Background#
This course combines hands-on introduction to the basic concepts and technologies of computing with critical discussion of the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of computing, data, and digital technology. The work of the course includes content discussions that foreground the cultural, social, and historical dimensions of computing technologies, along with exploration and foundational skill building with various computing tools and methods. By studying how computing technologies have developed over time, as well as how they work, we’ll consider what kind of technological future we want, and how to build it, via a critical examination of the technologies and platforms that shape our lives together. Along the way, we’ll explore what computer science educators have identified as seven “big ideas” in computing: creativity, abstraction, data and information, algorithms, programming, the internet, and global impacts (AP Computer Science Principles).
This course is organized around two central framing tenets:
Computing technologies are not neutral. They are embedded in and shaped by historical and material conditions, the product of human choices.
Understanding more of how computing & data systems work and the cultural work they perform empowers us to imagine, build and live differently, in ways that promote more just, equitable and inclusive futures
This course is particularly interested in thinking about how we unpack these core tenets in the context of an academic community with a distinctly Catholic identity, grounded in a Catholic intellectual tradition and committed to Catholic Social Teaching (CST). How do these frameworks and teachings shape our understandings of computing, data and technology? How do they challenge and equip us to live and work in ways that promote human flourishing and the common good? Throughout the semester, we’ll engage with foundational texts in Catholic Social Teaching that relate in some way to technology. We’ll also interact with members of the Notre Dame community (faculty, staff & alumni) working at the intersection of computing, data & the liberal arts in ways that are informed by the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic Social Teaching.
Our major learning objectives for this course include:
Understand the basic concepts of computers, their components, and operation.
Understand how problems can be approached through computational principles and methods.
Evaluate computing technologies in context of historical developments and social consequences.
Reflect critically on how the affordances of digital information technologies shape our relationship to our selves, other people, and knowledge
To be successful in this course you must: tinker, play, build, make, tweak, experiment, hack, and break things. You will push your boundaries and the boundaries of the technology, ask many questions of yourself and your peers, be confused and/or frustrated and/or lost, dig yourself out of those traps and think deeply about computing technologies, data and the socio-technical paradigms they inhabit.
Our work in this course is part of the University of Notre Dame’s Responsible Computing Collective, with support provided by the Responsible Computing Challenge, a partnership of Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and Mellon Foundation.