Starting my technology and innovation seminar at Georgetown

Greetings from the start of fall 2024, when the academic year lurches into high gear. I’m teaching two classes this term, and recently posted about one. Today I’d like to describe the other, my technology and innovation seminar, which just kicked off on Thursday.

In this required class, Learning, Design, and Technology students immerse themselves in multiple ways of thinking about and doing both technology and innovation. We explore those topics through history, imagination, sociology, economics, social justice, critical theory, philosophy, gender studies, and business.

It’s a class I know well, having first taught it in 2019. I love almost everything about it: the topics, the approaches we take, students’ questioning and learning. I like tweaking it each time.

The mechanics of the class are much the same as they have been. Each live session is a mix of discussion, my presentations (brief), and student presentations (each on a technology of interest to them). Students write a short analysis of one tech or innovation early on, framed by Roger’s innovation theory, then start working on a major project analyzing one tech or innovation for education, which they can present as a scholarly paper, a podcast, a video, a game, a Miro board, or other format if I approve of it. They have to assemble and annotate a scholarly sources bibliography as well.

This time we’re not playing a game, mostly because the logistics are daunting with a larger…