| RELS 602 |
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Technological Approaches to the Humanities | ||||||||||||||||||
 RELS 602 Syllabus Schedule Resources Perl Religious Studies Arts & Sciences UPenn |
Syllabus
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| Class times: | Saturday mornings from 9:30 to 12:10 |
| Classroom: | 421 Williams and 440 Williams |
| Instructor: | Jay C. Treat |
| Office: | 433 Williams Hall |
| Office hours: | Saturdays, 12:10-2:00 pm; and Monday-Friday, 9:00-5:00 by appointment (see below) |
| Office telephone: | 573-3171, during business hours |
| Electronic mail: | |
| Course Web Site: | http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/602/ |
| Supplementary Course Web Site: | http://courses.sas.upenn.edu/courses/RELS602-601-1999C/ |
2. Prerequisites
Students in the course must be graduate students engaged in advanced research in the Humanities (at least 8 courses in the Humanities are prerequisite) and must have basic computing skills (word processing, e-mail, using the Web). Enrollment is strictly limited in order to give each student access to a computer in class.3. Objectives
- Students in the course will each learn to use HTML to build a relatively sophisticated instructional web site related to an area of their own research. The web site will contain original text, graphics, and other media. It will be interactive. It will be well laid out and presented in a pedagogically sound manner.
- Students will use the Perl programming language to write increasingly complex programs to create web pages dynamically.
- Throughout the course, students will explore ethical issues related to the use of technology: security, free speech, intellectual property, software piracy, and the effects of technology on society.
- They will also explore elements of effective pedagogy: what are the advantages, limits, and dangers of using computers and related technology in research, publication, and teaching?
- Above all, students should consider this course an opportunity to play with technology and its potential for communication and education. They should explore, experiment, and test the capabilities and limits of the toys available to us.
4. Evaluation and Required Work
As with any skill, working with computers requires practice. Students may expect to spend five to six hours a week outside class in assignments. Also, the knowledge and skills students will acquire in the course are cumulative: later projects assume that earlier skills have been absorbed. Therefore, it is vital to keep up with the work from the beginning of the semester. This is especially true of programming.The requirements for the course include regular participation in class, programming assignments, an instructional web site, and an essay relating technology and pedagogy. The required work contributes to the final grade as follows:
- 20% of grade: class participation
- 20% of grade: programming assignments (or an alternative project)
- 20% of grade: essay exploring an aspect of technology and pedagogy
- 40% of grade: an instructional web site
5. Course Calendar and Tentative Schedule
This course will not move by a strict schedule, because it is largely experimental and because we will be guided by the needs and interests of the participants.Each week, we'll learn a little Perl, beginning with simple programs and building up to more serious projects. There will be Perl homework most weeks.
Each week there will be reading or research assignments. These will relate to effective use of technology, pedagogy, web design, and ethical and legal issues. We'll discuss this reading or research in the following class session.
Each week, the instructor will provide hands-on work with some aspect of technology. These small workshops will occur approximately in the order indicated below.
The course listserv and the schedule on the course web site will be more reliable guides to each week's activities and assignments.
6. Class Materials
There are no required textbooks for this course.If you are very interested in Perl, then we can recommend two books:
- Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen, Learning Perl Second Edition (Cambridge: O'Reilly, 1997).
- Lincoln Stein, Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm: The Standard for Building Web Scripts (New York: Wiley Computer Publishing, 1998).
Ideally, this class should generate very little paper apart from the syllabus and paperwork required for administration. Participants in the seminar will submit assignments electronically by way of the Internet.
7. Computer Accounts
For the purposes of the course, each participant will be given an account on the CCAT workstation (ccat.sas.upenn.edu) for the duration of the semester. Specific class assignments will require the use of this account. Other files relevant to the class may be stored in the account, as long as they conform to the policies of the School of Arts and Sciences and the University of Pennsylvania.Students must not place any files in their accounts that violate copyright or that plagiarize the work of others. Large files should be avoided, especially if they have dubious academic value. The system administrator of CCAT will be the final judge of whether a given file violates University policies. Offending files will be removed.
The CCAT host can be accessed from any computer on PennNet, including home computers with a modem.
These student accounts will cease to exist on January 15, 2000. If students wish to keep any files from CCAT beyond that date, they will need to transfer them to other machines or to CD-ROM before the end of the year.
8. Office Hours
The instructor, the Prep Center, and the LaRRC will be available Saturdays after class until about 2:00 for participants of the seminar.Participants may arrange appointments (in person, by phone, or on-line) with the instructor Monday-Wednesday and Friday, 9:00-5:00.
Last Modified: September 13, 1999
Jay C. Treat, Ph.D.