I hope we will have fun and we will certainly learn useful skills.
The course will be an in-depth study of the historical development of computers
and the Internet, likely future trends, and their implications for the
way we think and communicate. The Internet will be placed in a context
of theory and research in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, communication
and cultural studies. We will examine fundamental issues in the history
and philosophy of science and the logic and psychology of thinking.
Since this is a rapidly changing field, special emphasis will be placed
on the latest developments in Internet technology and on the possibilities
for future development.
This syllabus is best accessed online,
since it includes many Links with necessary information, including all
of the assignments and reading material for the course. Just click
on the links with the computer's mouse. Of course, to do this you
must know how to use a WEB Browser (usually Netscape Navigator or Microsoft
Explorer) to access the World
Wide Web on the Internet.
You can do this from home or your dorm room, if you have the proper equipment
and know how to use it - either by linking
to Rutgers from home or by using your own Internet Service Provider
(such as America Online, Skyhigh, Microsoft Network, Prodigy, etc. etc.).
You can also do all your work for this course from Rutgers, using Netscape
4.05 (or another browser), which you can find on the Communications Menu
of any of the computers in the Rutgers
Labs. To use the Computers at Rutgers Camden, you must
open an account on clam, if you do not have one. You should also
learn
how to send and receive email.
For HELP with using computers at Rutgers, go to the HELP PAGES. You can also get help from the Computer Center Personnel on duty in the BSB, generally in room 109, or at other locations such as the Student Center. Ron Thornton has been particularly helpful to students in this class, if you are lucky enough to find him on duty.
By the third week of the course, you will be posting your own WEB site. It is much easier to establish a WEB site from campus, as the necessary file information is already entered for you. Also, you will have campus facilities as a backup if something should go wrong with your computer at home. "My Computer Broke" is not a valid excuse for not completing assignments.
Instructor: Ted
Goertzel, Sociology Department, 325 Armitage Hall
Questions for Ted Goertzel on substantive issues in the
course are welcome at: goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu. If you have
a question or comment that would interest other students, however, it might
be better to post it to the Club
on Yahoo. Ted Goertzel will respond to it there.
Inquiries concerning grades should first go to the teaching
assistant, Andrew Toy.
Office Hours MW 1:30 to 2:30 office phone:
609 225-6013
Teaching Assistant: Andrew
Toy andytoy@vramp.net
Office hours (tentatively) Friday, 11:15 to 12:00
Armitage 325
All questions concerning attendance and grading
should be discussed first with Andrew Toy.
The course will meet once a week on Friday afternoons
from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 401 Penn (enter at the side of the library,
across from the law school), and in classrooms throughout Armitage Hall.
We will often have a formal lecture from 1:00 to 2:00, meet in support
or work groups from 2:10 to 2:50 and have less formal discussion
and question-and-answer from 3 to 4. This is not an online
course: attendance is required and you are responsible to sign the
attendance rosters when they are posted or distributed. If
you signed up for this class despite not really being able to attend on
friday afternoons, or not really wanting to learn about the Internet and
Society, please reconsider, especially if you are not a graduating senior.
Even if you are a senior, I have received word from the academic policy
committee that: "we have an IH course lined up for Spring '00. It's
entitled "Building the future: what every citizen should know about planning,"
taught by Bob Fishman and Howard Gillette." This sounds like
a fascinating class by two of our best instructors.
Each week's lesson plan and assignments will be posted on a WEB page, which you can find by linking from this page. These pages will be modified up until the time of class, but not after the class has met. If you consult the assignment page before class, which is a good idea, be sure to check it again afterwards for any changes, using the "Reload" button on your browser to make sure you get any updated information.
All of the reading material for this course will be online,
there is no textbook to buy. If you want printed copies of the readings,
you must print them out yourself (free if you do it at Rutgers).
The core text will be a book manuscript tentatively titled
Webmind:
Building True Intelligence on the Internet by Ben
Goertzel with Ted Goertzel. Chapters or selections from this
book will be made available on the WEB site as they are assigned.
Many of the reading assignments will be from current and back issues of
the New York Times. 
.
This
means that you must subscribe to the
Times online edition, a free service. Note:
before subscribing to the Times or to the Yahoo Club (or to our mlist for
that matter) you must have an email address. Both sites will ask
you for this address, and will send a confirmation to that address.
You will probably have to respond to that email, or go to a WEB site indicated
in the email, to activate your account. If you have a clam account,
you can use that as your email address, e.g., if your account name is
jstudent, your email address is jstudent@clam.rutgers.edu
To use this, however, you have to learn how to read your mail on clam using
netscape (see below) or another program such as eudora if you prefer.
You can also use any other email address. One option is to open a
WEB email account with Hotmail or Yahoo Mail (see below).As
soon as you try to access a story on the Times page, you will be asked
to subscribe. You will pick a user name and a password. Be
sure to remember both, although if you log on from the same computer each
day you may not need them.
This class has a computerized mailing list. This
list is used for occasional messages from the Instructor and Teaching Assistant.
To be sure of receiving these messages, you must sign up for the mailing
list by sending an email message to:
majordomo@clam.rutgers.edu
In the text of the message (not in the subject
line, which can be left blank) say the following
subscribe
mlist-sts-internet
end
You may send your email message
from any Internet account: you should use the account where you most
frequently check your mail. If you do not have an account for receiving
email, first
open an account on clam, then learn how to use Netscape
Mail. According to the Rutgers instructions, configuration of
Netscape Mail will be automatic IF you have logged onto your account once
using Telnet, which is found in the communications folder. Or you
may prefer to receive your mail at Yahoo
Mail or Hotmail.-
these services allow you to receive and send mail from their WEB site.
Or you may use America Online, your address at work, or any other service
that it convenient for you.
This class also maintains a club
on Yahoo. 
This
is used for informal discussion between students, as well as the instructor
and teaching assistant. You may sign up to Yahoo anonymously if you
prefer not to use your real name. The instructor will often respond
to questions raised in the club. Before joining the club, you must
have an email address and be able to receive email, since they send you
an emailed confirmation. You can receive email at clam or anywhere
else, including Yahoo
Mail or Hotmail.
These services allow you to send and receive mail from their Web site.
To join the club, click on Join
the Club! and follow Yahoo's instructions. You must first open
an account with Yahoo (a free service) if you are not already a member.
If you don't want to use your current Yahoo user name, just open another
account. Once you apply for the club, they will send you an email.
Respond to the email to complete the registration process.
Everyone in this course will be required to open a WEB site with a home page, a page for their class journal, and pages for other assignments. It is easy and convenient to do this on the clam computer at Rutgers-Camden, using Netscape Composer. We will teach you how to do this in class, and the Rutgers Computer Center will offer assistance if groups of students sign up in advance for help sessions. If you are already familiar with another WEB Host (such as America Online, Skyhigh, etc.) you may put your WEB site there. However, we cannot offer technical assistance to students who choose to use non-Rutgers sites for their WEB sites. I do not recommend using the free online WEB site providers such as Geocities, they seem easy at first but it ends up being a lot more trouble than using the Rutgers systems, plus service is slower and your site is contaminated with advertising.
Course requirements will include: