Odds are good that before reading this, you probably used Google, Wikipedia, or social media within the past few hours or even within the past few minutes. As digital landscapes and our footprints within those landscapes continue to expand, it becomes more important than ever to assess your relationship with digital information and your access to that information.
This course will help students develop the research and writing skills necessary to efficiently and effectively evaluate, use, and contribute information to the digital landscape. Participants will learn about and critically evaluate topics and tools in mass use such as Google, Wikipedia, and social media in order to frame those platforms within larger social and cultural contexts. These platforms maintain a worldwide reach, drawing together a global audience which students will interact with to varying degrees by learning to create and edit Wikipedia entries as well as by generating blog posts and examining social media outlets. Work will culminate in a portfolio of written materials as well as a student-led Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to put students’ newfound digital skills to the test and to share those skills with others. No prior experience with editing digital information is needed.
This course will establish tools for ethical application of information you encounter in news, research, and everyday communications within both your academic life and beyond. It is offered 100% online in Spring 2021 via Zoom and Canvas, Mondays and Wednesdays 12:45-2:00 pm. For more information, contact Erin Smith at ers94@case.edu