Active participation throughout is assumed, both for your own learning and to help others learn. This occurs through discussions of readings in class and in the online Bulletin Board, as well as in helping others learn.

Each course unit features readings, audio lectures, and/or exploratory activities related to a theme. We will use readings available online, as well as some books.

As you pursue your own investigations in the course, you will identify and use further readings. Packets for other courses in the Community Inquiry specialty area are also being developed (i.e., Social Justice in the Information Professions, Community Information Systems, Inquiyr-Based Learning, and Participatory Action Research); readings from these packets may provide important additional sources for your individual inquiries.

Produce annotations for three readings of your choice. Your chosen readings can be books, chapters, journals, journal articles, websites, etc. You may want to select readings that are related to your chosen topic for the class session you will be leading. (See the inquiry unit for that week). Your annotation should be a paragraph or two, with some substance, which may include your evaluative comments. Post your work in the annotations folder in the document center.

Produce an analysis of one keyword of your choice (see

Raymond Williams, Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press)

for examples.

This keyword is not just an index term as in the bibliography, but a core concept for the field. The analysis is a short essay (1-2 pp.) on the definition, history, and multiple uses of a term, which is central to understanding a text or a field of study. Post your essay in the Keywords folder in the document center.

Raymond Williams work is just a way to introduce the idea. For the assignment, pick a word from any of the course readings, e.g, pragmatism, technology, democracy, learning, or a more specific term such as community of action.

Working individually or in a small group, select a topic within the area of pragmatic technology and lead a class session. First, prepare a brief description of the chosen topic. This may be done by editing the inqury unit currently listed for that day. It would typically include a list of several readings, some activity for students prior to the class, and a scheme for how the class time can be used to examine those readings or apply them to some problem. The second step is to lead the class session on that unit.

Choose an area of activity in which you can apply a pragmatic technology analysis. For examples, see Dewey's logical theory, edited by Burke, et al., in which various authors explore questions of value or practice using ideas from pragmatism. Your analysis need not be wholly within the pragmatism tradition, whatever that might mean, but it should draw in some ways from the course readings and connect those to an area of practice that interests you.

The analysis of practice should take ideas from the readings and discussions in the class and apply them to a practice, such as Prairienet (or some smaller aspects of it). It is good to bring in theory, as in the Burke, et al. volume, but projects will vary. Some analyses will tend more to the theory side and others more to details of practice.

For each analysis there are several products, which can be done through an inquiry unit, or posted in the Analysis of Practice folder in the document center:

• project proposal
• responses to other projects (2+)
• presentation (15 minutes)
• final report (~2000 words)

• Bowker, Geoffrey C., & Star, Susan Leigh (1999). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Kidder, Tracy (2004). Mountains beyond mountains: The quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a man who would cure the world. Random House. NPR program Tracy Kidder reading
• Nye, David E. (1990). Electrifying America: Social meanings of a new technology. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Sacks, Oliver (1996). An anthropologist on Mars: Seven paradoxical tales. Vintage.
• Wiener, Norbert (1954). Human uses of human beings: Cybernetics and society, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

The final assignment is a reflection paper (~1000 words) on what you learned during the course.