Author: Jason W. Ellis

Before our next class, write a summary of at least 25o words of Stephen J. Klein’s “What is Technology?” and today’s discussion/lecture, and post your summary as a comment to this blog post.

Separately, spend a few minutes writing down as many communication technologies in your notebook. Bring your list to our next class for an exercise that will help you figure out your research project.

In this interactive story on The New York Times’ website titled “Welcome to the Post-Text Future,” you will find a number of stories and reported facts that are germane to the focus of our class on language and technology.

Before our next class, post a comment to this blog post of at least 250 words that summarizes the reading and lecture from Thursday’s class. Remember, I am looking for best effort on your part. Everything that you write should relate to the reading and lecture, which might include your personal experiences, anecdotes, things learned in other classes, etc. Feel free to write more than 250 words so that you get more writing practice.

Before posting your summary as a comment to this blog post, please save your writing somewhere else (Google Docs, flash drive, your computer’s hard drive, etc.). Keeping backups of your work is a professional habit to get into that will contribute to your success.

On Feb. 20, there will be a poetry reading by Brooklyn poets at the Kinokuniya Bookstore at Bryant Park at 6:00pm. Details are below.

Better Note Taking, Better Grades: A Student Workshop

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Room: Namm 618

Studies have shown that students who take efficient notes perform better on tests and papers and more easily handle complex problems. This is a workshop designed for students to introduce basic and advanced note taking skills to help you raise your grade and master difficult coursework.

In Malaysia, a previously unknown language was discovered according to a story on NPR News.

City Tech Fall Recruitment Flyer 2018

After today’s class, write at least 250 words summarizing the important points from the reading and lecture. Copy-and-paste your writing (saved elsewhere) into a comment made to this blog post. If you are not yet on OpenLab, email your work to me.

Write about what you found the most significant or interesting. Write about how what you learned in the reading and lecture relates to something you know or have experienced. These writing assignments constitute a log of the readings and are designed to do these things: give you regular writing practice, summarization practice, and make the lessons meaningful to you by putting what you have learned into your own words.

In regards to your grade for these assignments: I am looking for your best effort–as the semester progresses, you will see these assignments get easier to do and your level of writing will improve.

If you are not yet a member of OpenLab and joined our class, you need to speak with Prof. Ellis after Thursday’s class.

Jessica Roman shares this video about a pattern that cultures seem to follow in the development of linguistic terms for color. Besides the theoretical pattern discovered, it is interesting to think about the different words used by various languages to describe a color as well as the color-context words used in some languages.

Before our next class, write at least 250 words summarizing your reading of Ted Chiang’s story and today’s discussion. Save your work someplace safe. Then, copy-and-paste your summary into a comment made to this blog post.

If you haven’t signed up for OpenLab yet because you are having trouble with your City Tech email account, copy-and-paste your summary into an email to Prof. Ellis (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu). This will let me know that you’ve done the work. However, it is the student’s responsibility to come back to OpenLab and post their work as soon as they have access.