New Masters course in Knowledge and Networks

Cathy Davidson at Duke University is designing an intriguing Masters course and has put the outline proposal on the Web for commenting.

Current topic headings are:

Attention: What are the new ways that we pay attention in a digital era? How do we need to change our concepts and practices of attention for a new era? How do we learn and practice new forms of attention in a digital age?
Participation: How do we encourage meaningful interaction and participation? What is its purpose on a cultural, social, or civic level?
Collaboration: Collaboration can simply reconfirm consensus, acting more as peer pressure than a lever to truly original thinking. HASTAC has cultivated the methodology of “collaboration by difference” to inspire meaningful ways of working together.
Network awareness: How we both thrive as creative individuals and understand our contribution within a network of others? How do you gain a sense of what that extended network is and what it can do?
Global Consciousness: How does the World Wide Web change our responsibilities in and to the world we live in?
Civic Responsibility: How we can be good citizens of the Internet when we are off line, working towards real goals in our communities and using the community practices of sharing, customizing, and contributing online towards responsible civic action off line?
Design: How is information conveyed differently, effectively, and beautifully in diverse digital forms? How do we understand and practice the elements of good design as part of our communication and interactive practices?
Narrative, Storytelling: How do narrative elements shape the information we wish to convey, helping it to have force in a world of competing information?
Procedural Literacy: What are the new tactics and strategies of interactive games, where the multimedia narrative forms changes because of our success or failure?
Critical consumption of information: Without a filter (editors, experts, and professionals), much information on the Internet can be inaccurate, deceptive, or inadequate. How do we learn to be critical? What are the standards of credibility?
Digital Divides, Digital Participation: What divisions still remain in digital culture? Who is included and who excluded? How do basic aspects of economics and culture dictate not only who participates in the digital age but how we participate?
Ethics: What are the new moral imperatives of our interconnected age?
Advocacy: How do we turn collaborative, procedural thinking on line into activism in the real world?
Preservation: What are the requirements for preserving the digital world we are creating? Paper lasts. Platforms change.
Sustainability: What are the metrics for sustainability in a world where we live on more kilowatts than ever before? How do we protect the environment in a plugged-in era?
Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning: Alvin Toffler has said that, in the rapidly changing world of the twenty-first century, the most important skill anyone can have is the ability to stop in one’s tracks, see what isn’t working, and then find ways to unlearn old patterns and relearn how to learn.

Thanks to John Connell for the link.

This is an interesting venture, and it has some useful echoes for us -- especially given that we will have two Arcadia Fellows in the Easter Term working on designing a new curriculum for information skills.