This schedule is tentative and subject to change. Please review it frequently. Changes will be accompanied by an announcement via D2L.
Watch the Introduction to the course.
Week 1: Codes and Information, and Early Computing Machines
- Watch the Key Themes video
- Watch the 19th Century Computing video
- Watch the Early Computers video
- Watch the WWII Developments video
- Read Paul E. Ceruzzi, Computing: a Concise History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), ix-48. (Available as an ebook from the library: http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/record=b9913484~S39a)
- Read James Gleick. The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood (New York: Pantheon Books, 2011), Prologue and Chapter 4 (78-124). (Skip Chapter 1 in the PDF).
- Review “The Babbage Engine” exhibit from the Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/
- Watch A Demo of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine
- Skim the “Turing Machine” entry from the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/
Week 2: Who Computes?
- Watch the Women of Bletchley Park video
- Watch the Post-WWII Narrowing of the Field video
- Read Marie Hicks Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017), Intro and Chapter I (1-58) and Chapter 2 (59-98). (ebook available from the library)
- Read R.A. Nelsen, “Race and Computing: The Problem of Sources, the Potential of Prosopography, and the Lesson of Ebony Magazine.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 39, no. 1 (January 2017): 29–51. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2016.11.
- Review the Bletchley Park: Hut11A, the Bombe Breakthrough exhibit
- Play with the Enigma machine simulator: http://enigma.louisedade.co.uk/
Assessment: Reading Response Paper 1 (July 12)
Who computes? How does considering this question change our understanding of the history of computing? (Weeks 1 and 2) Please submit your paper through D2L.
Week 3: Software and Personal Computers
- Watch Programming the Machine
- Watch Transistors, Chips, and Silicon Valley
- Watch Personal Computing
- Read Ceruzzi, Computing, 49-119.
- Read Jeremy Reimer. “A History of the GUI.” Ars Technica, May 5, 2005. https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/05/gui/.
- Read Matthew Lasar, “25 Years of HyperCard—the Missing Link to the Web.” Ars Technica, May 31, 2012. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/25-years-of-hypercard-the-missing-link-to-the-web/.
- Skim Paul Ford. “What is Code?” Bloomberg June 11, 2015.
- Read Gordon Moore, “Cramming More Circuits into Integrated Circuits,” Electronics (1965).
- Complete the BASIC tutorial, beginning with lesson 1, not the keyboard tour. BASIC Tutor
- Review the following material from the Computer History Museum:
Timeline of Software Languages
The Silicon Engine
Microprocessors, 1971-1996
Memory and Storage
Minicomputers
Personal Computers
Mid-term Examination: July 19
Week 4: The Internet and Browser Wars
- Watch ARPANet to the Internet
- Read Ceruzzi, Computing, 121-159.
- Read Vannevar Bush, “As we may think,” The Atlantic (July 1945). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/
- Read J.C.R. Licklider and R. W. Taylor. (1968). “The Computer as a Communication Device,” Science and Technology. (Starts on page 21.)
- Read Zoe Jackson, “Communication Revolution: ARPANET and the Development of the Internet, 50 Years Later” Perspectives on History (May 14, 2019): https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2019/communication-revolution-arpanet-and-the-development-of-the-internet-50-years-later
- Read Andrew L. Russell and Valérie Schafer, “In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s,” Technology and Culture 55, no. 4 (December 3, 2014): 880–907, https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2014.0096.
- Read Janet Abbate. Privatizing the Internet: Competing Visions and Chaotic Events, 1987-1995. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Volume 32, Number 1, January-March 2010.
- Watch Rodrigo Maluf. “Discovery The True Story of the Internet 1 of 4. Browser Wars.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQwCx-Ey6x8.
Week 5: Open or Closed
- Watch Open or Closed (It’s a long one, but everything goes together)
- Review the copyright provisions in the US Constitution: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/law/us-constitution/
- Read John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” (1996) https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
- Watch Richard Stallman’s TEDx video (2014): “Introduction to Free Software and the Liberation of Cyberspace,” https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-society
- Read “A Brief History of Open Access,” Open Access 101 https://blogs.harvard.edu/openaccess101/what-is-open-access/what-is-open-access/
- Watch Jimmy Wales, (2005) How a Ragtag Band Created Wikipedia (TED Talk)
- Watch Yochai Benkler, (2008) Open Source Economics (TED Talk)
- Watch Good Copy, Bad Copy
Review “The MP3” exhibit from the Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org/makesoftware/exhibit/mp3/ - Review the Digital Millenium Copyright Act: https://www.copyright.gov/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_executive.html
- Read Larry Downes. “The Tangled Web of Net Neutrality and Regulation” Harvard Business Review (2017)
- Read Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea
- Read Net Neutrality Explained
- Read Fight: The Wired Guide to Net Neutrality
Assessment:Reading Response Paper 2 (August 2)
Make a case in favor of or against open access, open source software, or net neutrality, based on your understanding of the historical development of software and the internet. (Weeks 3, 4, and 5) Please submit your paper through D2L.
Week 6: Corporate Control: Search and Access
- Watch Corporate Control
- Read Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) Updated Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) Introduction and Chapter I (1-50). (ebook available from the library)
- Read Safiya U. Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (New York: NYU Press, 2018) Introduction and Chapter I (1-63). (ebook available from the library)
- Read “Google, Don’t
be Evil” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil - Read “Google Code of Conduct, April 19, 2010” https://web.archive.org/web/20100419172019/https://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html
Assessment: Reading Response Paper 3 (August 9)
Are digital technologies objective and value-neutral? Why or why not? Why does it matter? (Week 6) Please submit your paper through D2L.
Week 7: Social Media and Privacy
- Watch Social Media, Convergence and the End!
- Read Sarah Jeong, The Internet of Garbage, The Verge (August 28, 2019). Republication.
- Watch The Internet of Garbage. Sarah Jeong at the Berkman Center, October 2015 (YouTube)
- Read Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly. “The Secret Rules of the Internet“
- Read dana
boyd , It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teenagers (2014) Chapter 5 (128-152). See –full text of It’s Complicated - Read Nicholas Confessore. “The Unlikely Activists Who Took on Silicon Valley and Won,” New York Times (August 14, 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-privacy-data.html.
- Read Lee Rainie, “Americans’ Complicated Feelings about Social Media in an Era of Privacy Concerns.” Pew Research Center (blog), March 27, 2018. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/27/americans-complicated-feelings-about-social-media-in-an-era-of-privacy-concerns/.
- Read EFF: Privacy: https://www.eff.org/issues/privacy