ethics technology

FIRST PAPER for your first homework assignment, please choose a technology you will be writing about for the first half of this semester. It should be a technology that you are interested in writing about and thinking about for a few weeks, so don’t pick entirely at random. Also, recall that our definition of “technology” in this class is quite broad, as roughly an instrumental (ie used for something) human activity or artifact. For this assignment, 1) tell me what technology you have chosen, 2) explain what you mean if your technology is vague, 3) tell me why you have chosen this topic, and 4) tell me your personal experience of and history with this technology. The total length of this assignment will probably be about a page double spaced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SECOND PAPER For this assignment, please discuss the history of the technology you are writing about. This should include what technologies proceeded and enabled your technology, who did what when to invent and develop your technology, how your technology spread and changed, etc. Obviously, I don’t expect you to know all this off the top of your head. So do research, and be sure to CITE YOUR SOURCES. This means BOTH citing them in-text with quotation marks and references, AND listing the works you cited at the end. You may use any official format you like (APA, MLA, etc.) but be sure to pick one and use it consistently and correctly (Google “OWL Purdue” and the name of the format you’d like to use for a good guide). Follow best practices of research (e.g. don’t cite Wikipedia, blogs, social media, etc.; don’t plagiarize; and so on). It depends on your particular technology, but I bet this assignment will take you about two pages of writing.

 

 

 

 

 

PAPER 3 For this assignment, think through what Ihde would have to say about your technology. For example, what kind of embodiement relationship do we have with the technology? Support your answer. Think about multistability. Has your technolgy been in a different stable relationship with a society, either in the past or in another place or context? Depending on your answers, this assignment might take half a page or more than a page (some technologies will be open to an Ihde-an analysis and others less so). This assignment is due Friday.

 

 

Paper4

 

For this week’s homework, I’d like you to use Borgmann’s tools to think through your technology and how it’s used in our society. Is it a simplifying, alienating device? A focal object that commands attention? Something in between? Or are there elements or applications of it that are more device-like or focal object-like? Has your technology changed over time in our age’s device paradigm? you can also think about the three kinds of information Borgmann discussed if that’s relevant. The whole thing should take you about a page and a half, I’d guess.

 

 

Paper5

 

For this assignment, I’d like you to think through the I’d like you to start thinking phenomenologically about what it’s like to use the technology you’re writing about. You might write about interfacing with the technology, or you might write about the ways in which it becomes a part of you, or any number of other things. Focus on what it actually feels like to use the technology. Go back and read some of the readings from this week and last week to get an idea of what I’m talking about if necessary, or come talk to me in my office if this is confusing.

 

 

Paper6

 

Given this week’s readings, I’d like you today to think about the possible future of your technology. How might it change? Could it become more accessible to some people? If so, how? Could it change what it means to be human? If so, how? Could it change our society? If so, how? Use your imagination here of course, but also you should use research (which you cite!) to help you think of possibilities.

 

Paper7

 

Today you’ll be “writing” your first draft of your paper! All you need to do is take what you’ve written so far and make that into sections of a paper. Then add a short introduction in which you lay out what you’ll be talking about and what your main idea is, and a conclusion in which you repeat your main idea and summarize what was said (and a works cited page if you don’t already have one). IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE VERY GOOD YET. The point here is just to have a document you can work on, not a perfect final product.