"TECH 330: Technology and the Global Society" 13 posts Sort by created date Sort by defined ordering View as a grid View as a list

Week 12: Healthy City Design, Global Mobility Concepts

Week 12 focuses on building/designing healthy, more environmentally friendly cities. Additionally, students discuss mobility, particularly in terms of automobile transportation. They discuss how the automobile reflects cultural values and how those values—and in turn the automobile—have changed over time.

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Week 11: Review of Global Challenges, Sustainable Development

Students review the top 5 global challenges: climate change, poverty, secured food and water, education, and violence (war and terrorism). They also discuss principles surrounding sustainable development and how technology can follow these principles. 

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Week 9: Design Thinking and Cultures; Human Trafficking

This week, students discussed the grand challenges facing two particular cultures: Kenya and Peru. Students considered how they might go about addressing those challenges, but they also reflected on the "American perspective" of solving problems and how that perspective does not work everywhere.

Students also discussed human trafficking, a crisis that affects the entire globe. They discuss how technology like social media, databases, and apps can mitigate the problem. 

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Week 8: Clothing, Tattoos, Piercings, and Facial Hair; Global Cyber Security

In Week 8, students talk more about culture in relation to clothing, tattoos, piercings, and facial hair. They also discuss cyber warfare and terrorism, which has become a global challenge. They discuss the differences between cyber warfare and terrorism (notedly, they focus on how terrorism is a relative term) and are presented with examples of cyber warfare in different countries across the world.

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Week 7: Social Media's Influence on Global Perspectives

Week 7 focuses on how social media has affected culture and society in a variety of ways, including mental health, information access, and multi-national projects. The class also discusses the role of cell phones and social media for refugees and migrants. 

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Week 6: Defining American Culture; Clothing, Tattoos, Piercings, and Facial Hair

Week 6 asks students to define American culture based on their own and other's perspectives. They examine American culture based on history, gender roles, music, freedom, spirituality/religion, traditions, education, politics, race/ethnicity, and sports/leisure. They also discuss how things like clothing, tattoos, piercings, and facial hair are often dictated by cultural values, traditions, and norms. 

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Week 5: Refugee Crisis

Week 5 begins with an activity called "Home-Work-Play" where students discuss where they fall on various cultural continua (like face, uncertainty, power distance, etc.) depending on whether they are at home, at work, or in social situations. Then, they discuss the global refugee crisis, focusing specifically on the difference between migrants/immigrants and refugees. They also hear personal experiences of refugees and attempt to understand how it would feel to be forced to upend their lives and start over somewhere different, where they are most likely a minority. 

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Week 4: National Profiles, Intercultural Development

In Week 4, students continued discussing Hofstede's cultural dimensions, and they were introduced to the Intercultural Development Inventory. The instructor also facilitated the following activities:

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Week 3: Worldwide Education, Cultures and Business, National Profiles

In Week 3 students continued conversations about worldwide education but also began discussing the relationship between business and culture. They used Hofstede's Value Dimensions to discuss cultural differences across countries. 

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Week 2: Worldwide Education

Week 2 focused on educational challenges across the world and the relationships between society, culture, and education. Students discussed whether they believe education is a right or a privilege, and they completed an activity called "Levels." In this activity, students are presented with life at four different levels of income and what people have to do survive at those levels (their priorities, motivations, etc.) and what they have to do to advance. 

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Week 1: Cultures and Accepted Norms

The first week focuses on culture and requires students to reflect on themselves as cultural beings. The Iceberg, My Emotional Hot Buttons, and Circles of Identity tools are used to facilitate conversations about culture. 

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Course Syllabus

The syllabus includes a course overview, course objectives, class policies, and a weekly calendar.

This iteration of the syllabus is from Spring 2020, which means that the course had to transition online after Week 9 due to COVID-19. Therefore, this post includes versions of the syllabus both before and after the online transition. 

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