UNIV 200: Inquiry and the Craft of Argument
This is a Course With Many Names.
The official name of this course at Virginia Commonwealth University is UNIV 200: Inquiry and the Craft of Argument. This is the second time we’ve offered UNIV200 this way. The first time, during the summer of 2014, we offered it as six fully online sections. The rest of the internet was invited to join along as open participants. This time, there are, again, six sections working together and separately, two of which are fully online, two of which are “hybrid” (meeting f2f once/week), and two of which are face-to-face (meeting 3x/week). And, as last time, the rest of the internet was invited to join along as open participants.
Our special digital engagement primer name is “Living the Dreams: Digital Investigation and Unfettered Minds.”
The “dreams” are those of the pioneers and architects of the digital age, people like Vannevar Bush, J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, and Adele Goldberg.
We’ll be reading and working with essays by these dreamers (and others), learning new concepts that will help us build better questions and better learning networks with our trusty personal, interactive, networked computers (including the one you may have in your pocket right now).
Our catchphrase is thought vectors in concept space.
It’s the source of our #thoughtvectors hashtag in Twitter as well as the plain tag thoughtvectors elsewhere. Our course librarian, Jenny Stout, tells us more about that phrase.
As befits a “digital engagement pilot,” this version of the course is fully online and has several moving parts, which you can read all about right on our syllabus (to be linked). Note that the syllabus is “beta,” which means that some things may shift a bit from time to time. We want to be able to respond to the needs of the course as they emerge during the course itself. This is normal for most courses, but it does mean that you’ll need to watch your email, the Twitter hashtag, your section site (the one you’re on right now), and the main course site for updates.
We’ll push the messages out through as many channels as possible, but it’s up to you to keep yourself “tuned in” to the course activity sites. Work in the “spirit of thoughtvectors.” Commit!
So let’s get started.
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[…] that’s about wondering. Formally, it’s called Inquiry and the Craft of Argument (and, actually, the special version of the course that you’re enrolled in has many names). But, inquiry and research, which this course is about, are really about wondering. So, what is it […]