Course info

Course Overview

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Persona, society and technology: processes of transformation in a digital age.

We are becoming digital in a way that is not clearly understandable yet. We are no longer capable of distinguishing between what is real and what is virtual, as we did at the beginning of the digital story. Our lives, bodies, emotions, feelings and memories are strongly embedded in the digital world. For better or worse, we are living in a technological era which is re-defining how we think, learn, love, work. What does it mean to be a digital persona? What is the role of algorithms, the digital unconscious and knowledge networks.

This collective MOOC involves distinguished experts in the field of digital culture in open discussion. They present their own reflections on these questions, and their contributions take us through the changing landscape of self, society and technology, transforming hopes and criticism into food for thought.

Whatever your reason for joining this MOOC, you can explore the questions with our experts to clarify your own responses.


You can exploit the course in 2 ways

1. Serendipity
Play a game of Fortune. Choose any expert as your starting point and then randomly construct your own learning journey through digital culture. You will discover your own logic and connections between the different contributions. Using the coursebook, you can record and comment your journey, and share it with other users. 

Click on [video tutorial] to find out more about the Coursebook feature.


2. Guided tour
You can see these MOOC lessons as conceptual sets that navigate you through the changing technological and societal landscape. Each set offers you different perspectives and challenges to reflect on and enjoy:

(i) Situating individual minds within the landscape (Bogliolo, Sorrentino, de Waard, Webster)

(ii) Mapping emerging territories and directing the individual within the new socio-technical regimes (Orban, Weinberger, Downes, Miranda) 

(iii) Describing/redescribing paradigms and realities (Boyd, de Kerckhove, Powe, van Heusden).


In the lesson of Digital Dis-courses MOOC, Alessandro Bogliolo explores algorithms.

Course Structure

  • Lesson 1 - Algorithms are forever
  • Lesson 2 - Coding at school as a native language

Teacher

Alessandro Bogliolo

Alessandro Bogliolo is the coordinator of the School of Information Science and Technology at the University of Urbino, Italy, where he teaches Computer architecture and Digital platforms for land management.
His research interests include wireless sensor networks, crowd sensing, collective intelligence, and ultra-low power computing. Since 2013 he has been actively promoting the diffusion of computational thinking skills, serving as Europe Code Week Ambassador, founding Code's Cool, and developing DIY unplugged games (Cody Roby).
In 2015 he coordinated Europe Code Week. Alessandro Bogliolo is also serving as e-skills for jobs ambassador.