Presentations and Some Book Recommendations

Another quarter came to an end last Friday and it was a busy week with finals and grading. However I wanted to mention to the students, who were an excellent bunch, that I enjoyed their presentations. Some were a bit shy, some appeared to have done the minimum, but most of them seemed interested in and eager to share what they had read and reported on.

Among the books that the groups shared in reading I wanted to recommend as well.

"World Without Secrets: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing." by Richard Hunter. Written in 2002 it still reads well and describes the impact that emerging technologies have on our lives. Two groups ended up covering this book, but no one ran out of things to talk about.

"Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet" by Michael Wolff. I have always liked this book because it captures the craziness of the Dot.com bust pretty well, and many of the places he goes and people he talks to were familiar to me. I wouldn't have been surprised to have been in the same room as him on occasion. Michael does not come off as a very nice person in this book, but he is the author so more power to him.

"Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" by Howard Rheingold. I am a big fan of Howard and enjoyed reading "The Virtual Community" in the 90's. This presentation accounted for quite a bit of interaction from the students, which is also high praise.

I am not going to mention all the presentations but these books struck my interest in passing on.

Their was another book that a presentation was done on. "Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Social Mob" by Lee Seigal. However it does not come recommended. The students on this team were all great and did well in class. They also did not have much to say for Lee and his ideas. His arguments are incredibly anti-Web and Social Networks without providing much of substance to back up his opinions. He comes across on subject of the Internet like Anne Coulter does on the subject of Democrats, so he may be amusing to some.