This one is for the kids in my Freshman Seminar!

To students currently enrolled in SJC 100, Section 10: The Medium is the Message,

Welcome!  I hope you've all had an enjoyable summer and are excitedly preparing for your first term at SJC.  I wanted to introduce myself and the course you are about to take, so that we can start on the right foot the first day our class meets, September 6.

First, Let me just point out the two required textbooks for the course. 

Levinson, Paul, New New Media, 2nd EDITION.   It is URGENT that you get a copy of the second edition of this book, which has just been published.  It is on order at the bookstore; you can rent it for about $20.  The first edition is from 2009, and since its subject matter is about the most recent media, it's already out of date!  The bookstore is also selling this edition for $40, and Amazon has a kindle edition for about $29. The ISBN for the new edition is: 978-0205865574. 

The other required book, McLuhan's Understanding Media, comes in a Critical Edition for about $25 at the bookstore.   I strongly urge you to get this edition, because it contains a useful set of introductions for each chapter and helps give a better understanding of McLuhan's work, but I will not absolutely insist on it. 

The other major topic I wanted to mention concerns the importance of technology in our course.  Because the class is all about contemporary social media, a significant component of our work will involve using it.  We're going to blog, tweet, examine Wikipedia (maybe even work on some articles for it!), podcast, vidcast, whatever we can manage! This is not a "techie" course; that is, I'm not teaching anyone how to host a web page or create a video and upload it to YouTube.  But I am expecting two things:

1. Some fundamental abilities in using social media and its technology.  You probably are more adept at technologies than I am, but if you have trouble using them, you might want to reconsider your seminar choice.
2. A willingness to participate in these various "new new" media.  You have to be willing to use Twitter and Facebook; you have to blog; you have to write and receive comments via these various media.   If you are a "private" person who doesn't want to use these media, then again, you might want to reconsider registering for a different section of the seminar.  I too put off using these media, and I'm an insanely private person. But in order to understand all this "stuff," you have to be in it; that's what the course is about. 

I am looking forward to meeting all of you in September.  Please e-mail me if you have any questions, as I will not be in my office until August 30.