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Being Digital: How the Internet Works and Why It Is Important

This course is designed to prepare digital-era students in all fields of study for professional achievement in a technologically sophisticated, global, networked environment. The course is structured around three central elements of “digital literacy” -- 1) human perception and cognition, 2) computers and electronic intelligence, and 2) the network architecture of the digital web. It is a rigorous intellectual introduction to the fundamental principles on which these technologies are based. There are no perquisites and those from the technologically challenged to the techno-geeks are welcome. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of human attention, how sound waves, light waves and electromagnetic waves work and what computers and routers do. . This is a “flipped course” – what would normally be in-class lectures and demonstrations are available online as curricular modules and can be viewed at students’ convenience (and reviewed as appropriate) much like traditional reading assignments. In-person class sections are used for dialog, discussion and Q and A with the instructor.

Course #
EDCT-UE 1010
Credits
4
Department
Administration, Leadership, and Technology