Workzones

• Web CT: this is SUNY-Cortland's course management system. We will use Web CT as a secure way for you to submit your assignments (i.e. your book reviews and final paper). Here you will also find your grades during the course of the session. Your final grades will be posted in Banner as they always are. Otherwise, we will not be using Web CT.
• Cortland Memorial Library e-Reserves: I have put a number of articles on reserve for you. We will read a couple during the course. Most are there as a starting point for your final, research paper. So we won't really be doing any "work" at this site, but you will access it for some course materials.
• The Digital Age PB Wiki: obviously that's where you are right now.
• The Digital Age Ning Community: more on this in a moment.
• Other Communication Modes: e-mail, IM, Twitter/other microblogs, Second Life. The point being that I am available through multiple channels of communication. You are free to communicate with me (and one another) by whatever mode(s) suit you. However, none of these are "required" means of communication.

Workflow

Course workflow will operate between this wiki and our Ning community. You should think of Ning as a place for discussion, informal communication, announcements, and so on. PBwiki will then become our place to bring our ideas together and try to formalize our knowledge somewhat. By that I don't mean that we'll be writing "formal" academic discourse here. However, we will be moving away from the class discussion experience of Ning into an effort to document our learning.

1. In Ning, you will have your own personal page with a blog where you can keep an informal record of your learning. Make a brief post to your personal blog every day or two on what you're doing and what your impressions are. You can visit my profile page in Ning to get an idea of what I mean. If you look, you'll see I'm not asking for much here.

    

2. In Ning, we also have a Cyberpunk Literature group, which you should join! The group page has essentially two parts: a discussion forum and a "cyberpunk news" feed. During the course I will try to add interesting news pieces I find to the news feed. If there is something there I am requiring you to read, I'll let you know. Otherwise, you can just scan it. 

   The Discussion Forum however is a central element of the course. The discussion forum is analogous to class discussion in a traditional face to face classroom. As such, I expect you to read the forum posts and participate every class day (i.e., M-F except for 7/4). Remember that online participation makes up 30% of your grade and the Discussion Forum is an integral part of how you will participate online.

   That said, the Discussion Forum is an informal discussion space. You should feel free to initiate topics. In fact I am expecting you to do so. You can use the forum to coordinate activities, ask questions about assignments, and so on, just as you would in a regular classroom. So I expect you to participate and be thoughtful, but I don't expect you to post formal essays or completed formulated arguments or anything like that. To the contrary, I think it is important to not restrict or self-edit yourself in the discussion forum. Try to use classroom behavior as a guide rather than the dictates of formal essay writing.

    

3. From there, we will move into the PBwiki. You will post your review essays in the PBwiki. Because wiki pages can be edited, you will also submit your reviews in Web CT. This will give you a secure option, so that we are all certain that I am evaluating the correct version of your work. However, I want you to post your reviews in PBwiki because we will read each others reviews and discuss them.

   We will also use PBwiki to engage in some collaborative assignments. Wikis are really designed for creating documents with multiple authors. For example, our first task will be to develop a working understanding of what "cyberpunk" means. We will have a brief discussion on Ning. Then we will build a wiki page where we bring together links, quotes, and other resources that shed light on this question. Then we'll work together to write some definition. In doing so, we'll identify some related points and we'll create separate pages that we'll link to our starting page. And so on.

   Every page includes a comment option, so you should always feel free to use that to ask a question or disagree with something that has been said. Comment on any page you want. Comment on each other's reviews or member pages. Whatever. I'd like us to refrain from editing one another's reviews or member pages. However, besides those two areas, I want to see you working collaboratively on wiki pages. When we read Neuromancer, we can develop a constellation of pages: web resources, academic research, character analysis, critical approaches, teaching ideas, whatever interests you. I can come up with plenty for us to do, but I'd much prefer the course to move organically out of your interests.