Many of the readings for this class are available online (and watch for links which I and your classmates will be providing throughout the course).  Those are linked below.

You will also need to purchase three books for this class.  None of them should be very expensive, and all are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online sellers.  Please purchase them immediately–to allow for shipping time.

The books you’ll need to buy are:

• Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, by Allan Collins and Richard Halverson (ISBN 978-0807750025)
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (ISBN 978-0812550702)
• Feed by MT Anderson (ISBN 978-0763622596)

We’ll have quizzes (open-book, of course, five questions or less, multiple-choice or true/false) on many of the readings.  If you do the reading, the quizzes will be easy.  If you don’t, they’ll be impossible.  Simple solution!

Weeks 1-2 (January 27-February 10): Introduction and Foundations

• “Dear Kids: You Don’t Have to go College“
• “Is it OK to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?” (and try to read at least some of the 220 comments there.  Maybe you will even comment yourself!)
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter 20
• First look at the Map of Future Forces (we’ll be seeing this one again)

Weeks 3-4 (February 11-February 24 (First Paper due)): Education as Cultural Marker

• Vernor Vinge’s “Fast Times at Fairmont High” (you will need the password for the copy on reserve)
• Cory Doctorow’s “Anda’s Game“
• Chapters 4-6 of Rethinking Education (pages 49-104)

Weeks 5-6 (February 25-March 10): Learning to Learn

• Excerpt from John Varley’s Red Lightning.
• “How People Learn” from Lloyd Armstrong’s “Changing Higher Education” blog.
• “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” by Henry Kuttner and CL Moore (you’ll need the password for the copy on reserve)

Weeks 7-8 (March 11-March 24 (Second Paper due)): Learning to Ask

• Excerpt from Robert Silverberg’s Nighwings
• “Three Stars and a Chili Pepper“
• Chapters 1-3 of Rethinking Education (pages 1-48)

Weeks 9-10 (March 25-April 7): Technology Changes Us“

• “A Group is its Own Worst Enemy” by Clay Shirky
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• The Learning Ecosystem at School 2.0

Weeks 11-12 (April 8-April 28 (CUNY Spring Break is April 17-April 26) (Third Paper Due)): Who Are We? (What is Human?)

• “On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi!” by William Tenn (listen to a two-hour radio show, including the author reading the story, in RealAudio format. Or use the player below to listen just to the story–or download it to your portable device. The full story is a little more than an hour long. And I apologize for the few IM and incoming email sound-effects in the background!)
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• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (optional)
• “Nirvana High” by Eileen Gunn

Weeks 13-14 (April 29-May 12): Why Are We? (Why Learning? and Why Literature?)

• Feed by MT Andersen

Week 15 (May 13-May 19 (Final Projects due)): Reflecting and Projecting

• Rethinking Education--Chapter 9-10 (pp 122-146)
• Another look at the Map of Future Forces
• The Horizon Report of the New Media Consortium