likely to find yourselves working.  I have tended to write them as statements for you to discuss, giving you some direction as to what you need to cover – but how you do it is up to YOU.

Remember, these are ‘Workshops’ NOT a straight presentation. The object is for you to COMMUNICATE – in English – in such a way as to INTEREST and INVOLVE/ENGAGE your colleagues in the topic.

Make it though-provoking – controversial even!   Use whatever tools you wish to achieve this…. yes, use an internet connection if you wish; yes set your colleagues questions or tasks like a quick brainstorm; but whatever you do make sure that it is MEMORABLE and ALL of us can walk out of the room having been challenged, excited, interested and knowing and understanding more than we did when we walked in.  Don’t just read a script… don’t just do wall-to-wall Powerpoint….

We have a mix of two, three and four hour classes, so we may be able to do  two of these in each slot AND leave time for discussion and a break and feedback.

I suggest the format for each week, time-permitting, should be:

1. Team One workshop, followed by discussion / plenary session.  One hour.  You should be speaking / involving the group for about 30 minutes of that hour.  We will then discuss the issue and I will ask you the audience to give feedback (constructive critique) to your colleagues on the quality of their workshop highlighting things that went well and how other things might have been improved.
2. Discussion and break
3. Team Two  workshop (As above Team One).

Marking.

Workshop.  I will be marking your use of English of course – the key being that you should at all times be clear in your meaning / intention (even if you make the odd mistake in grammar, pronunciation…….  In addition I want to see that you really have comprehensively addressed the topic/question you have chosen.  Do READ the questions – they are there to help you understand exactly what I want – you may find there is more than one question on more than one subject.  You are in M2 and understanding what has been requested of you in English is also of critical importance – we can’t mark you well if you don’t do what was asked of you.  I also want to see you generate interest and involvement on the part of your colleagues: they are not to be ‘read at’ – as I said above, think of this as a workshop you are leading rather than a paper you are presenting.  I want to see clarity in your analyses and evaluations.  I want to see a good structure with an introduction to your task and method of approach plus, at the end, well-draw and justified conclusions on the basis of evidence cited.    Boring us will not generate a good mark – even if the English isn’t bad – so beware.

Written.  For submission in hard copy the session AFTER  your workshop (to enable you to benefit from any feedback I may give you during the workshop itself). A 2x page A4 ‘Thinkpiece’ in English, focusing upon your evidence and arguments and presenting them in the most provocative, interesting and memorable way.  Imagine that this is to be given to future M2 students at next year’s induction to give them an idea of the type of work you are doing and your ability to communicate very effectively in English in a very specialised form. [If you don’t know what a ‘thinkpiece’ is: then use the internet to find out!]  You may use further pages as appendices to include things like screenshots etc.

The Workshop Topics.

There are normally about 20 of you so I am going to set you to work in threes, so you will be covering  6 or 7  topics from the choice  offered below.  First come / first served – NO DUPLICATION ALLOWED:

1. « To live an online life or to go off-grid, that is the question ».  A. Modern-Day Hamlet (2018)     Easy to ask…..  but not so easy to answer.  DISCUSS, taking care to weigh up the pros and cons of this choice from an individual perspective (rather than commercial/corporate).  Aside: actually, if you have ever read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the parallels are pretty startling ….  I just hope the ending might be different!

2. Why and how are employers using Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in their recruitment processes today, and why & how does this relate to you as a potential job applicant – should you be approaching job search, CV, covering letters, applications, interview preparations in a radically different way now?  More complicated?  Better? Both?

3. Last year a software programme finally passed the TURING TEST.  Who was Turing?  What is  the ‘test’ he proposed? What is the significance of the passing of this ‘milestone’ for our digital and human future? Did things suddenly get better or worse?

4. Andy Warhol is reputed to have said in the 1960s that: « In the future everyone will have his 15 minutes of fame ».  The singer/songwriter, Jackson Browne put it similarly in the 1980s: « Anyone not on TV only has himself to blame ».    Today, anyone with a connected device can instantly become a content-provider, journalist, broadcaster, narrowcaster, influencer and media personality or star.  Is this the end for traditional, formalised, professional, controlled approaches to the digital publication / communication of information  (the way, for example, that Apple devices and the MP3 format changed almost instantly and forever our music purchasing preference and the long-established music production and distribution system)?  Does it matter that ‘History’ can now be written in two or three Twitter lines by anyone rather than by regulated, accountable, neutral press agencies with trained and qualified reporters?

5. « ICT is certainly helping our dexterity & hand/eye coordination …. but the real questions are: 

• are we becoming more intelligent as a result?
• is business really becoming more efficient, effective and economical as a result?
• in the end, is it making us any healthier and happier? «   A. Judge (2018)

Discuss weighing up (analysing and evaluating) the evidence and providing examples wherever possible.

6. Organisations and Corporations are spending untold millions of Euros (£ / $ etc)  frantically developing social-networking presences, but is there really any reliable, hard evidence that such investment actually generates turnover and profits more than sufficient to cover the costs…. or have managers and decision-makers ‘gone soft’ and started to invest ‘on faith‘ rather than take the rational and responsible route of Rate of Return on Investment?  If there is no real proof of financial return – then why are commercial businesses so set on social networking?

7.   Your phone (and the authorities) know where you are at all times, your bank card gives away your location, your spend and the items you have bought or rented and your new electricity meter is likely even to be telling the company what appliances you are using in your home at any one time.  Your carefree, young, fun-photos, shared on Facebook etc may have been pulled down in your mid-20s…. but they are still out there somewhere ready to accuse or embarrass you or get you de-selected from an interview shortlist. Systems of login and password are not perfect and are hack-able.  So much  information is now held digitally that identity-theft is a commonplace but serious risk for anyone connected to the system. These new, information and communications technologies are increasingly incompatible with personal privacy, freedom and civil liberties.  We can’t un-invent them.  Controlling them is almost impossible.  Is there any rationale that can be employed  to protect the system users – or for them to protect themselves? Discuss.

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