Make Cycle 3

Make Cycle 3– Hacking the Web: Hack, Act, Disrupt

We’ve spent the first few weeks thinking about digital selves: what we track and who tracks us and how our identities are curated on the web, by us and others. We’ll use the next two weeks to look at hacktivism and activism on the web. We will broaden our definition of hacking and what it means to hack institutional structures. We’ll ask “what does it mean to hack education or our class?” We will look at people who are protecting the open web and people who are using the web to open up spaces for traditionally marginalized voices to be heard.

We’ll start with Rafi Santos’ Ignite talk called “Why Kids Need to Know How to Hack” to start our inquiry into what it means to hack. Santos’ talk is also a preview into the genre of talks known as Ignite talks, a genre you may work with for our final projects.

We will then do a deep dive into some people and ideas related to hacking and disruption: Aaron Swartz, Esra’a Al Shafei, Alicia Garza, and Jose Antonio Vargas

Our work for the next two weeks in a nutshell:

Feb 19-23

• Watch The Internet’s Own Boy this week
• Wednesday, Feb 21: Come with notes from your portion of the backstory and context. Click this link to find your team’s readings. Each team will have a piece of the puzzle
• By Friday, Feb 23, write summary of article and key terms. Options for this discussion post are below.

Feb 26-March 4

• Before class on Wednesday, Feb 28: Explore the work of
  • Esra’a Al Shafei
  • OR Alicia Garza and #blacklivesmatter
  • OR Jose Antonio Vargas
• By Sunday, March 4: Make 3 due in G+ community

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Week 5: Feb 19-23

Watch The Internet’s Own Boy. We’ll watch portions in the workshop, but you’ll most likely need to finish on your own before class on Monday, Feb 26.

Wednesday, Feb 21: Come with notes from your portion of the backstory and context<–click this link to find your team’s readings. Each team will have a piece of the puzzle. Bring your notes so that your group can share what they learn with the class.

By Friday, Feb 23: discussion post due in G+ team. Here are some options for this post:

• Write a summary of the article(s) or TED talk your group was assigned. What is it about and what did you learn by watching or reading this text?
• Tell us about a keyterm(s) you might have looked up as context for our work. What did you learn about EFF or Reddit or Hacking or Creative Commons or another term you followed up on? Provide some links too to any resources you found or looked into.
• Write about the film: what have you learned about Aaron Swartz’ case? What is interesting or puzzling? What kind of research might you look into after learning about this case from the film?
• Some combination of those options is great too.

No matter which of these options you choose, I would expect these to be about 3 paragraphs that include some summary work, some ideas about what you learned, and what you think about the ideas.

Week 6: Feb 26-March 4

By Monday, Feb 26: finish watching The Internet’s Own Boy on your own

By Wednesday, Feb 28: Explore the work of at least one of these people before class

• Esra’a Al Shafei
• OR Alicia Garza and #blacklivesmatter
• OR Jose Antonio Vargas

Try out these links and be ready to tell the group what you learned. Google them too and see what else you can find. All of them are on Twitter too.

By Sunday, March 4: Make 3 due in G+ community

I can imagine a lot of ideas for this make:

• You might try to represent one of the terms in a visual form (like hack or disrupt or open access or…)
• Perhaps your workshop group can create one or two Makes together? A film that is modeled after the Words video we watched in class. How might you represent the ideas from the last two weeks in a series of images?
• If you’re inspired by Swartz, Al Shafei, Garza, and Vargas, how might you create something that represents their ideas?