In-class show-and-tell activity
- Default due date: 2025-09-28 17:00:00
- Points: 100
- Weight: 10%
- Length (in words): 500
Instructions
Week 8 is the last class before break, after which we will start work on the final projects for this class. The class in Week 8 will be devoted in part to tying things from the first part of class together, and stimulating discussion among students about what themes they can examine in their final project.
This assignment is linked to that activity for class. The assignment consists of preparing something for the Week 8 class, bringing it to share with others, then writing an after-action report. The class activity will be to work in a small group to create a group exhibit that collectively helps communicate a theme that runs through different studies of science and technology.
For class: Bring an object or text you can display
A good multimedia aid for your essay and presentation will be something translates an idea from one mode of communication to another. For this assignment, I would like you to experiment with some of the things you might use to create your own exhibit to complement your essay. In this class, we primarily read ethnographic description and theoretical argument. What would this information and these ideas look like as a diagram or an object? Could you watch or listen to or touch or do something to understand it in a new way? Create an object or text to represent or elaborate on an idea in one or more of the assigned or supplemental readings from the first half of the semester.
How to translate ideas from words to other media
A good translation of an idea from words to other media will first involve thinking deeply about how you understand the idea and how you would explain it to someone with no background knowledge. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- “How can I draw a diagram of the relationships among these ideas?”
- “What sorts of questions would someone ask about this when learning about it for the first time?”
- “What is the architecture of the logical structure I am building?
- “If my argument existed in space and time, how would a learner navigate it? How would they get through the maze?”
- “Is there a meme format for the reasoning behind my main claim? (And what would the alt text be for visually impaired readers?)”
- “What are the priority levels for all the different information, ideas, and claims I want to express? If I was Annemarie Mol writing The Body Multiple (2003), what would be my main text and what would be my running commentary text?”
- “What should people see on a Z-pattern or F-pattern scan of my exhibit and what should be available for them to drill down into?”
This invites a lot of creative thinking. If you approach it as a brainstorming exercise, you eventually might generate many different possibilities. Not all of these ideas will be great though. So you need to pick a good one. The best way to know if your remediation is effective is to see if other people “get” it without you hovering over them or filling in details. So the best way to make a selection is to ask your friends and colleagues to look, listen, or encounter your text and then gauge their reactions. Ideally, if they “get” it, you’ll know by how they react.
After class: Write an after-action report
In the class in Week 8, you will discuss the themes that connect the ideas we have encountered in class and discuss ways to translate these ideas into a multimedia exhibit. After class, by the assignment deadline, write a reflection on your process of creating an object or text for display in class, the responses you got from the people in class, the discussion in your small group about ways to communicate complex ideas, and what you learned from the whole process.
How your work will be evaluated
For this assignment, you have to
- come to class on time
- bring an object or text that you can display and you think communicates an important idea from the class so far
- write an after-action report, which should
- be complete, self-contained, and self-explanatory to a reader with no knowledge of the assignment instructions or this class.
- clearly express a main idea, and will guide the reader to see why specific descriptions of specific facts reinforce this main idea.
- briefly describe
- what you did to create your object and/or text
- the responses you got from others
- your discussion about how to exhibit complex, abstract ideas
- what you learned from the process
- acknowledge any use of AI tools, and place yourself in your own writing as the author (that is, demonstrate that you are the author of the text by speaking as a person occupying a unique space and time).
Since this assignment is linked to an activity in class, it is not eligible for an automatic five-day extension. If you have special consideration, you can submit an alternative assignment (which will include the after-action report if you are in class in Week 8).
Can I use AI?
This is an open, unsupervised assignment, so there is no restriction on using AI tools to prepare the components of the assignment or to improve your writing on your report. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. There’s two main ways people use AI tools. One is to do more than they could on their own. The other is to use it as a short-cut or substitute for their own effort. With AI, as with life, you get back what you put in. If you approach AI tools as a shortcut, you get very low-quality output and, what’s worse, you become more dependent on the tool. If you approach it as something that enriches or extends your own ideas, creativity, and effort, evaluate what the tools can do, and work with the tools to improve the results, then you end up with a better product and you have valuable experience related to producing the product. There’s a difference between microwaving ramen and learning to use a wok. For this assignment, prompting an AI bot with “Teach me how to make a web site” is better than “Make a web site for me.”
The standard caveats apply: AI makes mistakes and gives you no guarantees, but you are responsible for what it produces. If you do use AI tools, you have to acknowledge what you did. Document everything; more documentation is better.