Observation Day

Inspired by an interesting New Yorker article by Caleb Crain ("Surveillance Society: The Mass Observation movement and the meaning of everyday life"), I have declared yesterday and today Observation Day(s), yet another exercise to encourage students to pay attention to their world. I asked students to pick a spot on campus where they could sit for 15 minutes and take field notes: physical description of the space (what details create its atmosphere?) and the people moving through the space. I am again this semester asking students to consider and write about various aspects of technology, so I doubled-up assignment objective to introduce them to the wiki (the first time I've used one as well), asking them to post their observations here.