Digital Tools, Digital Literacies
Professor Ruth Skinner
ARTHUM 2230G
What are the implications of “the digital turn,” and what does it mean to pursue “literacy” in an era of seemingly endless information? This course examines the development of information systems and technologies by considering their past, present, and potential future trajectories. We also explore how we shape (and are shaped by) these technologies with hands-on activities and collaborative research projects. Course materials survey how digital researchers and historians, web and software developers, artists, authors, activists, and theorists inform and engage our digital landscapes—posing critical questions of social, political, economic, and creative significance.
Publishing Collectives: drawing on strategies used by digital publishers, blog
networks, and digital media companies, students collaboratively devise a unifying mandate and establish a cohesive visual identity and style guide for their publishing outlets. The content of these publishing platforms are the students' individual reflection.
Authentic Innovators: Our blog posts will be presented in the form of generative AI bots being prompted to write student's work.
Eve.AI (back-end page)
Contributors: Gabriel F., Dan. C, and Michael A.
Rooted Offline: Our collective responds to the impact of the overuse of technology on daily life with the purpose of examining how digital communities and culture shapes the physical world, and vice versa. Get off our blog and get outside.
Contributors: SunnyD, Frosty, Spring is OK!, and Fall from Cyberspace
KIRK onLINE: Debunking misinformation/conspiracies on the "#REALTALK: What THEY don't want you to know" to spread information on the interworking of the internet.
Contributors: KB, KM, IN, and RR
Aestheti/net: We perform critical analyses of artistic media genres and aesthetics which were created in the age of the internet or undergone drastic alterations in subject matter and public perception through it. We believe that genres and aesthetics in the age of the internet hold a unique social and historical significance because of the unique elements they borrow from their forebears and may give to the future. Our blogs incorporate critical analysis with contemporary humour and wit to appreciate both serious implications of our subject matter in addition to the banal everyday enjoyment and woe they provide.
Contributors: Cor3!ander, DORFic2K ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ Princess, bubblegumprincess, and Sublim3
A Pop of Culture: The metamorphosis of pop culture - do we shape the world or subsidize its growth?
Contributors: rue.gall, anneguzi, Faiza, Avgrace
Empty Promises: Our diary decoding toxic relationships with technology.
Contributors: Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbes, and Samantha Jones
Final Digital Essays: Collectives pulled research interests toward collaboration on a final digital essay (outputs include videos, digital and analogue zines, and A03 fanfiction)
Rooted Offline final paper
A Pop of Culture
Final Paper
Empty Promises
Final Paper
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KIRK final paper