The Course
From BuildTheOpenMesh
The Beta Block course will be an inter-disciplinary course based out of the TIME department (IIME 371, 471.) The course will be a project oriented, hands-on experience for all students, getting them out of the classroom and onto the streets, into the homes and apartments getting their feet wet deploying free dashboard software to 104 ‘doors’.
Emphasis will be placed on students learning the ropes on how to ‘run a social network’, build community, gateway to external web services, analyze user behavior and in general – study the phenomena of gigabit networking in the home. Students will be taught to 'operate' a social network, update the system editorial via a CMS, create new themes and templates, moderate community content and act as community liaison.
Extensive efforts will be made to build a knowledge base for the project. All procedures, processes and lessons learned will be documented. This wiki will be updated and large media libraries produced, ranging from photos and video interviews to historical footage, live performances and background material.
This project wiki will coordinate the efforts of the course students, CWRU's IT department and the external services partners. An on-demand media database will be developed utilizing the CWRU "Mediavision" system.
Course goals: The primary course goals are to provide software solutions that leverage the high-speed Internet Access provided by the fiber optic connectivity. These solutions must be relevant to the wide range of residents on Hessler St – therefore they must cover a wide range of content interests, focus and demographics.
A secondary goal is to create an inter-disciplinary group of Case students who will continue the effort of supporting not only the Hessler St residents, but also an expanded target group of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods around CWRU. This ‘connected community’ effort will integrate content and creativity, with technology, business, psychology and health into a comprehensive set of solutions which will provide compelling experiences to end-users.
A Taxonomy of Aggregation pages will be produced made up of the first semester's lectures.
The course is designated IIME 371, 471 - and officially taught by Gary Wnek. But in fact the course will be taught by 'consultant' Marc Canter/
Standard Class structure
The course is a three hour class taught every Tuesday night 6-9pm and follow a standard structure.
The following format will be followed:
- 1st hour - Lecture, Guest Lectures, snap quizes, open discussion
- 2nd hour - presentations by students, breakout groups, applied research results
- 3rd hour - software interaction, blogging, real-time conversations, knowledge base development, social networking, Twittering - all based upon on-line software
Requirements
All students will be required to bring a laptop to class.
All assignments will be delivered on-line and all projects managed and delivered on-line
Also - all classes will include on-line software usage, training and content production.
