Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois

Clifford Christians is offering MDIA 577, Philosophy of Technology, 3-5 M in 336 Gregory Hall at the University of Illinois Fall 2009.  The course is 4 hours/ 1 unit.

Introduces students to those thinkers who understand technology as a central component in modern society.  Examines major perspectives on the nature of technology,  rooted in Norbert Wiener, Karl Marx, and Martin  Heidegger.   Links media technology, information systems, and global communication issues to technology more generally.   Develops feminist and critical approaches, instrumentalism, ethical concerns, and alternative technologies. In addition to reading and discussing the texts, one research paper is required. The paper is an  opportunity to concentrate on a topic of specific interest to the variety of students in the seminar.

To review the syllabus email Professor Christians (cchrstns@illinois.edu).

Christian Sandvig will present the Department of Communication Colloquium - “Networked Television Beyond Television Networks: The Policy Problems of Internet Video Distribution”.
The talk will be held at Lincoln Hall on Friday, April 17, 2:30 p.m.

Abstract: We are in an exciting transitional moment for anyone interested in television–such as the 98.9% of Americans who watch it. Despite larger screens, new formats, digital broadcasts, and a variety of alternative platforms and technologies, the audience for network television is in decline (dropping 10% last year). Yet screen time with video remains strong, it is just increasingly on a device fed by (or occasionally replaced by) computation and served by the Internet in some form. Consider only one example of this Internet encroachment: Web-based video watched on a computer (Hulu, YouTube). About half of all Internet users in the US have tried it, nearly 1 in 6 adults watch on a daily or weekly basis, and almost 1 in 3 young people do. As of December, more than 1 in 6 searches performed on the Internet are seeking video, almost all on YouTube. Other Internet encroachments and combinations abound, with varying success so far (Netflix/360, AppleTV, Mobile TV, and so on).

About the Speaker: Christian Sandvig is Associate Professor in Communication, Media Studies, the Coordinated Science Laboratory, and an affiliate of the Illinois Center for Wireless Systems. In 2002 he was named “next-generation leader in technology policy” by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2006 he received the NSF CAREER award in Human-Centered Computing.

The Center for Global Studies presents a talk by Michael Furdyk, Co-Founder of TakingIT Global: How Digital Kids are Changing the World” on March 06 2009, 12:00 pm. A brief description of the talk: 

Technology has created new expectations driving the learning characteristics of todays students. Michael Furdyk, Co-founder and Director of Technology for TakingITGlobal.org, a global online community for young people, engaging hundreds of thousands of youth in over 200 countries discusses youth engagement and the Net Generation.

The last installment in the movie series Movies Even an Engineer Would Love for the fall semester, Bush Mechanics, will be shown Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 7-9 pm at the Spurlock Museum: 

What do you do when your car breaks down in the Australian outback? Bush Mechanics celebrates automotive ingenuity among the indigenous peoples of Yuendumu, Australia. Produced by an Aboriginal media collective in the Western Desert, it includes lessons such as how to make a clutch out of wood and how to use the windshield wiper reservoir as a fuel pump. 

A discussion of the film follows the showing.

The 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008) has posted extended abstracts (here) for the gathering that will be held next week 10-12 November 2008 (Monday-Wednesday) at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.  More information is about the workshop is available on the website here.

Interestingly, WPE and Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois (ETSI) trace their roots to the same blog post in 2006 (here).

The 2008 Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering (WPE-2008) to be held 10-12 November 2008 (Monday-Wednesday) at the Royal Academy of Engineering (London) posted its full schedule on its website (here).

iFoundry’s co-director Dave Goldberg will speak on The Creativity Imperative and the Technology Professional of the Future (see here).

Abstract. The world is apparently flat. It is being given over to a rising creative class, and it requires a whole new mind. A common conclusion drawn from authors such as Friedman, Florida, and Pink is that technology professionals in advanced economies must excel at creating new categories of product and service. Returns to routine engineering/technology labor are declining because of the ease with which these tasks may be outsourced. The talk will discuss this situation and the work of the iFoundry for Innovation in engineering education.

Bio. David E. Goldberg, is the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professor in Entrepreneurial Engineering and the co-director of iFoundry at UIUC and co-founder of ShareThis Inc., a web2.0 startup company. He is the author of Genetic Algorithms in Search, Organization, and Machine Learning (1989), The Design of Innovation (2002), and The Entrepreneurial Engineer (2006).

Related videos and powerpoints are available on iFoundry’s YouTube channel and SlideShare page.

Another installment in the movie series Movies Even an Engineer Would Love, The Tailenders, will be shown Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 7-9 pm at the Spurlock Museum:

Filmed in the Solomon Islands, Mexico, India, and the US, this film chronicles a missionary organization’s development of ultra-low-tech audio technologies (like a cardboard record player) to evangelize to traditional communities with limited access to electricity and media. Interspersing interviews with shots of nodal patterns, waveforms and a signal generator, the film “has presented disembodied audio as a religion unto itself” (The New York Times).

The Tailenders [2005] is 72 minutes with discussion to follow. Join us Wednesday for another Engineering, Technology, and Culture (ETC) event.

Just a reminder that the first movie, Radiant City, in the film series Movies Even an Engineer Would Love will be held to night starting at 7:00 pm in the Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL.  A discussion will be held after the showing.

Radiant City. Across the continent the landscape is being leveled—blasted clean of distinctive features and overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family calls it home. This look at urban sprawl through the eyes of one Canadian family also asks fundamental questions about design, planning, and technology. Covering topics from traffic and infrastructure to childhood, family, and ennui, it ultimately asks: How can we build sustainable systems that can grow gracefully as they age?

iFoundry, AE3, with some advertising help from ETSI, announce a Workshop on the First Year in Engineering to be held in Room 1122 NCSA, on Thursday, September 25, 2008, starting at 8:30 am.  More information is available here.